There is a different sound that car wheels make when they are coming and when they are going. If you are one of the lucky ones that can’t hear it, perhaps you have never been left.
It was a gravel driveway to my grandparent’s home. We had driven it with our maroon Chevy Impala countless times, and I can’t say that I heard anything. There is a comforting noise that trust makes. And it fills the air.
After my father left, I began to hear everything.
I listened to the wheels of my mother’s car navigate the long driveway. I memorized the sound of coming. When she backed up, all I could hear was my father’s red truck leaving on Van Dyke road. I ran around the farm, trying to dull the popping of gravel against rubber. But it haunted my head. Even the constant clanking of grandpa’s tools, of grandma’s dishes, couldn’t erase it.
Hours later, I heard it. Her return. She came back. She always came back. And the joyful noise fills my heart to this day. The sound of trusting in someone. Believing in someone, perhaps even myself. Thanks to her, it fills the air.
