Coming Home to You

by M. K. Stelmack

  Her luck held as she followed the trail of cars. “Go, go, go, go, go...”

  She veered onto the highway. It was a single lane through this stretch, so she tailgated to encourage the truck ahead to pick up speed. Unfortunately, the truck driver would not be bullied by a peppy pink car.

  As soon as the signs permitted, Daphne accelerated to full highway speed and beyond.

  She couldn’t pause to close the driver’s window, so, with highway wind blasting her cheek and hair, she pushed on. Within minutes, she was on Cal’s tail.

  It only occurred to her then that she really had no way of stopping Cal on the highway and, given that she didn’t know Mel’s thoughts on the matter, this whole adventure might be unwarranted.

  Her foot eased off the gas and Cal’s car pulled ahead.

  No, Mel wouldn’t want Cal to have Isaac, and she’d come too far to give up now. She slammed on the gas and rode Cal’s bumper, honking the horn. Cal checked his rearview mirror and then double-checked, his car swerving.

  Good. She had his attention.

  She pulled into the oncoming lane, this time, staying parallel to Cal. He glanced over.

  “Pull over,” she yelled, enunciating so he could read her lips.

  He frowned and focused again on the road.

  An oncoming truck, a full-size white pickup, was barreling straight for her. She had to get back into her lane.

  Or Cal could pull over as she’d told him to, and this all could end well.

  In fact, given the shrinking distance between the truck and her, that needed to happen now.

  She scrunched her body to make herself smaller, even as her brain told her a fat lot of good that would do. She edged her car closer to Cal’s to make room.

  At the last instant, he steered his car onto the shoulder. Daphne entered the correct lane just as the truck, one wheel riding the shoulder and the other in the ditch, blasted past them and continued on.

  Cal, driving highway speed on the shoulder, swerved and nearly crashed into Daphne. He overcorrected in the opposite direction and hit the ditch. From her rearview mirror, she saw his car bump along and come to a full stop. He appeared uninjured, the car undamaged. Had she really pulled this off without even a scrape?

  Daphne straddled Connie’s car along the shoulder and ditch, and parked. Cal emerged from his vehicle and made as if to come after her. But then he suddenly clutched his chest, stumbled and fell against the hood of his car.

  * * *

  “I’M FINE. I’M FINE,” he wheezed when she reached him. “I get these panic attacks when stressed.” He glared at her. “This being one of those times.”

  “I didn’t mean to cause you any harm,” she said.

  His eyes widened behind his thick lenses. “You could have got us all killed.”

  He was right. She rested her backside against the hood beside him. “I apologize,” she said.

  “All that,” he said, “because you want my son’s ashes.”

  “I want Mel to have them,” she clarified.

  “He doesn’t need them. He’s got you,” he gasped.

  She was pretty sure that ship had sailed. Clear across Spirit Lake.

  Cal breathed in and out, long and slow. He seemed to know exactly what to do during a panic attack, and a good thing, since her first aid skills did not go beyond applying bandages to owies. When his breathing had returned to normal, Daphne said. “I take it you’ve had a few of these attacks?”

  “Forty years of them.”

  Since baby Isaac had died. Since his wife and son had left him. “Oh.”

  “You might not believe this,” he said, “but I’m doing this for Mel’s sake.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.”

  A truck slowed beside them and the driver, a guy in a T-shirt and baseball cap, called out, “You all okay?”

  Daphne glanced at Cal. Were they?

  “Yes,” Cal said. “We’re good.”

  “Need a ride?”

  “We’re good,” Cal repeated.

  “Sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” Daphne murmured.

  “So you can steal the urn?”

  “That never crossed my mind.”

  “No, we’re good,” Cal repeated for the third time to the driver.

  When the driver was out of reach, Cal wheezed, “You saw where Mel kept the urn. Out in a storage shed with towels and old toys.”

  “He did that because he was afraid you’d believe it was filled with money and steal it.”

  Cal’s eyes bulged behind his glasses. “Who do you think put the urn in the box in the first place?”

