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The House at the End of the Road

Fifteen year old Vicki Modine slipped her pen into the spiral coil of her steno and slid out of the four-door Chevrolet Tahoe. Her hands clutched the notebook as her blue eyes watched her family gather by the large U-Haul moving van. The Modine family consisted of two boys, Steven and Max, and two girls, Andy and Vicki. Of course, there were also the two 'parentals' that happened to be pretty cool most of the time.

Vicki couldn't help but smile as she watched them yawn and stretch after the last 10-hour stretch of driving. Then their dad smiled and pointed ahead, asking their mom a question about size and color or something. Vicki's expression went blank as she focused on the tri-level colonial-style house, absently shoving her hands into the baggy blue jeans at least one size too big for her. Her over-sized red sweatshirt accentuated the paleness of her cheeks, and the red ballcap with the visor turned to the back hid somewhat frazzled mid-back length braids that told the tale of a long road-trip.

Eighteen-year-old Andromeda Modine, affectionately called Andy, came to stand beside her sister, encircling her shoulders with an arm. Tall and slender, Andy had caramel-brown hair, more blonde than brown, and eyes of a lighter shade of blue than Vicki's. "Big, huh?" Andy prompted. She motioned to the window to the right on the second story. "Dad said that's your room right there."

Vicki's eyes focused on Andy without looking toward the second story bedroom. "I'm scared," she confessed, her lips pale and trembling.

Andy sent her younger sister a slight smile and voiced a quiet, "I know you are, Vi-vi."

But 'scared' didn't even come close to what she felt. When Vicki caught herself worrying her lower lip with her teeth until it was raw, she knew that for sure. She had never been surrounded by new things like this before, having grown up in her hometown of Ouray, Colorado. Now she had to make this her hometown? Vicki looked down at the city name written over and over on the small spiral notebook. Westlake. Oregon. It sounded as strange as it felt inside.

Sighing, Vicki once more looked up at the house. She didn't blame her dad for jumping at the chance to finally start his own architecture business, New Visions Design, because it had been something he had wanted for a long time. Every time he had talked about it he had been more excited than she had ever heard him before.

But it had meant moving three states away from everything she knew.

After a sidelong glancing toward her sister, Vicki stepped up the brickwork path. Andy followed, watching Vicki as she hesitantly entered the hall, her blue eyes taking in the bare walls and empty rooms. She had to restrain a shiver at how quiet the house was. With no memories to make her feel at home, it made the fear worse. How am I going to do this? She only had two weeks before school started and no idea how to get ready for anything. God, why did we have to leave? Why couldn't Dad have worked in Colorado?

"It's not easy to start over, I know," Andy said quietly.

Vicki focused on her sister beside her.

Andy smiled suddenly and gave Vicki's red cap a tug. "But don't kill your chickens before they've hatched."

Easy for her to be optimistic, Vicki nearly grumbled aloud. Looking again down the front hall, Vicki didn't really notice the wooden stairs leading to a second story, or the large rooms off each side of the main hall. She only remembered the small but homey house they had left in Ouray.

Andy gave Vicki a nudge, drawing her big blue eyes. "It won't be as bad as you think. Promise."

"But..." Clenching her hands, Vicki lowered her focus to her sturdy hiking boots peeking out from her faded and worn jeans. "But aren't you scared? People won't understand us."

"Vi-vi, everyone's going to feel like that." Andy wrapped an arm around her younger sister's shoulders and gave her a comforting squeeze. "But Mom and Dad have everything under control. They wouldn't have plucked us out of the wilds of Ouray and plopped us out here in Oregon unless they thought it was what God had in mind for us all. So, as long as you remember that, you'll be fine."

If only it could be that easy, Vicki thought to herself.

Andy gave her another hug and then pointed outside. "Come on. We better start unloading."

Vicki followed her sister back out into the late-morning sunshine, pausing long enough to take a good look at the scenery of her new home. Green and beautiful was the best way to describe Westlake, Oregon, located 35 minutes south of the large city of Portland. Evergreen trees lined the streets and colorful flowers of roses, lilac bushes and more decorated every yard she could see. But Vicki didn't know how it would be enough to keep her mind from her home in Colorado. In fact, she didn't want to know.

