by Jenna Colley

There's something about West Texas that I always hated as a kid. Maybe it was all the creepy billboards pushing Jesus to passersby or the perverted truckers glaring into the back seat at me and my brother. Or maybe it was the fact that my family was always driving somewhere, but never staying.

I always knew when we were about to hit Abilene because we'd come across the life-size crucifix sponsored by the Pentecostal Hope for Life Church next to the Wonderbra outlet -- two things that I had heard about but didn't really understand. We'd exit off Highway 81 and I knew that just behind the Stuckey's sign would be the gravel road that led to my grandmother's trailer. The closer we got, the easier we could see the two porcelain green frogs sitting out front kissing underneath a red umbrella -- looking happy, despite the chipped paint and dying grass.

She would be standing on the porch waving and crying. My brother and I would always ask my mother why, but she'd never answer. Maybe she didn't understand either, but I'm sure she does now. We would jump out of the car and run like hell until we hugged her, nestling our faces deep into her "Someone in Graceland Loves Me" sweatshirt. She was only about two feet tall and even as children we thought she was the tiniest person alive. With her hair plastered about six feet above her head, her cherry red fake nails and thirty diamond rings, she was everything a grandmother from Abilene, Texas should look like.

Of all my family, it was my grandmother that I loved the most. It was she who thought it was cute when I gained weight in the fifth grade and she who sent my first diary when she found out that I had thrown up and ran out of cheerleading tryouts crying. She'd spend an extra long time picking out the perfect card, because she didn't want me to know that she had a hard time writing. I knew, and that made them all the more special. Whenever she'd come to visit, she would always avoid talking to any of my friends. "I don't want you to be embarrassed," she'd say. Somehow she thought our family was different from her. My mother had married a good man, which wasn't easy to do, especially when you grew up poor.

She'd never talk about my grandfather. I knew only that he had long eyelashes and could dance like the devil himself. It wasn't until I turned 13 that I learned from my older brother that he had been shot dead in a bar in Amarillo by some jealous husband, and it wasn't until even later that I learned just exactly what that meant. I always thought of this whenever my mother asked my grandmother why she never went out or remarried when she was younger.

I spent every summer at my grandmother's. My parents were always away trying to make a new life for us. Although her trailer was small, she shared the land upon which it stood with no one. It had been left to her a long time ago and she refused to move into town. Despite their pleas, she would tell her children that it was too much of a hassle to pick up and go. But I knew different. I had seen her wake up before dawn and walk down the path toward the lake. I had seen her glide her hands along the tops of the overgrown brush and stick a wildflower or two in her hair. She knew what was waiting for her "in town" and she would be damned before she'd give up her freedom. I remember those walks the most.

I'm much older now and the fears that haunted me as a child have faded or changed. It has been a very long time since I made the drive down Highway 81 toward Abilene, but I am forced to do it once more. As I drive down the highway, the warm, dry Texas night air seeps into my skin and I understand why my parents brought me here each year. I understand that they had lost touch with their families and were afraid that the same would happen to me. As I pass the crumbled Pentecostal crucifix and budding outlet mall, I grip the steering wheel with excitement and smooth my hair back, just as I did when I was young. I turn off the radio and throw out my cigarette because this is one memory that I can't let fade. I can barely see the Stuckey's sign behind the new condominium community, but it's still there. The gravel road glows in the moonlight and sitting where it has since the beginning of time is the trailer. I pull into the carport and slowly walk to the lawn. I lovingly place the frogs back under the umbrella -- they must have fallen when it rained last month. I notice that the storm shed has been broken into, maybe a bum off the highway or some teenagers are to blame, but it doesn't matter. I hold my breath and force myself to look at the porch. I knew this day would come, yet nothing prepared me for it. I realize now, under the sweet West Texas moon, that she will never be waiting for me again. Never again will I sit on my father's knee and watch her cook. I am much older now and my hate for this land has gone. Tomorrow I will wake before dawn and head down the path toward the lake. I will glide my hands along the overgrown brush, and I will fill my hair with wildflowers. This is my land, my home, and my freedom, and no one can take it from me.