Born On A Crossroad
Hello everyone who is mad at my slow updating-ness! I'm a slow, brainless bitch, I know.
Note: Ramona's family immigrated from the Mount Athos region in Greece (an area that speaks limba moldovenească, otherwise known as Moldovan), and there will be a few instances where she speaks in her native tongue (she'd be really angry/upset), so don't fret. There will be translations at the end of the chapter.
Anyways, here it is. I STILL DON'T OWN SPN! FMML (Fuck my miserable life)!
"I was just about to call you," Ramona pulled out of the hotel parking lot and onto the empty main street, avoiding the still thawing ice. "I'll be coming home. Eventually." There was silence on the other end of the line, no words leaving Luke's mouth. She could hear him breathing, just barley, and wondered what was wrong with him. "You…" Silence. Again, she could hear his intake of breath. "What?" He asked. She could practically see his hand on his forehead, in between his finger a forgotten Camel cigarette burned, the ashes dropping unnoticed towards the ground.
Ramona laughed with a sense of dry humor, newly found. "Don't act so surprised. It's only for a day or two. I found a cat I need you to take to the no-kill pound for me." She finally heard something on the other end of the phone. A long sigh.
"Oh, I get it. Only coming home to use and abuse me, huh? What's the cat like? Rebecca wants to adopt one now that we've moved to the pet friendly apartment complex." She looked over at Evee, smiling as she saw her sitting in the zipped, mesh laundry hamper Ramona had placed in the floorboard. It was working out great with the cat already being declawed.
"Use and abuse would both be just about right. The cat is already trained, declawed, and spayed. She's nice; you'd like her." Ramona accelerated as soon as she passed the gas station on her left. She couldn't wait to be out of there. 'Maybe home won't be so bad after all?'
That thought was short lived as her mother's face came to mind, screaming about how reckless she was to try and do the exact thing that had killed her father.
"Alright, sounds great. When do you think you'll be home?"
"Uh…"
"You're not in any hurry, are you?"
"No," Ramona shook her head for no reason. "Not really. I'm going to take a few days to check out this bar dad's journal mentioned. Don't wait up," for the first time in Ramona's polite little life…she hung up the phone. And didn't feel a bit guilty.
She smiled to herself as she reached sixty on the speed-o-meter, actually going five miles over the speed limit. It was a first for her and she couldn't tell if she liked it or not. Her freedom had finally started to hit her, understanding that she was away from her mother and she couldn't really be bothered to have her mother's voice in the back of her head anymore. At least for the next twenty minutes.
Until then, she would do things she had never done before. Like read a journal and drive while listening to the radio and going five miles over the speed limit. The sky is the limit, or maybe sixty is. She couldn't really tell.
Ramona hit the steering wheel repetitively as her car sputtered to a slow, gradual death on the side of the god-forsaken interstate leaving that small, hell hole of a town. "Nu! Vreau doar să scape de acest loc rău!" She soon brought herself out from the driver's side to lean her head on the low, silver hood. "Te rog, nu face acest lucru pentru a-mi soarta!" Her fist limply hit the opened door before coming to rest on faded blue denim. "Where is my dang phone?"
Searching for the seemingly hidden device, Ramona's ire continue to rise. "Vreau doar să plece," her lips muttered in the moments before finding the silver flip phone. "Luke, you'd better answer..."
Four rings. Four rings was all it took to accomplished three things. One: Ramona decided cuss words weren't just for accidentals. Two: tires were fun to kick when no one was there to watch. And three, Luke finally answered.
His usual "hello" was not greeted by the sound of the lovely, tight lipped sister he knew and loved. Instead, Luke was affronted with a mix of English and Moldovan curses's (his own mother's name brought up more than once). "Ram!" he screamed into the receiver. "Calm down! What happened? Are you alright?"
At the sound of a rapid succession of mumbles brought the irate girls' attention back to the silver object being gripped tightly in her palm. "Lue! What took you so long to answer? Leneş." Exasperation traveled miles and miles away as quickly as the sound of Luke's sigh came through loud and clear to his sister's phone. "Don't insult me, Ramona. What happened that has you acting like this? If mother knew she would kill you."
"Nu-mi pasă," Ramona scoffed under her breath. "This is the weirdest case ever, a hunk of an FBI agent noticed me, not a good thing, by the way, I smells like cat, and my car has broken down twice today! De două ori, Lue!"
