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mother, one from my father, one from each brother, a missed call from Ruth and three from Rebecca. I dutifully listened to each of them admonish me to be careful, to take care of Aaron and to call them. I was towards the end of Rebecca's messages when I stumbled across names of headstones I knew. I waved Aaron over to me as I deleted the remainder of the messages without listening to them. I could guess what they would say easily enough.
    “Look. That's your uncle there,” I pointed at the small stone that served as a reminder that before my parents had their big and bustling family, they had suffered great heartbreak. Next to him was my hero. Well, my other hero besides my daddy. It was my mama's daddy, who had taught me so much during the first half of my life. Next to him was my mama's mama. I didn't remember her much but reportedly had her Irish temper and auburn hair. Ruth was the one who had her temper, her hair, and her pretty face. Brat.
    Each marker was a piece of my history, a piece of Aaron's. He seemed unimpressed, and I knew I would have been at his age, too. It was only now that I could almost picture these people, vibrant in their day and in their own way. Living their lives as best they could before passing the baton to the next generation, hoping they'd do a little better job than the last. Ethan followed along quietly, allowing me time to ponder each stone. Despite having a million things to do back home, he acted as if there was no place he'd rather be than walking through the cemetery with us on a sunny day.
    “We should go,” I finally suggested.
    “Don't you want to call your family back?” he offered.
    “Not particularly,” I answered honestly. “I'll come back later.”
    “You can use my home phone tonight if you want,” he offered and I nodded gratefully.
    “Hey, could we take a round-a-bout way home?” I asked. It had been years since I'd spent any time in these parts, and I would be relying on a little girl's memory to guide me, but there was one place I really needed to see.
    We piled back into the truck, and I giggled gleefully when the radio fired to life and the Oak Ridge Boys' “Elvira” came pouring out of the speakers.
    “Oh, turn it up!” I pleaded. This song brought back memories of riding in the back seat, urging Daddy to drive faster over the hills. It was my favorite song ever; I loved the deep bass “oom-bam-pa mow-wows.” That and a chorus of “high-ho Silver and away-a-a” were enough to make me squeal with delight when I was five.
    Ethan chuckled and obliged. Aaron was quick to jump in and sing with me. Ethan seemed skeptical at first, but eventually joined in the concert. He followed my directions as I occasionally stopped singing to tell him to turn right or left. Of course, I never gave him any notice because I'd realize just before we were passing the road that it was one from my memory.
    I nearly didn't recognize the old corner gas station. All my life, they had a German Shepherd dog on their front porch. Puppies turned old and gray and into a new puppy, but there was always a German Shepherd. There was no stately guardian and the doors had long been closed, never to reopen. I sobered briefly, remembering all the trips down to the store to get Grandpa strawberry swirl ice cream when the chemo had made him so sick nothing else seemed worth eating.
    “There,” I called out suddenly. “Pull over here.”
    Ethan parked the car in what could loosely be called a subdivision. This cluster of houses in the middle of farms and woods held little resemblance to the farm of my childhood.
    “Come here,” I pulled Aaron out of the truck with me. “Over there, that was where the main house stood. The dog house was backthere. We used to sit on the porch and watch the deer graze in that field. On the other side of the road was the barn. There was a pond. The cattle were kept over there….”
    In my mind's eye these houses melted away and my home was as it had been