Letting out an exasperated breath, Vicki turned for the moving van in time to catch the concerned expressions on her parents' faces. What am I going to tell them? She didn't really want them to know that she wasn't sure how to fit in. That she had no idea how, or where, to start?

A handsome and tall young man with bright blue eyes and hair a slightly lighter shade of blonde to Andy hurried past, bellowing, "Clear the way! Eldest brother coming through!"

He charged upstairs, box in hand, while the youngest of the four, thirteen-and-a-half year-old Max, chased after him shouting, "Stev-ven! I get the window!"

Vicki watched them, before giving a sigh and following to her own room. Twenty-year-old Steven was the lucky one. He'd be returning to college the following weekend, his second year, and that back home in Colorado. He wasn't losing his friends.

Coming to stand in the doorway of her bedroom, Vicki stared at the empty room and could feel her lips drooping downward. It isn't fair....

"Vi-vi." Andy gave one of Vicki's braids a gentle tug. "Stop stressing. You've got your own room, a window seat like you always wanted, the promise of new furniture, and all your old stuff. I'm telling you everything will be great."

Vicki shrugged and muttered, "I guess."

"You don't have to sound so thrilled."

With a sheepish smile and a dark flush of color to her cheeks, Vicki met her sister's amused gaze. "Sorry. I guess I'm being a little pathetic."

"Just a little." Andy shook her head, chuckling as she turned Vicki around with hands on her shoulders. "If you don't stop with the sighs and faces of doom, Mom and Dad are going to freak, and you definitely don't want that."

Andy urged Vicki downstairs and then out to the moving van where they both grabbed a box marked 'kitchen supplies'. Andy gave Vicki's back a nudge, drawing her sister's somewhat dark-blue gaze. "Let's walk around the neighborhood before school starts. That way we could maybe meet some people."

Groaning, Vicki followed Andy into the house and through the swinging door on the left into kitchen.

"Don't give me that, wuss," Andy called over her shoulder. She set her box onto the counter and turned. "You might have fun. We'll print some stuff about the city and start reading about the place. History, myths, festivals, whatever. That would be fun, don't you think?"

Following Andy as she passed out of the kitchen and back outside, Vicki reluctantly admitted that it did sound like a good idea. To pass the time, at least. Maybe it'll make me look a little less like a moron in front of everyone if I actually know stuff?

"I guess that sounds like a good idea, Andy," she confessed. Although, it might make me look like a geek. She grimaced.

"Why don't we start tomorrow? We could get up early. What do you think?"

Max pushed his way between the two of them, his mussed brownish-red hair falling into his eyes and around his cute freckled face as his expression showed the well-known Modine Mischief. "She doesn't think, Andy. Duh." He finished the comment with a 'raspberry' toward Vicki, as well as a well-timed nose-pick.

"Why you-!" Vicki dropped the box of clothes just picked up from the moving van and chased after him.

In fact, she felt like a traitor.

So, she had decided to 'suck it up', as her older brother Steven would have said, and do her best to find a place to fit. Wherever that might be. Vicki rolled her eyes as she slumped down on the floor of her room and watched the mentioned older brother set up her computer. You really need to stop sounding so pathetic. But it was hard to do when everything she knew was three states away.

"Hey, Vic, can you hand me that cord. This is the wrong one," he asked in a muffled voice, not adjusting his position from where he had crawled beneath her wooden desk.

Smiling, Vicki said "Sure," and stood, making her way to the conglomeration of extra cords, cables, and multitudes of other things that had been piled in the center of her room. She retrieved a black cord that she presumed went from cpu power-unit to wall and then dangled it behind the desk. "This one?"

"Yeppers. Thanks."

Again, Vicki sat onto the floor, watching her brother frown in concentration as he checked connections and cables, and everything else that protruded from the 'hand-me-down' computer. Steven had built it his junior year in high school. "I could do this, you know," she said again.

"Eh. It's fine." Steven's blue eyes sent her a quick glance before focusing again on the partially revived computer. "How're you doing? You keep wandering."

