The Homecoming

by Robyn Carr

  He’d been seventeen and stupid. And you were seventeen and not much smarter, her thirty-four-year-old self added.

  Well, of course that internal argument was going to happen—she was a social worker, a counselor to young people. Young people who made mistakes every day, some that were hard to recover from, very hard to move on from.

  Iris didn’t turn on the TV or her stereo. She cleaned house, literally. She cleaned out cupboards, closets, washed clothes, scoured the bathroom and the kitchen, threw away stuff in the refrigerator, filled bags and boxes with things she’d been meaning to get rid of for a long time. Clothes for donation were bagged, kitchen items that had been around since she was a teenager were boxed up—some to donate and some to pitch. She folded her underwear into little squares, rolled her towels and put them in an attractive wicker basket, changed the sheets, washed the rugs that fit into the washing machine. When the sun came out and the afternoon grew warm, she opened the windows to air out the house.

  On Saturday night she had a glass of wine with her light dinner and put on an old movie—one of her favorite old chick flicks that always made her cry. She’d learned a long time ago that if there was a good cry growing in your chest and throat, a nice tearjerker could get it out of you without forcing you to dwell on the real issues.

  What if she’d gotten pregnant from that spontaneous drunk coupling? she wondered. What would they have done? Would they have talked about it? Gotten married or something? Gotten married and given up their educations? Gotten married and maybe missed that fast car that had ended a prestigious football career? Gotten married because they had to and divorced later because Seth hadn’t been ready to be a husband and father, only a famous football player?

  As it had happened, her period had started right away and she’d devoted herself to avoiding Seth. About a week after his reconciliation with Sassy, Seth had approached her. “You have any plans to go to the prom?” he’d asked.

  She’d looked at him in horror. “You know I don’t, you imbecile. You said you wanted to take me, then you said you couldn’t because you made up with Sassy.”

  “Hey, I would’ve taken you, Iris! I’m sorry, but I didn’t know you’d take that so seriously. I was just pissed.”

  “Good for you,” she had said. “And now I’m just pissed. I hope you have an awful time!”

  “What do you want me to do, Iris? Tell Sassy I can’t take her and take you instead?”

  “I wouldn’t go with you if you were dying and it was part of your Make-a-Wish list!”

  That was so vulgar of her, she thought. She’d been that outraged. It wasn’t like Iris to make cruel remarks like that. Although they hadn’t talked about it, she’d heard he had a miserable time at prom and the homecoming couple broke up again. That made her perversely happy.

  Iris didn’t talk to anyone all weekend. She didn’t leave her now sparkling house until three o’clock on Sunday afternoon when she drove to a donation bin and unloaded her stuffed car into it. Then she filled the Dumpster behind the flower shop with all the trash she’d cleaned out of her little house.

  That night she had a long soak in the tub. She lit candles in the bathroom. She put on soft, clean pajamas, curled up on the couch and got out one of her favorite books of inspirational quotes—something to buoy her spirits and put her back on track. After an hour of skimming she found one that spoke to her. Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies—Nelson Mandela.

  “Enough,” she said aloud. “That’s enough. Moving on now!”

  She closed the book and went to bed. She slept soundly for ten hours.

  * * *

  Seth wasn’t nearly busy enough all week to distract him from thinking about Saturday in Iris’s backyard. There was no way he was ever going to remember the events she described, but he couldn’t help but wonder how closely her description fit some of his dreams. He had dreamed of making love to her in the flower van. It had been clumsy and embarrassing in his dream. From what he gathered, it had been so in reality, as well.

  There had been other dreams about her, but they’d been fantasy dreams that took place in ideal settings—rooms with satin sheets, forest glens covered in silky grass, even on the hoods of sports cars. He had enjoyed those. There might’ve been a dozen starring Iris in as many years but since he’d had lots of dreams about lots of women, he hadn’t thought the ones with Iris had any real significance. In the past seventeen years he’d only had a couple of serious relationships. They hadn’t lasted too long nor had they been very fulfilling. He’d had plenty of dates but the right woman had always eluded him. Probably because she was back in Thunder Point, mad as hell at him.

