The jour­ney towards Sali­na revealed a vivid trans­for­ma­tion from rolling prairie to lush farm­land. After find­ing Sam­son behind the pan­eled wall in Carlene’s trail­er, the storm that had con­sumed Fish over Tut­tle Creek Lake fad­ed away. Despite the warm spring sun­shine illu­mi­nat­ing the world out­side, my thoughts were con­sumed by con­cern for Pop­pa.

Will Junior and I occu­pied the front of the bus, watch­ing for his father’s patrol car while Fish and Bob­bi engaged in their own dis­trac­tions. Bob­bi, absorbed in paint­ing her nails, cursed the bumps on the road, while Fish appeared deep in thought, like­ly con­tem­plat­ing Pop­pa just as I was. Offi­cer Meek­s’s haunt­ing words about the need for Pop­pa’s fam­i­ly lin­gered in my mind, ampli­fy­ing my fears.

Sam­son found com­fort curled up with Lill in front, where she dili­gent­ly scrubbed away the rem­nants of ink from his hands. Each stroke seemed to dis­till the chaos that filled my head into a sin­gu­lar focus—being strong for Pop­pa. Time ticked ago­niz­ing­ly slow­ly as we trav­eled the final stretch of inter­state before Bill Meeks guid­ed the bus toward the hos­pi­tal, my heart rac­ing at the sight of the stark white “H” sign indi­cat­ing our des­ti­na­tion.

Arriv­ing at Sali­na, we encoun­tered a city still grap­pling with the after­math of Rock­et’s hav­oc; traf­fic crawled as repairs were under­way. With every sig­nal light out, Bill nav­i­gat­ed expert­ly through the chaos, uti­liz­ing his siren when nec­es­sary. As we approached the hos­pi­tal, the sky dark­ened omi­nous­ly, yet the cloud mere­ly loomed over­head with­out releas­ing any rain.

Upon arrival, we were met by families—Pastor Meeks and Miss Rose­mary appeared torn between relief and frus­tra­tion, while Rock­et and Mom­ma looked weary and dis­traught. The emo­tion­al reunion unfold­ed as Mom­ma rushed to embrace us, her wor­ry man­i­fest­ing in tight, pro­tec­tive hugs. Rock­et attempt­ed to brush off his con­cerns with brava­do, but I sensed the weight he car­ried for all of us, par­tic­u­lar­ly for Pop­pa.

Grand­pa Bom­ba, vis­i­bly emo­tion­al, held onto one of Grand­ma Dollop’s jars, and I felt an over­whelm­ing urge to assure him we were togeth­er again as a fam­i­ly. As the ini­tial wave of joy sub­sided, Mom­ma addressed the unspo­ken con­cern about Pop­pa, her smile fad­ing momen­tar­i­ly before she reas­sured us of our pres­ence being need­ed.

In the wait­ing room, emo­tions surged; the fam­i­ly dynam­ics were pal­pa­ble as tears flowed and prayers were offered. The moment was bit­ter­sweet; friend­ships were strained by cir­cum­stance, and as the vis­it came to a close, I exchanged good­byes with Bob­bi and Will, hop­ing our paths would cross again.

As the bus pre­pared to depart, I felt a mix­ture of relief and sor­row. Although I had final­ly arrived in Sali­na, I car­ried the weight of an impend­ing farewell deep with­in me, yearn­ing for every­thing to be right once more .