Coming Home to You

by M. K. Stelmack

Brittany gave a tight smile. “Three days here.”

  Then again...

  Brittany began loading her girls up with great square picture books. Daphne had long recovered from knowing she’d always be childless, but kids with big, beautiful books always set off a pang of sadness.

  Brittany turned to Daphne. “Mom told me how she had to come to the rescue after your accident. How’s your friend?”

  “As well as can be expected,” Daphne trotted out her standard reply.

  “Mom didn’t think you’d be staying for much longer,” Brittany said, holding out her hand for the checkout receipt. Judy was letting it unleash from the dispenser like a long white tongue.

  “Daphne could still stay,” Judy said. “She’s on sabbatical, writing a book.”

  “That’s interesting. What do you write?”

  Daphne had become acutely aware from her infrequent nonacademic social gatherings that any description of her work made her sound terribly dull or snobbish or both. “I’m taking a look at the role of women and economics in Jane Austen novels.”

  “But that’s just her day job. She also writes under a pen name,” Judy cut in. “Unfortunately, our library can’t shelve her books since we have a policy about certain content.” Several boys on the computer looked up from their screens with interest. Judy tore off the receipt, nearly as long as Brittany’s eldest was tall, and handed it over. “If you know what I mean.”

  Brittany and her kids were barely out the door before Daphne hissed at Judy, “That’s a lie. I don’t write erotica.”

  “Geez,” Judy said. “I never said you did. We have a policy against shelving textbooks, too. People,” she said, her eye on the boys at the computers, “come to the strangest conclusions.”

  “Why imply it, then?”

  “Because for once I’d like Mel to be paired with someone,” Judy said, “who sees what a hot commodity he is.”

  Which begged the question... “Why aren’t you dating him, then?”

  “I can’t,” Judy said, reaching for a ringing phone. “What would I tell my book boyfriends? Hello, Spirit Lake Library and Arcade.”

  * * *

  HOLDING A PACKAGED bouquet of flowers, Mel arrived at the motor home on a fine Sunday afternoon to find Daphne with another man. She and Tom Baxter sat at a picnic bench in the shade of the awning. Daphne was frowning at her open laptop, while Tom leaned in, their heads almost touching. Mel experienced a stab of...not jealousy exactly; he didn’t think Tom and Daphne were up to anything. It was more a stab of something like wrongness.

  Daphne glanced up from her laptop, her frown of concentration brightening into surprise. “Goodness. Is it that time already? I’m sorry,” Daphne said to Tom. “Mel’s here. We need to stop. How about I’ll work on this and send you an email tomorrow morning?”

  “Sounds good,” Tom said.

  Daphne was putting away her laptop as though she was on a timer.

  Tom swung his legs free of the bench. “Thanks for your help, Daphne.” He turned to Mel. “She was helping me write up a business proposal. That was all.”

  “Daphne’s good with words,” Mel said.

  “Yep,” Tom said but he didn’t move to leave. He tapped his finger on the bench, as if noticing something left there.

  “I told Daphne this already,” he said, “but you should probably hear it from me, too. I was out of line the other evening at the lake.”

  “That’s all right,” Mel said, because it was. He just wished Tom would move on.

  “I, uh, knew that I had feelings for Linda,” Tom continued, “but I shouldn’t have taken things out on you. Linda told me Daphne was staying at the RV park and I came over to apologize. But then we got to talking and she started helping and—and...”

  “That’s all right,” Mel said, the paper around the flower stems growing soggy in his grip.

  “And I thought you should hear it from me that Linda and I have cleared the air between us, and we’re going to start dating. As a couple.”

  Mel’s world shifted...into rightness. Linda had found her happiness, and—he glanced at Daphne—he’d found his. A happiness that right now regarded him with sympathy. Of course. She was worried he’d be upset at Tom’s news. He held out the flowers to Daphne. “I guess it’s pretty obvious these are for you.”

  She peeked inside the wrapping. “Gerbera daisies,” she said. “How lovely. My favorite.”