  Oh. She’d assumed Mel’s mother had done so. Apparently, so had Mel. “What possessed you to steal it?”

  “I’m not stealing it. I’m taking it, is all. Mel looked right at it and said, ‘Nothing in that box.’ He didn’t set it aside. He didn’t go back and retrieve it.”

  “Cal. He was probably waiting for you to leave. Trust me, he only saw the urn two weeks or so ago. Before then, he didn’t even know it existed. His mother kept it a secret.”

  “Kept it a secret? What was she thinking?”

  “I couldn’t say,” Daphne said honestly. “Please don’t take the urn from him. It’s his only connection to baby Isaac.”

  “He doesn’t need a connection,” Cal said softly. “He’s got you and all his family. But I’ve got no one.”

  “You’ve got Mel.”

  “No. I’ve got his things. Five storage lockers’ worth of it. But not him. He’s wiping his hands clean of it all. He wants no part of me. Not even to be a business partner. So I give up. I’m heading back to start over. Again.”

  If Mel really was giving up his storage lockers, was she prepared to give up her life for him? She had to talk to Mel.

  Cal suddenly pitched forward and Daphne grabbed him. “Cal!”

  This was not a panic attack, but a heart attack. She should’ve overruled Cal and took the driver up on his offer of a ride. Daphne judged the distance to Connie’s car. She couldn’t lug Cal there. She stumbled with Cal to the back door of his car and laid him on the back seat.

  She tore off to Connie’s sedan and in seconds was scrolling her phone for emergency care of a heart attack, running back as she did. Should she call 911 instead? Where was a helpful driver now?

  Aspirin. She fumbled through Cal’s glove compartment and his tote bag, and found the familiar red-capped bottle. She heaved Cal into an upright position, her short legs giving her the leverage to press against the back of the front seat to do so. Cal was sweating, and his eyes rolled up.

  She slapped his face. “No! Chew this now.” Praying she wouldn’t kill him, she pressed an aspirin into his mouth and pressed his jaw shut. “Chew.”

  He didn’t; his mouth fell slack under her hand. Daphne called 911 and relayed her situation to the dispatcher.

  An ambulance was sent, and Daphne was instructed to prepare herself to perform CPR if Cal fell unconscious.

  “No, Cal. Don’t you dare make me responsible for your life.”

  He wheezed and garbled something unintelligible. Her fingers shaking, Daphne typed her own garbled text to Mel for him to come and gave their location. Rather convenient of her to run Cal off the road so close to town. She switched back to the dispatcher and wedged herself against the seat.

  “Talk to me, Cal. Talk.”

  His lips moved, but his breath came in long gasps and his face contorted with pain.

  “Mel’s coming,” she continued to yell at him to keep him on this side of consciousness. “You need to hold on for him. You don’t get to leave him like this. Do you hear me? Say something. Nod.”

  All he did was draw in breath.

  A message. Coming.

  “Cal. Mel is on his way. You will hate yourself if
you leave this world without giving Mel a chance to say he loves you.”

  He blinked, his eyes shifting to her. Was he trying to say something?

  “Don’t talk. Stay awake. Keep breathing.”

  Somehow, he remained conscious. Eleven long minutes later, she heard the wail of the ambulance, and then saw its lights appear. Cal slumped sideways as the ambulance attendant slipped into the back seat.

  Mel pulled up in the company truck. Daphne ran to meet him before he cleared his truck.

  “They are with him now,” she said.

  Mel took a step, stopped. “How is he?”

  “He— I think he’s conscious.”

  Mel didn’t move. “Pops.” His voice was soft and urgent, as though he was praying in the dark. “Breathe. Breathe for me. Don’t die. Stay.”

  Still, he didn’t move. Daphne reached for his hand at the same moment he reached for hers, their joined hands the size of a large heart. They stood together on the edge of the highway. A semi blew by, sending a wave of air to buffet them.

  “He’ll survive. I know he will,” Daphne said.

  Mel squeezed her hand. “How can you be sure?”

