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irwinwe

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"Oh no!" Rachel yelled as she came to her feet, fists tightening and neck straining, "Get it back, Cahill, get it back!"  

She was remonstrating with the television set in the den of our flat, working herself into a fanatical tizzy over the European football game between Manchester City and Everton.

I squinted my eyes and tried to pin-point the root of her distress.  The television revealed that the score was still 0-0, and Cahill, one of Everton's star players, had just missed a golden opportunity, his kick sent the ball overtop Manchester City's goal pen instead of within in.  

Manchester City kicked the ball downfield, and Rachel covered her face with her hands, groaning, "I canna nae watch when they play like rubbish."

I had been half-smiling all afternoon listening to her engraged outbursts.  I didn't understand a single thing about European footballl.  The only thing I knew, in all my American ignorance, was that it seemed indistinguishable from American soccer, a sport that had always intrigued me.  The game certainly wasn't boring, due in part to my impassioned company and also in part to the announcer with the attractive accent.   

"You know, by the way it's looking, I might have to pull for Manchester City" I taunted Rachel.

"Doona ye dare!  I willna speak tae ye for a week" she threatened in return, trying not to grin.

A knock on our apartment door stole my attention away from the television.  I had been expecting my parents' arrival for the past hour, and I was beginning to think that either inclement weather had demolished their plane or the taxi driver had abducted them.  I jumped up from the couch and ran to open the door.  

Instead of opening the door to my parents' face, however, I opened the door to a four-foot, white teddy bear with a red ribbon tied around its neck.  For a moment I was delightfully nonplussed by this plush monstrosity, wondering who on earth could have thought up such a charming scheme.  But then I glanced down and saw my dad's favorite loafers and blue jeans, and looked up to see his all-too-familiar hands around the waist of the stuffed animal.  At my squeal of recognition, the salt-and-pepper hair and the smiling, crinkled eyes appeared over the teddy bear's head.  My mom was right behind him, and laughing at their unique arrival tactics.  

"How on earth did you guys lug that big ole' thing on the plane?" I asked, still chuckling.

"We didn't" my dad said, his southern accent no longer a nostalgic memory but a present and very much appreciated cacophony.  "I saw it in a gift shop before we got in the taxi.  And I thought to myself, 'well, hell, Sissy needs that, it can keep her company while she's studyin',' so I bought it."  He stuck his chest out a little, proud of his thoughtfulness. 

I laughed and grabbed the bear, hugging the huge form against me.  "I love it" I said as I laughed, "what's his name?  You know me and my need to name all of my inanimate objects."

"I don't know yet" he said on a chuckle, "how bout...Beary."

I laughed.  "You know, just because that's so original" I teased sarcastically, "I think I'll keep it.  Beary it is."  My sarcastic gleam left when he opened his arms for a hug, and I ran into them, 'Bearty' joining me in my pursuit.  He embraced us fervently, like he had been deprived of hugs and this was his chance to overhaul that deprivation.

"We sure have missed you, Sissy" he said as he gave me a final squeeze, "let me look atcha."  He put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me back as if to check me for cuts and bruises.  Then the grin crept back to his lips, accompanied by a pensiveness.  

"You're different" he concluded out loud, and I furrowed my brows in question.  "You like this place, don'tcha...Scotland, I mean, with all the castles and the mist.  I can tell.  Your heart's in your eyes."

I regarded him with a touched expression.  He was the one who had let me come here.  Mom had refused to believe that my heart would seek any place beyond Shelbyville, Kentucky.  She had always wanted to shelter me, to keep me as her prized, albeit caged, cockatoo, so that she could preen me and show off my conforming perfection to her friends.  Sometimes I got the sense that she was attempting to live through me, tyring to fit me into her own dress, not for lack of love for my true persona, but for lack of understanding.  The dress, she often denied admitting, would never fit.  We had very little in common, save for the sound of our voices.  Daddy, however, having my same spirit, sensed that I was a freedom-seeking creature, and convinced her to set me free.  Just like him, I had to make my own way, and in wide open spaces. 

It has often been said, with raised brows and a shrug, that opposites attract.  I suppose that, although my relationship with Iain would be no evidence for the credibility of this statement, it does ring true on some accounts.  My parents were polar opposites, and they worked just fine.  My dad was a crop farmer, a self-made businessman who profited off his own labors.  Independent and stubborn, he worked under no man, and followed no laws but his own.  He became popular in his business just as much by his lawless reputation as he had by his prowess.  At one point he became so successful in his work that if I introduced myself to a new face in the area, they likely would recognize me just becuase I was "Jack's daughter".  He was not always successful with money.  That is not what I meant.  But he was always successful in the things that mattered.  His quiet charisma made up for the offenses his independence would have left upon anyone.  He fit into no one category, but he could, if he so chose, win the favor of any of them.  Great men followed no direction but their own.  That was the immaterial power of my father. 