  She went on tiptoe and kissed him. It was a light tap of thanks, but it was still more intimate than they’d been since their first kiss. She must be really worried about him.

  “I’ll be going now...” Tom trailed off.

  “I’ll take these inside and freshen up.” Daphne giggled. Fake but cute. “Big night tonight.”

  Mel doubted she felt that way about their seventh trip to The Big Scoop.

  Her disappearance into the motor home worked as Tom’s cue to mosey off himself. About time.

  Daphne must’ve been watching Tom through the windshield because no sooner had he cleared the property than she popped out. “Sorry about Tom dropping his news about Linda and him.” She winced. “It must’ve hurt. I was going to warn you tonight.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Are you sure? I know it’s one thing to break up with someone, but then when they start seeing someone else, it can hurt all over again.”

  He now understood where she was coming from. “You speaking from personal experience?”

  “Yes. Two mortifying breakups that I don’t want to discuss.” She banded her arms tight around her waist and curled her shoulders. Mel longed to unlace those arms, pull her tight against him and remind her that somebody, right here and now, cared. The problem was, she interpreted his every gesture as him “settling” or “faking,” and with Fran inside, she’d put it down to him playing the role of boyfriend.

  “Is that why you kissed me in full view of Tom? So I’d look good in front of him?”

  From her expression, he’d guessed right. “It’s not that I consider myself a replacement, you understand,” she said. “I couldn’t compete with Linda. But, at times, it’s nice to have...anybody.”

  He had to touch her now. He nudged her chin up until her clear blue eyes met his. “You’re not anybody,” he said. “You’re somebody. My somebody.”

  That was it, he realized. That was what the stab was all about. It wasn’t jealousy; it was the absolute certainty that Daphne was meant for him, and no one else. She was no longer just a resource to help him figure out his future relationships. Nor was she merely a temporary friend until next week or whenever she and Fran left. He wanted her now and forever.

  Daphne curled her sweet mouth into a weak smile. “Thank you for thinking so.”

  Of course. As he’d feared, she assumed he was settling. How to convince her that his feelings were real? That they were together for real? He could kiss and hug her, give her flowers, watch romantic sunsets, have her join family events, do everything normal in a growing relationship, and she wouldn’t believe any of it because she didn’t believe in him or herself.

  “What are you two lovebirds doing out there?” Fran trilled from the door. She stood on the bottom step, her hand on the chrome handle.

  Time to play the role, the one he wanted to be real. “I was saying how much I like her in my life,” Mel said. He touched her back and she squirmed—like a cat, leaning into it and arching away at the same time.

  Fran took the final step from the motor home, her foot in its sandal twisting in the gravel to adjust. She looked good. Well, as good as could be expected. She wore white wide-bottomed pants and a top that was roomy with a bright geometric pattern. She had what people called style.

  Daphne hurried to plump the cushions in Fran’s patio recliner.

  “Quit fussing,” Fran said, but she lowered herself into her seat like one
false move would shatter her. “Could you make up a jug of that world-famous lemonade of yours? And also bring my wrap. The one from Venice. And close the main door after you. Mosquitoes are getting through the screen door.”

  Daphne twisted her mouth apologetically at Mel and left to do Fran’s bidding.

  Fran settled herself in. “That should take a while. I’ve hidden the lemons at the back of the fridge and hung my wrap in my closet. She’ll never think to look there. I closed the windows, too. If we keep our voices down, we can talk.”

  The subject, no doubt, would be Daphne, and Mel could guess the drift of the conversation, too. “I care for her quite a lot,” he said, unsure how much he should reveal to Fran.

  Fran gave her trademark dismissive wave. “You wear your heart on your work sleeve, Mel. I’ve no doubt of your intentions. It’s Daphne’s I worry about.”

  The woman’s health might be frail but not her mind.

  “Daphne’s a nervous Nellie,” Fran said. “That kiss between the two of you weeks ago had me convinced. But since then, I’ve lost confidence. She forgets she’s going on a date with you, or she leaves with her laptop, like she’s off to work.”