  “He wants to talk to you. He said so.” His eyes had, anyway. “He means to tell you how much he loves you.” She licked her lips. “Before anyone leaves you, they’ll want to do that.”

  She plunged on. “I’m sorry I chased after him, Mel. He said you were selling your stuff and I knew you didn’t want to—”

  “But I do,” Mel said.

  “You do? Really?”

  He nodded.

  “Oh. But the urn. I knew you would’ve hated for him to take that.”

  “I would have. I also would’ve understood.”

  “Oh.” All the damage she’d caused for nothing.

  “You’re right, Daphne. I’ve held on to things for too long. Time to let go.”

  A second ambulance attendant opened the rear of the ambulance and rolled out the stretcher. Together, the attendants slowly transferred Cal to the stretcher. They wouldn’t take such care if Cal was dead, would they? Her phone alerted her to another message. She ignored it.

  As the EMTs strapped him to the stretcher, Cal raised his arm and waved, a vague gesture that only someone alive could make.

  “Pops,” Mel said. He released her hand and ran to his father.

  Mel had let her go.

  As it should be. Time for her to move on, too. She drew steadying breaths, remembering her text. Probably Connie.

  It was Moshe.

  The doctor recommends that Mom’s family be at her side as soon as possible. Please come.

  Daphne glanced up to see Mel looking back at her. Waiting to say goodbye? Or did he want her to come with him?

  She approached Mel. “It’s Fran. I—I hate to leave you, but...”

  Mel gave a quick nod. “Go.”

  And just like that, he turned to follow Cal into the ambulance.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “BET YOU’RE ANGRY,” Cal said to Mel later that day. His glasses were off, and his eyes rested unshielded on Mel.

  Mel leaned on the plastic railing of the hospital bed. “Not with you.”

  “Don’t be angry with Daphne,” Cal said past the oxygen tubes threaded in his nose. “She saved my life. Make sure you let her know that I am grateful.”

  “She’s not here to tell. She’s on her way back to Halifax.”

  “What?”

  “She’s at the Calgary airport now. Her godmother is passing.”

  “Oh.” Cal pulled in a breath. “She’ll be back.” He spoke confidently, and Mel’s own optimism leaped inside his constricted chest. Daphne not here was its own kind of heart attack.

  “She still has all her things here,” Mel said. Her books, her clothes. Frederick’s urn. Or had she taken all that? He had a desperate urge to check for himself. “She’ll return for all that, at least.”

  “Son, she’ll be back for you,” Cal said.

  Mel wanted to believe that. He wanted her to pull off that uncanny trick where she appeared at his side when he was least expecting it and the most in need of her. He straightened from the bedside. “I want her here. I want to start a life together. If she’ll have me.”

  Cal ran his tongue over his lips and the inside of his mouth. Thirst. The protocol was not to give him any drinks for the next while, although he had a saline IV set up. Technically, he shouldn’t even be talking, but Cal had said he was too afraid to close his eyes in case he never opened them again. “Preferably,” Cal rasped, “a life without me in it, right?”

  “I’d prefer a life without you in the hospital, yeah. Other than that...” Mel said, searching to put words to the feelings that fluttered inside him like birds jockeying for a perch. “We have an agreement you’d sell my stuff for a cut of the take.”

  Cal settled his gaze on Mel. “I am sorry, son. I am sorry I gave you reason to feel the need to fill even one shelf of one locker. I’m sorry I didn’t provide for you. And for not being there when—when the baby was born.”

  Mel wanted to hate Cal, but the fact of the matter was he alone could give the old man any kind of peace, and in turn, find his own. “You may not have been there, but Isaac was never by himself.”

  “But you were,” Cal whispered. “I should have been a better father. What I’m trying to say—”

  “I know what you’re trying to say. I’ve been collecting things since I moved here. I got the storage units when Mom told me that she didn’t want to see any more of my crap around the house. And—now that I’ve thought on it—I didn’t start collecting because of baby Isaac.

  “It was you. I lost you, Pops.” Mel’s voice dropped until his voice was no stronger than Cal’s. “Mom took me from you. And you—you didn’t come for me.”