Shrugging, Vicki lowered her gaze to her fingers picking at a tattered section of knee on her jeans. "I'm okay."

"Uh-huh. I believe you." He rubbed at his chin. "Excuse the sarcasm dripping."

Vicki smiled. "Fine. I'm a little scared but will be okay. How's that?"

Steven set down the tool used to tighten the screws at the back of the computer and carefully adjusted his position out from under the desk, still bonking his head on same desk. "Ooch," he hissed, rubbing at his head as he regarded Vicki through one eye. "Better. You told Mom and Dad?"

She shook her head, once more lowering her gaze. "Why? Dad's wanted this forever."

"Sure he has, but they're doing it for us. They can't make it better if you don't tell them there's something to be made better."

"Don't worry about me." Vicki sent her brother a quick glance as she lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "I'm just being pathetic."

"No. You're being 15 and in a new place without your friends, without your school, and without your church. Mom and Dad get that, that's why they talked to us first and got our okay. You were the only one that didn't really say 'yea' or 'nay', if I remember right."

Her only response was yet another shrug.

Steven watched her for a moment before ducking back under the desk and continuing the final stages of connectivity. "You can't shrug life's problems away, Vicki. They always come back, and they usually bring friends. Talk to Mom and Dad. They might not have an answer, but at least then they'll know what's up."

Vicki watched her older brother for a few silent moments before casting a glance over her shoulder toward the door of her room and the sounds of family conversations downstairs.

"Okay. All done."

Vicki refocused on her brother as he scooted out from under the desk - head-bump free this time - and then pressed the power buttons on both the cpu tower and monitor. It beeped and whirred to life, the hard-drive sounding its soft purr as it accessed the system files needed to rouse the little giant.

"No internet yet, of course," Steven said, sitting back and resting his wrists loosely onto his bent knees as he watched the computer boot up. "Family meeting at the end of next week about that. I guess there's going to be the option of upgrading from dial-up to DSL or cable. Stipulations of course."

Vicki reluctantly smiled. "Of course."

Steven met her gaze and offered her a wider smile, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to give her a brotherly squeeze and jostle. "Don't be glum, kiddo. New places mean new opportunities."

Vicki wrapped her arms around her older brother and gave him a tight hug, her eyes filling with tears. "So why can't you stay?" she asked, sniffing.

He gave her another squeeze. "It's only for a year. Then I'll be transferring over to OSU or U of O, depending on which one gets the 'thumbs up' from the Big Guy Upstairs."

"I know. But a year?" She sniffed again, tightening her hold around him. "It sucks."

Steven chuckled. "It'll be good for you. You can't depend on me forever, you know. You've got to be 'Victoria Modine' sooner or later."

Tearfully laughing, Vicki pushed back and gave him a playful slug on the arm. "Well, excuse me for loving my big brother!"

Steven gave her a messy kiss on the cheek, causing Vicki to squeal in protest, and then motioned to the computer. "Check it out, make sure no files are missing or anything. I had it packed pretty tight, but you never know with these older computers. They can get pretty crotchety in their old age."

Giggling, Vicki scrambled to her feet and pulled out the sliding keyboard tray. Then she typed the password required for the computer to finish its boot.

"I still don't get why you 'password up'. It's not like you have anything we'd want to read."

"After Max printed out an entire month of my journals and was frolicking around the front yard reading them?" Vicki scoffed. "Please."

Steven laughed. "Okay. So you need to 'password up'. I stand corrected." He looked down. "Although I happen to be sitting at the moment."

Restraining a laugh, Vicki stuck her tongue out at him.

"Well." Steven stood, adjusting his jeans and then pulling down the sleeves of his Colorado State sweatshirt. "I'm going to see if Andy needs help with her stereo. She was practically foaming at the mouth to get it unpacked, and I don't hear any sounds from her room yet. Holler if something's not right and I'll come a-running."

"Okay, Stevie. Thanks."

"Sure thing, kiddo." He winked and then left the room.

Vicki stared after him, her smile slowly disappearing. God, it isn't fair... was all she could pray as she again wondered how she would survive a year of school without the older brother that made things more bearable.

Next .:. Chapter Two
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