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A cloud of dust engulfed the air as Jenny plopped onto the old mattress in the attic. The entire morning was spent in cleaning it out and she looked for a moment to rest and reminisce before she drove down the highway for good. She laid back and watched the dust spiral and dance in the sunlight that beamed through the dirty skylight. Bittersweet memories played peek-a-boo as she watched her younger pigtailed self prancing around with a rag doll. Oh, how she loved that doll! Mum bought her a new one when Raggy fell into the well but the new Raggy could never replace the old one.

“Hey, Jen! We have to hit the road!” Alex's gentle voice brought her back to the dancing dust. She bent back to see an upside-down attic and a well-built stubbled man in a pair of faded jeans and checkered shirt which she’d bought for him at the fair. She smiled. “Come, sit beside me.”

Ah, Jen! Everything about her was so irresistible. Alex broke into a smile rocked his head forward lightly, succumbing to her wish. Jenny sat up and made room for Alex as he walked up and plopped down beside her, sending another cloud of dust spiraling into the sunlight. She giggled and hugged him and he instinctively put an arm around her shoulder and kissed her on the forehead. His other hand found her belly and caressed it for a while before he gently pushed her back on the mattress and put his face near her navel and whispered, “Hey, little one!”

Jenny looked at the man she loved speaking to his unborn child. He’d be an excellent dad, much like her own. She pictured them playing around by the lake as she sat on the grass making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And she smiled. She had come to know life wasn’t perfect one fateful Sunday as her fifteen-year-old self stood beside uncle Mark in the rain watching two coffins being lowered side by side into the wet earth. But the sight of Alex being the best dad in the whole world was beyond all perfection.

Alex looked up to see his beautiful wife looking at him and daydreaming. “We really must go, you know..”

“I know.” Jenny sat up swiftly and quickly pecked him on the lips. Her impulsiveness always mesmerized him and he chuckled. “What? We’re going to hit the road, that was for good luck!”

“Hey, that’s not a good luck kiss!”

“Oh, it isn’t?”

“Hell, no. This is a good luck kiss!”, saying Alex pulled his wife toward him, cupped her face with one hand, the other around her waist and kissed her firmly for a few seconds before letting go, both of them giggling and breathless. “Ok, let’s go!”

Jenny glanced around the attic one last time before they walked out together and she locked the door behind her. As they walked down the dust-laden wooden staircase, she could see the fireplace and the sofas neatly arranged around the coffee table. Memories took over once again as she saw herself sitting on one of the sofas and uncle Mark on the other. Being the family lawyer, a stack of papers in hand, he explained to her in layman terms how the family business had gone into massive debts and the house was up for mortgage for the next twelve years and how if they failed to repay the loans the bank would take the house. Jenny had sat silently, staring into the crackling fire and listening to the man who would be her guardian till she turned twenty-one. 

Alex glanced at his wife. He knew what she was thinking and put an arm around her, guiding her down the stairs to the main door. Their respective teaching jobs could not afford to pay back the loans and when Jen had come to know that the bank on taking possession of the house would demolish it, she had cried uncontrollably. To save the house, Alex sat down with uncle Mark and decided to sell the house along with its mortgage and requested the buyer to not demolish it. The wealthy doctor who bought it for his family as a vacation house enthusiastically agreed to say it’s the Victorian décor of the house that attracted him to it in the first place and there was nothing he would want to change about it. That was the first day Jen had smiled in a long time and Alex had vowed to treasure it forever.

They walked out of Jenny’s childhood home and strolled across the lawn toward the pickup truck, a few bags loaded in its cargo. Uncle Mark, now old and wrinkled, stood by to bid them goodbye. Alex took his hand and hugged him warmly. Uncle Mark had always been a father figure to the two of them. He was strict too with an impeccable sense of humor. As Alex looked at the old man, he smiled remembering how he had chided them when he got to know that these young and stupid lovers got married at the courthouse near the University a week before graduation. He had taken Alex and Jenny by the ear and dragged them to the church near this very estate right after their graduation and gotten them married in a proper ceremony. “Traditions are important, son. They build you up. Now listen to an old man and wait till you both are financially stable before you go off making babies!”, he had said after the ceremony, a twenty-year-old scotch in hand. And then he had proceeded to laugh and sing songs from his homeland. It was such a cherished evening with family and close friends.

“Come visit us in Florida, uncle Mark. You know we’re only a flight away.”

“Eh, you ask an old man to come to visit you? Pity my bones, child! You come down here every holiday or I’ll find you and kick your ass with my stick!”, said uncle Mark as he brandished his oak wood walking stick. Jenny burst into laughter as Alex nodded apologetically. The old man chuckled wisely and continued, “Take care of yourselves, kids.” And he patted Alex on his shoulder before hugging Jenny. “And Jenny, my dear, just remember, I will never forget to get you.” “Neither, I you, uncle”, saying, she wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye.

They bid their goodbyes to uncle Mark and hopped on the vehicle. He stood for a while watching their pickup truck turn around the corner and waved at them before walking back into the house to wrap up some paperwork. 

Alex drove on silently as Jenny rolled down the windows, letting the wind play with her light brown wavy hair. The woods on either side of the highway rushed past them, trying to whisper something. Perhaps, goodbye? He knew she’d left with a heavy heart and touched her thigh. She looked at him intently. “Hey, I’m not sad.”

“It’s ok, love. You’re allowed to be sad.”

“I know. And I guess I am. But I’m happy too. You remember what I said, right? On the night we sold the house?”

“Ah, of course.” The two of them smiled. It was true that the households many memories for Jenny and Alex too after a point, but they knew one thing – Minnesota or Florida, their home was with each other. And they drove off into the sunset, towards a dream.