My mom was a doctor, a hardworking radiologist who spent her life in a dark, boxed room reading x-rays, making diagnosis after diagnosis.  She did spectacular deeds for others, but ultimately, she never existed beyond her bubble, never took chances, never went on exciting adventures that would grow her soul.  She communicated with bones and mammograms, not with people, and thus she became, according to society's mastermind, invisible.  To me, conformity, invisibility, was like being behind bars.  My mom had always liked her jail bars.  And she tried to make me like them too, thinking this was in my best interest.  What she didn't realize was that "what was in my best interest" was for me to decide.  I was more like Daddy.  I did not like confinement.  I realized the need for discipline and money-making, things my mother stressed were more important, but more than that, I lived the need for soul-connection with others, and for finding my purpose and leaving a legacy.  My father had left a legacy, at least with me.  And I would carry it on.

Daddy was right.  My eyes sparkled because my heart was in them, and my heart was engaged with life.  My emotions were at a pinnacle.  i was not only experiencing a bourgeoning self-discovery and learning about what impassioned me, but for the first time in my life, I was also experiencing something that had always eluded me...romantic love.  But this was something about my journey my parents knew not of, not yet.

"I do like it here" I answered him, right before I hugged him again, "I love it.  In more ways than you know."

"Ah yes" he said, "I can see my little diamond in the rough is in the rough no longer."

I was about to ask him what he meant, but then my mom's voice interrupted my thoughts.  

"Hey!" she said suddenly as she poked my dad on the shoulder, "hate to interrupt the father-daughter reunion, but, what about me?"

We all laughed, and my dad released me so that I could embrace her just as fervently.

"Missed you honey" she said, "now, are you taking care of business up here?  Not letting your personal interests get ahead of your research?"

I rolled my eyes and smiled.  She was always the "bring ya back down ta earth" person.  Her staunch realism grounded me and my father, the maverick dreamers.  

"Yes, mother" I said, "and I missed you too."

After we had embraced and exchanged warm hellos, I helped them with their bags, and began to lead them up the stairs and into the hallway of the second floor.  Our apartment was #211, the first of four on the floor.  Before I opened the door, I noticed the "For Rent" sign on the door of the third apartment, and I wondered, briefly, who would be the next to move in.  My thoughts were interrupted, however, because upon opening the door we were impaled by a very agonistic scream.  

"NOOOOOO!" Rachel called from the living room, "PISS IT!"

My parents looked at me with raised brows and faces that begged for an explanation.

"Oh" I said, laughing a bit, "that's Rachel, you know, the roommate I was telling you about."

"That's your roommate?" my mom questioned, concern burgeoning in her expression, made very evident by the crease in between her eyebrows.  She peered into the living room to get a better look.  I would have introduced them to her, but I knew better than to interrupt her game-watching. 

"Saucy minx" my dad said in a feigned Scottish accent.

I laughed.  "She's not usually like that she's just...watching a football game" I explained, "and she's a little hardcore.  You know, kind of like us when we watch Kentucky basketball?"

"Football?  Who's playin'?" my dad asked, perking up tremendously.  "I've been meanin' to find out the final score to that damn Patriots football game and I can't find a single damn person here who knows.  The Colts were fixin' to score a touchdown in the last 2 minutes and I never got to see what happened.  I couldn't lost my bet.  From what I saw it was a helluva game though, I gaurendamntee you.  What game's she watchin'?"

"She's not watching American football Daddy, she's watching European football...you know...it's like soccer to us" I explained.   

"Ah, well damn" he said.  Damn was his favorite adjective.  However, I had come to find it endearing as opposed to offensive.  His charm diffused it.  Suddenly I could see the wheels in his mind start rolling, and he turned toward the living room with interest, arching his neck to glance at the screen of the television.  Then he said, absent-mindedly, "You think my bookie would place a bet on a European football game for me?"

"Dad!" I exclaimed, giggling.  Then he grabbed me around the shoulders and we laughed as we carried the luggage to my room.  I saw my mom roll her eyes playfully as she muttered to herself, "I am the only adult in this family."  

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