  He saw Iris twice that week. Once, he’d seen her riding her bike to school on a sunny morning, waving and laughing with the kids. The other time he’d seen her from his office as she went into the diner. He had lacked the courage to follow her in there and try to talk to her. No, he wasn’t going near that until he knew what he was doing. And he didn’t. Not yet.

  The following weekend it was time for him to head to Seattle to visit his friend Oscar Spellman. He was driving up on Friday afternoon, would spend Saturday with Oscar and return to his home in Bandon on Sunday, ready to take on Thunder Point on Monday morning. The timing for a long drive alone in the car couldn’t be better.

  Friday night was clear and the weekend was sunny, not so unusual on the coast of Oregon in October but in Washington it was a treat. All the way up the freeway he’d been thinking. Remorse is a lot of hard work and boy, had he done a lot of hard work.

  He’d been drafted by the Seahawks when he was in his first year of college. He heard they’d been surprised to find him available, but they wanted him before he got hurt because he was fast and strong and there was a very good chance he’d make them money. He got himself an agent to negotiate a good deal. His first pro year, during which he’d played a little bit, he made four hundred thousand dollars, all of which he spent on taxes and a late-model Ferrari sports car. Considering he’d never driven anything but his dad’s old clunker truck, he really thought he was somebody. And one night, right before training camp for the Seahawks started, he took his new car out for a long drive along some Washington back roads. A miserable old Chevy sedan blew through a stoplight in front of Seth and Seth couldn’t stop. He tried to avoid a collision but his car basically T-boned that old Chevy.

  That was Oscar.

  It was determined that Oscar had fallen asleep at the wheel after working a double shift at a manufacturing plant near Seattle. He was a forty-five-year-old machinist with a wife, Flora, and two kids. There had been two witnesses stopped at the same crossroad who could validate it. Oscar had been responsible for the accident. But Seth had been going eighty in a fifty-five zone. Ironically, he had just slowed down around the curve. He’d probably been doing ninety, maybe more. He was cited for speeding.

  Both drivers were rushed to the hospital after being cut out of their cars. Seth hit Oscar’s car on the driver’s side. Seth and Oscar were both gravely injured, but Seth recovered. It took a long time, several surgeries and a lot of determination, but Seth pounded his way through the worst of it. Oscar’s spinal cord was severed.

  About a year after the accident lawyers for Oscar Spellman filed a civil suit alleging that the injuries to Oscar would not have been as catastrophic if Seth had been traveling at the speed limit, if he had exercised caution while entering the intersection. All Seth had left was his signing bonus, but it was huge to a kid from Thunder Point...or a crippled black man and his family from Seattle. Seth’s league insurance had paid for his hospitalization and rehab, but Oscar, a husband and father, was going to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, unable to work, without the use of his limbs, without income. And all for the thrill of seeing how fast that little silver car could go.

  “Don’t worry. We can wi
n this,” Seth’s lawyer had said.

  But that wasn’t a concern for Seth. “I don’t want to win it.”

  He’d lost his education, his career, his savings, his potential to play sports all in one split second. All for a stupid mistake.

  He’d visited Oscar for the first time about a year after the lawsuit. Seth was still walking with a cane, the scar on his face still bright pink. The first half-dozen visits had been really short and awkward, but then Oscar started to just sigh deeply whenever Seth appeared. “What the hell you doin’ back here, boy? Like I ain’t got enough trouble in my life?” he’d say.

  Over time, Oscar regained the use of his left arm and hand. It was clumsy and not very strong or reliable, but he could feed himself and he could play checkers. He was a smart man and Seth taught him to play chess. Oscar had more time to learn about the game and practice than Seth did so the challenges became pretty one-sided with Oscar on the winning side.

  “At least you have your mind,” Seth said. “Ever think of being grateful for that?”

  “Ever think it might be a curse?” Oscar replied.

