A Preview of My Nanowrimo Submission - Working Title "Sweet Tea"

She had always loved sweet tea. Not so sweet as to throw you into a diabetic coma or anything, but good old sweet tea, brewed up the way her grandmother always made it. Maybe it was just the memories that came with it, the taste was divine anyway. You just didn't find sweet tea like this living in the Southwest. They tried and failed to ever make the liquid sweetened tea taste as good at the coffee shop near her home.

Unfortunately, she hadn't driven 15 hours to drink sweet tea and lounge on her grandmothers porch. Her brothers car was making it's way down the long drive. The crunch of the gravel under his tires bringing her back to the present. Seeing Patrick again would be a delight. The tasks that they had before them would be less so.

She was out of the porch swing before he could get his door open.

"Brother." She reached out to embrace him for the first time in a dozen years, maybe more. She tended to lose time when she was avoiding something. "It's so good to see you. I'm so sorry."

"No worries, Sis, you're here now."

His arms were as protective as she remembered them to be. He had started life frail and weak. Around the age of fifteen, he suddenly shot up and within a year he was stout and strong. Muscles seemed to have bulged out overnight. The family genes must have finally caught up with him then. All of their uncles were big, muscular. She shuddered slightly remembering. Well, not really remembering as much as feeling. She never had full recall during those uncomfortable moments she felt, but she knew anyway that there was something not quite right lurking behind the feelings. Just like she knew now that her brothers arms were a safe place to be and her uncles just somehow weren't.

"Gran has been waiting for you to get here. She insisted on cooking, even though I offered to treat at that restaurant she likes so much." She couldn't believe how self-sufficient Gran still was at her age. It was probably what had kept her in her own home for so long. "At least there will be sweet tea."