  “When she’s with me,” Mel said, “she seems to enjoy herself.”

  “Possibly. She came back from your birthday get-together humming and singing away. She hasn’t sung in so long.”

  “Hard not to have fun when there’s cake and kids.”

  “Daphne tells me you’re going to be an uncle again. In March.”

  “Yep.” Three nights already of broken sleep. He’d no idea how he was going to get through the pregnancy. He wished he could hibernate and wake in the spring to melting snows and a happy, healthy newborn.

  “I won’t be here for it,” Fran said. Mel didn’t know what to say to that. Luckily, Fran still held the mic. “Point is, I’d like Daphne to be.”

  “I hope so myself.”

  “You’re going to need more than hope, Mel. Try for a whole lot of patience and persistence.” Fran pushed herself up, a tricky business in a recliner. A pillow popped out and Mel retrieved it from the ground. “Tuck it at the back of my neck. Good. Now, listen. I’ve known Daphne all her life. It’s in her nature to retreat from everything, especially after... Well, it’s the way she is. She has more fears than a cat down a well.”

  Mel thought of the way Daphne had stood up to Tom. How she’d kissed him, both times, in front of others. Her driving. “I believe she can be brave when it matters.”

  “I agree,” Fran said. “The fact she’s here in Spirit Lake means I matter to her, and I am absolutely thrilled, believe me.”

  A snick sounded and the window slid open above them. “Fran. There are no lemons. How about an ice water with a lime twist?”

  “Check again. Sometimes they roll behind my protein powder.”

  “And your wrap? Where might it have rolled?”

  “Check my bed.”

  “Of course. What was I thinking?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  The window snapped shut.

  “You see,” Fran said. “I’m only weeks from annihilation and still she fights me.”

  “If it’s patience you want me to show,” Mel said, “I could learn a lot from her.”

  Fran sank back into her pillows. “I realize I’m not the easiest to take care of. It’s how I am. How we’ve become together. Don’t get me wrong, Mel. Our Daphne can love better than anyone. But to be quite honest, I am the only one left she has dared to love since she lost her parents. Did she tell you about that?”

  That and the death of Fran’s daughter. Mel quietly said, “She told me the whole story.”

  Fran flicked her fingers, as if to shoo off the memory. “At any rate, after I go, I fear that she’ll just stop loving altogether.”

  “What would you suggest I do?”

  “I’m not sure. But whatever you do, don’t give up on her, because that’s what she’ll expect.”

  Didn’t he know it.

  * * *

  “WHAT WERE YOU and Mel talking about earlier tonight?” Daphne folded the top of Fran’s cover down, smoothing the top sheet exactly how she liked it.

  “You,” Fran said. “Because we had nothing better to talk about.”

  Despite the light sarcasm, Daphne was certain that Fran was telling the truth. When she’d finally come out with the wrap and lemonade, their hushed conversation had suddenly switched to the weather. And Mel had remained closemouthed about his time with Fran during their ice-cream-and-walk “date.”

  “This was a date,” Mel had insisted when she’d thanked him for their evening together. “And that’s what I’m going to call our time together from here on, just so you know.”

  Perhaps she’d sent the wrong message with the kiss. The line between fake and real was getting rather blurred.

  Daphne gave the sheet a final tug and double-checked Fran’s pillbox to make sure her medications were taken. Tomorrow Daphne would refill the box because a prior near catastrophe proved Fran would pour them in like candy from a bag. “No doubt you told him about the most embarrassing moments of my life.”

  “While I could’ve regaled him with endless episodes, as a lawyer, I always let the accused have their day.”

  “You of the backroom deals,” Daphne said. “Never mind. I don’t need to know what you and Mel talked about.”

  “That,” Fran said, “is no answer. You should show some modicum of curiosity, especially when it comes to how the man you intend to spend the rest of your life with is concerned.”

