A Sort of Homecoming
The land was simple, a small front yard with a well tended garden, one tall oak tree to give it a feel of homey. The house that sat in the middle was red bricked, black shingled, and inside was a small living room which flowed into a small kitchen. One hallway led to a bedroom on the left and right with a bathroom at the end of the hall. It was a small, quaint house, the kind a laborer with a small family could afford. Akiana stood in the front yard, looking around the area for a moment, old memories rushing back to her. She walks over the well tended grass with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder and steps up the porch, taking a breath before lifting a hand to knock on the oak door.
After a moment the door opens and an older male in about his sixties stands upon the threshold. His eyes are a deep brown, and hold a hard stare upon the wayward daughter. Dressed in faded blue jeans with holes in the knees and a white tee shirt marred in dirt and grime the moment seems to last a moment longer than anticipated and Akiana shuffles her feet. There's a meeting of gazes and then - wordlessly - the older male steps aside and gives Akiana a nod, to which without her own words Akiana steps into the house she once called home.
The duffel bag is shuffled off her shoulder as Akiana places it next to the door allowing a moment for the door to shut, for silence to reign, until she turns upon her father and tilts her head. "So, shall I expect the silent treatment for the next couple of hours?" It was spoken in an even tone, and while not quite the usual welcome home method, it seemed to fit for this occasion.
"A couple'a minutes'a silence ain't gonna hurt ya..considerin' how long distant an' gone ya been for the past ten years." The man's voice is rough, hardened by the years of hard labor suffered for nearly his entire life. Retirement came when he turned sixty and figured he had enough stored away to live on. Occassionally the small jobs would filter in, things he could still handle, which mostly just kept him busy during an otherwise mundane time.
"Door swings both ways, old man. I lived on this rock long enough, you knew where I was. Can't even pick up a gorram phone, you decide to bombard me with messages and no reply I could give you would make up for the lack of seeing me." Akiana pauses a moment and then shakes her head. "But that's the life you wanted for me, isn't it? Throw me out to the docks, force me to make a living just like you did and pray I somehow find my way..."
Caleb Hawkins was not a man who was easy to anger, but ten years is a long time to worry over your kin, much more your only flesh and blood. Walking away from the door, he makes his way into the kitchen, shifts to fetch a bottle of water from the fridge. For the moment, he's quiet, until his eyes find Akiana once more. "You wanna think that way go right ahead. We couldn't give ya much, but I taught ya all I could. Your the one who went flitting about on hopeless dreams and where did they get you? Stuck with nothing and leaving you to rely on someone else to pick up the pieces.."
Their relationship had dwindled down to this, cheap shots and heavy handed words. Stepping forward, Akiana lets out a sigh, shifting in her clothes a little while watching her father, wondering what brought him to this point. "I did what I could do. You knew that, and at the time you didn't seem to have a thought to protest. So why the hell - ten years later - do I have to take shit for something so long done?"
"You wanted ta git'way from here an' yer an adult. Not much we could'a done and it wasn't like we could'a changed yer mind. But ya lef' fer all the wrong reasons. Ya followed yer heart and not yer head and lookit where it left ya huh?"
"Where it -left- me? You make it sound like my life's been worthless since Maddox and I decided to live together. We lasted a year and then he took off. He took off, not me dad. So he was the one to leave me with nothing. And Kyronis was nice enough to offer me all the things I needed. Food, shelter, a job. So I took it, because it's all I had left. Because I knew you would never let me back in here. I survived. I rolled with the punches. I did what any person would do in my situation when they've nothing but a rock and a hard place to go between. Better than you could ever manage. You threw yourself into work so much you were never around when mom needed you the most. That's why she left. That's why your life failed."
If two laborers exchange heavy handed, ill fated words in a home where no one else is around - does the fight still happen? The physical evidence may prove so, as an hour after being inside her home Akiana's walking out of the house with the duffel bag slung back over her shoulder. Her dad would heal from the beating she gave him, and they would probably never speak again. She figured it was better that way and made her way to Land's End Ranch. A familiar scene, in her eye, except last time she was looking for a job, now she was looking for a place to rest for a couple days and heal from the initial wounds.
