A Citizen Again, Y’all!

I was sitting on the porch that morning like I often do, half-listening to the barn swallows argue under the eaves while nursing a mug of strong coffee and stronger opinions about the state of my bunions when I heard the familiar rattle of Alex’s little SUV come chortling up the lane.

Alex is our daughter-in-law by law but daughter by everything else. She’s married to our boy, and bless him, he married way up. Alex is a California-born Lantina and straight-up Valley Girl, full of fire, brightness, and sayings that don’t always come out the way she means but always land just right.

She parked with the usual flourish—one tire just shy of the flower bed—and hopped out of the car, waving something like she’d just found the last golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s. She was beaming like the Fourth of July and walking like she had something to tell that couldn’t wait on any text message.

“What you got there?” I asked, shading my eyes with one hand.

“It’s my renewed passport!” she sang, hopping up the porch steps two at a time.

“Well good for you,” I said, sitting up straighter. “Going somewhere?”

She held it up like a prize turkey. “Nope! Just means I’m an American citizen once again.”

I blinked. “Once again?”

She nodded like this made perfect sense. “Yeah, you know, renewed it. Now I’m good for another ten years. Official and everything.”

I chuckled into my coffee. “Sweetheart, I don’t think renewing your passport makes you a citizen again. You already were one.”

She waved a hand. “Details.”

Alex tends to speak in Technicolor. Her sentences come dressed in sequins and heels, even when headed to the grocery store. That girl could describe a paperclip and make it sound like a minor miracle.

And at that moment, with the sun catching her earrings and the passport flapping like a little blue bird in her hand, it was hard to argue with her logic.

“Well,” I said, scooting over so she could plop down next to me. “Welcome back to America, I guess.”

She laughed and patted my knee. “Feels good to be home.”