Going Home

Part 31

Early Saturday morning two weekends later, Josh and Grace set off on the three hour trip to the Joshua family farm. Grace was driving and for an hour Josh just sat with his arm on the window sill watching the countryside go by. Glancing over at him Grace noticed his serious expression and decided to break the silence “you okay?”

Turning his head to looks at her, Josh’s expression is bleak ”yeah.”

Grace took her hand off the wheel and reached over to hold his for a second. She knew this was going to be hard for Josh but if he could get through this last step she was sure he’d be better off.

Letting Josh go back to his thoughts, it is a couple of hour later that Grace asked, “ok so where do I go now?”

Jolted back to the present by her voice, Josh looked around. She had turned off the highway at the nearest town to the farm and now needed him to direct her the rest of the way. Looking around Josh couldn’t believe how little it had changed. By the look of it, he could have left yesterday, not over fourteen years ago. Pointing down the road Josh said “straight through town, the farm’s on the other side.”

Grace pulled back onto the road and drove them through the small town. It looked the same as any of the towns they had passed through.

Once out the other side, Josh instructed Grace to keep going “the turn off is a few kilometers further on.”

A couple of minutes later Josh pointed to a road on the left “okay this is it turn here.”

As Grace turned the car onto the narrow dirt road she noticed five or six letter boxes off to the side. Obviously this was as far as the post man went. She noticed on the third letter box, in red lettering, was the name Joshua.