"Can you not do that? I'm a little rusty."
"Sorry," she whispered, more to herself than to Luke. "Had a moment of frustration."
"That's not something you would ever do, Ram." His voice was full of worry. Her eyes rolled, mind full of thoughts. "Not in front of you, I wouldn't," she sighed, allowing her eyes to close for a moment, steeling herself to raise the hood of her wagon.
"Uh, those cables are supposed to be hooked up to the black thing, right?"
A moment of silence filled only with static took center stage for a brief moment, "Only you, Ram."
With the battery reattached to the box, the only other item remaining on the to-do list was to walk the loudly whining bear-dog in her back seat.
"Make it quick, dude." Ramona gestured to the wide open field next to where she was pulled over. "Don't run off, or Momma will have you neutered."
Much to her relief, Apache returned only a minute after leaving, slobbering near his owner's cheap boots. He didn't know what being "neutered" meant, but his dog brain figured he didn't want to find out.
Deciding to go straight home was a tough one.
The road back to Jackson was long and boring, especially without even a CD player to keep her occupied. Driving was never Ramona's favorite past time; more of a necessary use of transportation than sport, even if earlier in the day she had enjoyed it. So, refusing to go over the speed limit more than a couple of miles per hour, her only source of entertainment was the bickering dog and cat from the back of her vehicle. But that quickly proved annoying.
"I'm gonna make a change, for once in my life," Ramona hummed to herself. "It's gonna feel real good, gonna make a difference, gonna make it right."
Hands tapped the wheel to the imaginary beat. "As I turn up the collar on my favorite winter coat...The wind is blowing my mind!" Soon, her voice raises a level; a smile starting across her tan face. "I see the kids in street, without enough to eat...Who am I to be blind? Pretending not to see their needs."
Apache barked in disapproval, the noise waking him up from his midnight slumber.
"Don't worry, boy. I don't know the next couple of verses, anyway." Apache laid his head back down on rust colored paws, eyeing his owner from his position in the kennel. "Hm, mhm, hmm...Cause they got no where to go, that's why I want you to know: I'm startin' with the man in the mirror!" Ramona laughed, her singing growing louder with the smile on her face.
Dancing as she pulled up to the virtually vacant stop light, the blue Ford pulling up next to the Station Wagon wasn't noticed. Some how, a hula-like dance move was added to the mixture of rhythm less movements. "No message could've been any clearer."
One move, however, brought her attention to the staring face from the Ford Focus parked next to her decrepit Mom Mobile. Ramona could feel her cheeks grow incredibly warm before finally being permitted to go through the intersection.
"So glad I'm not to Jackson yet and that I don't know those people," was the only thought present as she sped up a little, responding instinctively to the 'miles to go' sign.
It was around three in the A.M. that Ramona finally pulled into the long driveway of her Mother's three story Jackson home. A sigh escaped her lips a little too quickly, a voice in the back of her head telling her this was a mistake.
"Home sweet Hell," echoed through the car, one of her animals already standing in its cage, circling the small space in anticipation.
Flood lights lit the night, triggered from the motion of her car pulling into the gravel area where every car parked. The lights also triggered a motion within the house.
Soon, Ramona's brother, mother, and aunt where all outside to greet their travel weary relative. "Welcome home, Fiică," Ahlia Colvins' heavily accented voice spoke into Ramona's shoulder in a whisper.
"It's daughter in English, Ma. Have you been studying? You sound better."
Ahlia stared at her daughter's lips as she spoke, taking a moment to think before nodding, a wide smile lighting up her face. "Yes!" Her mood seemed relatively happy and excited, so her only daughter decided to smile for her. Every word was an accomplishment some days.
"Luke!" Sisterly love shouted, a hug quickly encompassing the two siblings as a feeling of safety and home spread through them. "What are you doing here so late? I'm so glad to see you!"
"Nu! Vreau doar să scape de acest loc rău!" translates to "No, don't do this to me now!"
"Te rog, nu face acest lucru pentru a-mi soarta!" translates to "Please, please don't do this to me fates!"
"Vreau doar să plece." translates "I just want to leave."
"Leneş" means "lazy".
"Nu-mi pasă," -"I don't care"
"De două ori" -"Twice!"
Would like to thank my old Romanian neighbor (who doesn't know how to use a computer so there is really no point in thanking her here) for helping with the dialogue used in this/upcoming chapters.