scene 48

Previous.

EXT. RUTH'S FRONT PORCH - DAY

Ruth and Wanda in rockers, glasses of lemonade in hand, glass pitcher on the table between them. ROCKERS CREAK dissimilarly. WHIR OF CICADAS.

A BREEZE SINGS THE CHIMES.

RUTH: Storm on the way.

WANDA: I saw that on the weather channel. I guess Corpus is battening down the hatches. 

RUTH: We'll start getting our share late afternoon early evening. Probably not a bad idea to leave Gil's in time to beat the start of it.

WANDA: Definitely not a bad idea.

RUTH: Wait until you see how the boys have grown.

WANDA: That's what Gil told Tom.

RUTH: They cried when he told them. And Maria. He told her about Hunter.

WANDA: Alright. 

RUTH: Maria told the boys.

RUTH: Okay.

The SOUND OF TOM'S TRUCK'S ENGINE lifts them out of their rockers. They watch Hunter drive intom frame, slow, look at them as he arrives at the driveway.

INT. TRUCK

Hunter drives to the garage, the women walk to the steps, he stops, turns off engine.

PORCH

Hunter gets out, walks the steps, embraces each of them. Ruth takes one of Hunter's hands, Wanda the other, lead him to the screen door. Ruth opens it, motions Hunter in, Wanda follows, then Ruth. WHIR OF CICADAS. 

scene 47

Previous.

INT. JOHN/JAN'S HOME THEATRE.

EDIT: Dale and Darryl to Frank and Fred. 

Windowless, one row of plush seating lower than the one behind it. Open door to hallway and framed photograph on wall. Movie posters. Chloe is sitting in back-row center-seat, face lit by her laptop's screen, filled with Tom in his seat in the Rover, looking out the window at Alamogordo passing by. John, Jan and Barbara in the front row stare at the same on the wall-mounted big-screen.

CHLOE (O.S.): What about Ruth as far as career, marriage and children?

Tom turns to Chloe.

TOM: Ruth was a junior high school teacher in Del Rio for a few years before she got into administration with Johnson City School District.

CHLOE (O.S.): Where did she go to college?

TOM: Then it was called Southwest Texas State. Now it's plain olf Texas State. In San Marcos.

JACKIE (O.S.): Johnson City as in Lyndon Baines?

TOM: That's the fella.

CHLOE (O.S.): Were your parents political?

TOM: I'd say mostly not. I remember back and forth about Vietnam, not to venture off into that.

CHLOE (O.S.): I'm the one who asked. So back to Ruth and school administration.

TOM: Well, that leads into her marryin' a man named Frank Norman. Frank was in oil, a petroleum engineer. They met when she was in Dallas for a conference. He was down from Tulsa on business. Little over a year later they married and Ruth moved to Tulsa. Frank was divorced and his 10-year-old son lived with his mother in Fayateville, Arkansas. Fred.  Ruthie wasn't able to have children. Anyway, they lived in Tulsa, moved into a real nice home in the Garden District. Darryl moved in to go to college at Tulsa U. Mechanical engineering. In November of his third year he and Dale drove to Lubbock to fly with another father and son to a ranch outside Menard, Texas. The father was the pilot. He had a heart attack a mile away from the strip. Crashed. No survivors. Ruthie sold the house and moved in with our folks, went through a period of mourning, then traveled through Europe for a year. Came back, bought a house in Fredericksburg for herself, mom and dad. If there was ever anybody else in her life after Dale it'd be news to me. You gonna post this up on your social media?

CHLOE (O.S.) Not if you don't want me to.

TOM: Ah heck, Chloe, you go right ahead. Just let me know so I can tell Ruth and Wanda.

CHLOE (O.S.) Will do.

Tom winks, returns his attention to the window view, then back to Chloe.

TOM (TILTS HEAD, FURROWS BROW): Why do ya suppose it's called Alamogordo?

Chloe STOPS PLAY. 

BARBARA: That's Hunter's head tilt and furrowed brow.

JOHN/JAN: Wow.

All stare at the screen.

scene 46

Previously.

INT. TOM'S TRUCK - DAY

Hunter in sunglasses drives east on highway 290 east of Sheffield, Texas aimed at a truss bridge and the straight-ahead stretch of highway lined by brown desert hills beyond. The Rodney Hayden song, Down On The Pecos, plays on the radio. He dives over the bridge, looks to his left at the Pecos River then ahead at the shimmering false end of the road. The song ends. After a moment Ry Cooder's  Canción Mixteca begins.