  Cal grimaced, and Mel regretted unloading his old hurts, given Cal’s condition. “I shouldn’t talk about this. At least, not right now.”

  Cal hitched his head and shoulders higher on the pillows. Mel quickly reached to bolster him with pillows. “You carry on,” Cal said. “Get it out, while you can.”

  “All right. I understand now that you stayed away because you didn’t feel you deserved to be with us. But—but I’ve spent the last thirty-nine years thinking something else. Thinking that I wanted you dead because you didn’t care.”

  Cal pinched the air where the arms of his glasses normally were. Mel had pulled on his own missing cap often enough to know how unsettling that felt. “Listen, you were better off with your stepfather,” Cal said. “When your mom told me she was remarrying, I made sure he was a good man. I finally knew where you were living, so I drove out. I didn’t tell your mother or you that I was in town. But I checked around, and I followed your stepfather one day.”

  “Followed him?”

  “Followed you both, actually. You must’ve just got your learner’s being fourteen by then, and he took you driving.” Cal turned his head away to look out the window at the drab downtown buildings. “A kid jumped out right in front of your truck and you stopped on a dime. I thought, ‘That’s my boy.’ Through the back window, I saw him—your dad—reach over and give your shoulder a shake and a pat. The kind that means, ‘Don’t be scared. You did well. I’m proud of you.’ I knew then you’d be okay. You turned right at the next intersection. I went left and headed back.”

  Mel had told Daphne that his stepdad had got him through that terror-filled moment, but one glance in his rearview mirror and he would’ve seen Cal, waiting and watching, like a living guardian angel.

  Cal was breathing heavily now, and Mel checked the monitor for his heart rate. It was up. Blood pressure: up. “Easy,” he said to Cal.

  Cal lifted his hand. “I won the lottery. But I didn’t tell you... I sold everything to come be with you. It was you or broke.”

>   Mel was Cal’s One Big Break. “Pops.” He drew a breath as deep and raspy as his dad’s. “I hear you... I forgive you. You’re staying. Okay? Now, rest.”

  Cal shook his head. “You’re just saying that so I shut up.”

  “Yep,” Mel said. “That, too. And I’ll keep saying it until you do.”

  “Once is enough,” Cal said and closed his eyes. “I can rest easy now.”

  * * *

  THE CEREMONY WAS SHORT, only five people attended. After Jim Creasley discreetly shook hands and left, the Greenes and Cal sat on lawn chairs in a semicircle before the cremation plot, with its temporary marker for Isaac Grant.

  Mel directed his father to the position of honor in the middle, directly in front of his son’s plot. He took the seat to Cal’s right, with Seth beside him and Connie and Ben on the other side. An odd formality to an otherwise casual setup.

  “Not the usual venue for a Greene Family Night,” Connie remarked cheerfully.

  “But a good one,” Seth said, his focus shifting to the adjoining dog park, where Alexi had taken the kids to exercise their new puppy.

  “Yep,” Mel said. “Good and right.” If only Daphne was here, too. She’d left two weeks ago now, and other than the odd text to say that it was day-to-day with Fran, little else but pleasantries were exchanged.

  “A rosebud is breaking off,” Connie remarked. Linda had donated a white rosebush from her garden and planted it behind the marker. She wanted to give them the rosebush, she’d said, because she was putting the past to rest, too.

  Connie unfolded herself from her chair and twisted off the hanging bloom. She laid it beside the marker. “There.” She stayed, kneeling, and plumped up the stuffed puppy, Mel’s one and only present to Isaac.

  “Are you sure you want to leave the toy here, Mel? It’ll get dirty or rained on. Or a bird will rip it up and take parts of it back to its nest. Or a squirrel will nab it. Even a coyote.”

  “So, you’re saying,” Mel summarized, “that this stuffed animal I’ve done nothing with for years and years will now make a soft, warm home for a critter.”

  Connie stuck out her tongue. “Fair enough. Let’s move on. I’ve got an idea.”