  For the past dozen years Seth had been dropping in on Oscar and Flora every other month or so. He went to the graduations of Oscar’s kids and held a new grandchild. Seth always called ahead to make sure they weren’t having friends or family in. He didn’t want to be in the way. Oscar was sixty now and his health was rocky; just being confined to a wheelchair meant all kinds of medical problems chased him. He occupied the same motorized wheelchair with a neck brace that he’d been riding around in for years, but his kids and his church had fixed him up with some computer equipment so he could study, read, learn everything under the sun he wanted to know. With the fingers of his one good limb he could write and he had developed a whole network of friends outside the walls of his home.

  Flora opened the door to Seth on Saturday morning. She’d mellowed a little over time and she’d grown beautiful in her maturity. She had help tending to Oscar from her son and daughter, and a nurse’s aide visited regularly to bathe him and exercise his limbs. Flora’s life was challenging but it wasn’t a torture of hard labor. It was safe to leave Oscar for a few hours at a time and she could take him places sometimes. When she saw Seth she smiled at him and he admired her handsome face. She was also sixty, but her face was smooth and unwrinkled. She kept her hair very short and black; she was trim and muscular, a vision both admirable and unfortunate to him. She had to work hard every day of her life.

  She hugged him. “How you doin’, son?” she asked, her arms holding him sweetly.

  “I’m getting by fine, Flora,” he lied. “You have somewhere to go? I can sit with the old boy for a few hours if you need a break.”

  “Who you callin’ old?” Oscar called out. The whir of the wheelchair accompanied his voice and he was instantly a presence in the room.

  “I got nothing pressing,” she said with a laugh. “But I think I’ll give you boys some lunch and leave just because I can. Can you stay awhile?”

  “All day,” Seth said. “You just tell me if there are any chores I can help with while you’re gone.”

  “I got no chores, Seth. Except keeping Oscar entertained and that’s a chore in itself.”

  They ate grilled cheese and chips. Flora was an outstanding cook and over the years he’d had some great dishes, traditional Southern and otherwise. Occasionally Oscar would insist Flora warm up something for Seth so he could rave. But Oscar always had a sandwich, something he could grip and wouldn’t spill. Seth knew when they were alone, just Oscar and Flora, and he was bibbed to his chin, they had soups and greens and beans with ham and some of her other slippery but delicious items. But Oscar found it damned humiliating to be covered with food at the end of a meal when he had company.

  Seth washed up their plates and got out the chess board. Seth and Oscar had this in common—Seth hadn’t grown up with a chess board in the house, either. He had learned during his long rehab. Usually it was Oscar whose moves were slow and thoughtful, not to mention the fact that his one working limb was weak and shaky at best. But today it was Seth who was taking a long time with each move.

  “One a’ these days, you gonna get whatever it is outta your gut?” Oscar asked.

  Seth took a breath, met those rheumy chocolate eyes and told Oscar about Iris. All about her. All about it. Everything.

  “Shew,” Oscar finally said. “I guess you’re feelin’ real bad about that.”

  “Real bad,” Seth admitted.

  “You sure she wasn’t just trying to make you feel better ’bout yourself, saying she never tried to stop you?”

  Seth laughed. “No, Oscar. Iris is a lot of things, but not a liar. Not a woman who plays up to a man. Plus, she had no interest in making me feel better about anything! She clocked me, f’chrissake!”

  Oscar laughed. “Gotta admit, I like a woman won’t take no stuff off a man. You see Flora? She’s the sweetest thing ever come at me, but she has a limit. She understands when I get to feeling sorry for myself and she’s kind, but I get a little ungrateful or maybe too ornery and she puts me right in my place. She’s got no problem livin’ with a cripple but she won’t take no attitude. That’s a real woman.”

  “Flora is one helluva woman,” Seth said.

  “She’s that,” Oscar said. “More woman than I deserve. You got some regrets, son?”

  “Oh, boy,” he said, with a hollow laugh. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve got nothing but regrets. Doesn’t just about everyone?”

