Down around Biloxi
Pretty girls are swimming in the sea
And the storms will blow from
off towards New Orleans
Louanne got off the plane in Mobile and took a deep breath. The air smelled of salt and and fish, it was most certainly the Gulf. She had not been back home in five years and it took less than a minute of the humidity and the breeze to remind her what she had missed.
She had flown in from Denver, because it was too far to drive and because she didn't want to make that drive by herself. Coming back for her dad's funeral was hard enough, but doing it solo was even tougher. She knew she had several days of questions about her marriage (Was great, then bad- then over) her kids (have none and No, the dog doesn't count) and her imminent return to Home (fictional) She expected these sorts of questions and also knew that her answers would be repeated both verbally and on Media for days. It was part of the whole deal. But she had to come anyway, because her Mom asked her to come and because even though they did not talk much, she was still her Mom and she didn't ask for much.
It was about an hour in the rental from Mobile to Biloxi and she used to the time to put together coherent answers to the questions relatives would ask and she had good answers to most of them- but not the biggest one.
"Did you know he was sick (her Dad)? Did you try and get back here before he passed?"
Those were the questions that had no answers- not even bad ones. She thought about it, for sure, but she and Darryl Wayne were not, as they say- "close" and flying down to pretend that a tearful last minute reunion could fix things was not a drama she wanted- and she was pretty sure he would have not wanted it either. Now all that was left was the What if- and what would she have said- the large blank wall and the large empty space above his hospital bed. She had nothing to fill in any of that.
Twenty minutes from the city, as the sun started to set in front of her, she pulled off the interstate to take the slow road- the Beach highway. She had driven this road a thousand times as a kid and almost always with the windows down. The gulls flew in packs off the waves and the tourists were packing up their stuff and headed back to the hotels. She tried to imagine what a kid would be feeling after a big day at the beach, but all she could think of was sunburn.
Half an hour to the east was New Orleans and she was sure that was a stop she would make after the funeral, but not tonight. Tonight she had to do the adult thing and there was no way around it. Some things you just have to do, and this was one of them. The bottle of Jack in her suitcase would wait for after the visitation too, although she bet there were bottles in lots of suit coats inside. Southern men are nothing if not prepared.
The stars can see Biloxi
They can find their faces in the sea
And the sky is red from
off towards New Orleans
Biloxi- Jesse Winchester