You can't go home again

You can't ever go home again, or so Thomas Wolfe tells us. Just as you never step in the same river twice, the swirl of events and changes will make your "home" a different place from the one you remember. Maybe that's one reason why our first impressions are so important.

In this excerpt from my current Work in Progress, Marcie and Ryan have just met (the day before, when she mistook him for a burglar and called the police.) Now she is showing him around the area. They have toured Holbrook, driven a stretch of Old Route 66, and are now coming into Rainbow Rock, Marcie's home throughout her high school years.

Here is Ryan's first introduction to the town from RETURN TO RAINBOW ROCK.

He took the left and drove northeast toward the Navajo Nation. Another turn, just north of the airport, and a few short miles of two-lane highway, took him into the questionable center of Rainbow Rock. “So this is it, huh?”

Marcie smiled. “Yep, and I won’t blame you if you want to launch into a chorus of ‘Is That All There Is?’ This place isn’t much, but it’s home.”

“Is there even a high school here?”

“No, there isn’t. Kids go to school here through eighth grade. Then the bus carries them into Holbrook for high school. It’s only about a ten to twelve-minute ride, but I used to do much of my homework on the bus, coming and going.”

“Smart kid, huh?”

She adopted a pensive look. “Not nearly smart enough.”

Ryan chose to let that go. Instead he looked around at the small scattering of homes with  a few public buildings. “I don’t understand why there’s a town here at all.”

“It surprises many of us,” Marcie answered wryly.

Can Marcie, or any of us, go home again? Or do we make new homes in old places? Stay tuned for more excerpts.

Susan Aylworth is the author of eight published novels, all currently available in digital form for various e-readers. Her ninth book, ZUCCHINI PIE: GRANNY'S RECIPE FOR LIFE, is coming from Covenant Communications in June. RETURN TO RAINBOW ROCK will soon be available as an original e-book, the seventh in the Rainbow Rock series. Find Susan at www.susanaylworth.com or follow her @SusanAylworth.