5.
Down South

Celia was eager to get down to Knoxville to see her family before she was too pregnant to fly. Though her mother and stepfather had moved away, first to Hawaii and then Indiana to pursue better-paying jobs, Celia’s father and his wife were still living in her hometown. The relative ease of the first trimester had given way to more months of good health. If you asked Celia how she was feeling, she would tell you she was absolutely fine.

It was the first question put to her by her father, D.W. He had arrived at the Knoxville airport thirty minutes late to pick us up, unsurprisingly, as it were. Like his accent, his life had a kind of drawl to it, a lag. His height seemed to have something to do with this. It took effort to lift those large feet and extend his long legs and carry forward his upper bulk. You wouldn’t tell a giant to hurry up for the obvious reason that he might use his strength on you, but also because he wouldn’t be able to go any faster if he tried. D.W. called his daughter Nippers, as in, “How was the flight, Nippers?” and spoke with a gentleness that could almost be mistaken for sadness. He carried his daughter’s suitcase, despite the handle and wheels available to him, lumbering through the uncrowded baggage claim, a bit off-kilter and about six feet ahead of us.

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