  “I expect so. You think I don’t wish I hadn’t worked that second shift? But it was overtime and we always had more month left at the end of the paycheck. I’d done it a hundred times. I never really thought about what it could cost. How about you?”

  He sighed. “Well, of course I regret speeding, even though I’ve made peace with the changes it brought my life. But it kills me to think I lost Iris before I ever knew how much I needed her. I took her for granted, and I’m not just talking about that night. I think I took her for granted her whole life. No wonder she hates me.”

  “She don’t hate you, son. Likely she grieves you. When she told you the truth about what you done, did she get upset? Cry a little?”

  “Oscar, she decked me. Then she cried a little, yelled a little, stormed away and told me to never bother her again.”

  Oscar laughed. “You just another idiot man. A woman doesn’t hurt over someone she doesn’t care about! You were the love of her life and you weren’t smart enough to run with that. You wish you’d been otherwise, just like I wish’t I wasn’t just a workin’ man looking at some overtime. But here’s where we are. Now, we can either work with those regrets and let ’em prove something or we can live in the past and be sorry souls.”

  “And how do you suppose we work with our regrets?”

  “Well, I don’t know what you’re gonna do, but I ain’t that man anymore, son. I’m gentler now. I used to be ornery and tired all the time. Used to have myself a temper. I can’t run or play or work second shifts so I talk to my wife and my kids. We have the best talks. My grandkids like me, strange as you think that is. Bradley is only ten and he already plays some mean chess. I taught him. And you sure as hell ain’t no tight end anymore. ’Bout time you let that girl know who you are now. I’m not sayin’ that’ll be easy. She might knock you flat again. But you’re smarter and better now. She should know before she gives you up altogether. Show her you’re not that stupid seventeen-year-old boy anymore. That’ll be hard for you since you like feelin’ sorry for yourself.”

  “How do you suggest I do that? Show her I’ve changed?”

  He gave a slight one-sided shrug. “I don’t know. Lucky you ain’t dead yet. You still have time.”

  Seth loved that man. There he sat, a brace holding up his head, gesturing with one hand, immobile and in relatively poor health,
yet he’d turned his infirmity into his opportunity. He’d grown closer to his wife and his kids, developed close relationships with his grandkids. If he could do that with a body that didn’t function anymore, how could Seth admit defeat?

  “When did you get so smart? So wise?” Seth asked him.

  “What the hell else you think I got to do with my time?” Oscar said. Then he smiled.

  * * *

  Iris didn’t see Seth all week and it was a good thing for her psyche. She’d spent years nurturing the anger she’d felt toward him and the one thing she hadn’t expected was that he would be devastated by the truth. There was no denying it. He was shattered to think what he’d done to her. For some reason she had expected him to blow it off, the way he’d blown off the prom incident when they were seventeen.

  The other thing she’d expected was that he’d get in touch with her and try a new approach to his apology, but that didn’t happen, either. It took great strength of will to keep from looking for him. She knew he stayed at the office every day until five or later and there were lots of places she could run into him. Though she didn’t want to, she kept her eyes open for his car at his mother’s house, but it wasn’t there. The weekend was especially hard because she wasn’t busy at school. The only thing that kept her from reaching out was that she wasn’t quite sure what to say. Never mind, it’s okay? I’m over it, we were young and dumb? Let’s pretend we’ve never met before and see if we’re friends now?

  She had no idea what followed confrontation. Hang on to the rage? Let it go and never speak of it again? Apologize for the honesty?

  When she got home from school on Monday afternoon there was a basket of the biggest, most beautiful apples she’d ever seen on the porch in front of her door. There was a bow on top but no note. The next day there was a wreath for her front door made out of fall leaves, pine cones, dried flowers and wheat stalks. On Wednesday there was a box holding a beautiful white knit scarf. Thursday brought a tin of cookies in the shape of fall leaves, iced in yellow, orange, red and brown. On Friday came a horn of plenty filled with gourds, oranges, grapes and nuts. This time there was a note. She opened the small envelope and read the neatly printed card. “Dinner tonight at Cliffhanger’s at seven. My treat.”