hand.
The bus turned down the street and stopped with a hiss of compressed air
in front of the Trailways station. The driver opened up the luggage
compartment and slid my suitcase in next to the others. I hugged Dad.
When our cheeks touched, and I breathed in his smell of tobacco, Vitalis,
and whiskey, I realized he'd shaved for me.
"If things don't work out, you can always come home," he said. "I'll be
here for you. You know that, don't you?"
"I know." I knew that in his way, he would be. I also knew I'd never be
coming back.
Only a few passengers were on the bus, so I got a good seat next to a
window. The driver closed the door, and we pulled out. At first I
resolved not to turn around. I wanted to look ahead to where I was going,
not back at what I was leaving, but then I turned anyway.
Dad was lighting a cigarette. I waved, and he waved back. Then he
shoved his hands in his pockets, the cigarette dangling from his mouth,
and stood there, slightly stoop-shouldered and distracted-looking. I
wondered if he was remembering how he, too, had left Welch full of
vinegar at age seventeen and just as convinced as I was now that he'd
never return. I wondered if he was hoping that his favorite girl would
come back, or if he was hoping that, unlike him, she would make it out
for good.
I reached into my pocket and touched the horn-handled jackknife, then
waved again. Dad just stood there. He grew smaller and smaller, and
then we turned a corner and he was gone.