  “I don’t intend—”

  “Don’t intend what?” Her voice was sharp. In fact, ever since Daphne had come back from her “date” with Mel, Fran had been testy. She’d shown an intensity that Daphne hadn’t witnessed in days. Maybe it had something to do with the weather. Thunder rumbled, and Daphne was thankful Mel had helped to batten down the motor home hatches before leaving, taking the extra precaution of pulling in the sliders and the awning. Even if it made the motor home seem squished, Daphne felt secure. More secure than talking with Fran right now.

  “I don’t want to assume something that isn’t there.”

  “What do you mean ‘isn’t there’? How about you assume what is there?”

  Maybe it was time to inform Fran of a few facts. “Mel has just come off a relationship with a woman who meant a lot to him.”

  “How can you be so sure she meant a lot to him?”

  “I’ve met the woman. I’m sure.”

  “But you don’t know.”

  “She broke up with him as we crashed the motor home into Tim Hortons.”

  Fran grinned. “How poetic. Surely you can see the cosmic significance of that. You must, because you mentioned it.”

  “I mentioned it because the timing shows how unlikely it is that Mel is over his previous relationship. And he has a tendency to settle. He took up with me because I happened to be there.”

  “You don’t want him to have real feelings for you because then you’ll have to deal with the fact that you can’t handle love. You can’t handle giving it or receiving it.”

  Daphne picked up Fran’s shawl off the floor. “Not much opportunity on this trip for romance. You’ve dragged out a journey that could have been accomplished in a plane trip.”

  “It would’ve been quicker, yes.”

  “And since time is what you complain you’re short of, the excuse that this is some kind of farewell tour smacks of disingenuousness of the highest order.”

  “You’re a professor of Romanticism and yet you don’t appreciate the grand gesture, a last and great act to exit life with?”

  Daphne folded the shawl and laid it at the foot of Fran’s bed. “You speak like this is a Thelma and Louise scenario. I’m not driving headlong off a cliff with you.”


  “You are not driving anywhere. We both know that.”

  Daphne had meant to surprise Fran with her progress. To come driving into the RV park. Or perhaps Fran would be at the ice-cream parlor and Daphne would swing in with Connie’s car, give the horn two smart beeps, park in one assured turn, step from the car and wave. “Sorry I’m late! Traffic was out of this world.” Instead, her fantasy disintegrated into a muttered “I can drive. Mel taught me.”

  Fran fell strangely quiet. She straightened and her shoulders fell, a kind of shock and surrender. “Please explain.”

  “I haven’t driven on a real road. Just around the Walmart parking lot. Then Canadian Tire. And the street that runs between them. And I haven’t broken forty kilometers per hour.” Her case already weak, Daphne refrained from explaining that her left leg went spastic when the speedometer wavered past thirty.

  “What do you drive?”

  “He borrows his sister’s car.”

  “What is it? A boat from the seventies?”

  “No. It’s modern. Not new, but it’s roomy enough. I’m used to it now.”

  “You are driving a car? A small car?”

  “Yes. Not well, not fast. But yes.”

  “You deny the affections of a man who has given you something no other person—professionals, even—have managed?”

  “Teaching me to drive wasn’t about affection. He understood what I needed. He—he broke it down into steps. He pushed the car while I drove.”

  Fran enunciated, “He pushed it?”

  She mirrored the same awe Daphne had felt in the parking lot. Mel had not only pushed her car but pushed her into a deeper intimacy with him. Only—

  “It cannot last. I will return to Halifax.”

  “You plan to break up with him?”

  A peal of thunder let loose and Daphne cringed. Each thunderclap registered like the crushing and grinding of steel as a vehicle rolled and rolled and rolled. Fran, looking as though she commanded Thor himself, reigned from her bed, unblinking.

  Break up with Mel?

  My somebody, he’d said. Two kisses, both at her instigation. They’d shared secrets. He’d introduced her to his family. He said they were officially dating. But it wouldn’t work. This whole plan to get Fran to stay put wasn’t working. Four weeks in, and though her scheme had stopped their cross-country journey, it hadn’t brought Fran one step closer to Halifax. All it was doing was making everybody believe there was something between her and Mel, including Mel himself.