The Road Home

by Susan Crandall

  She had been there—and alone. After the first awkward moments when he’d made sure she understood he wasn’t looking for her, they’d started talking about the book she’d given him. Before he realized it, the sun was casting long shadows on the ground and gloom was gathering under the trees. He’d had to run all the way home in order to make it before sunset.

  “There you are.”

  He spun around. Mickey stood right behind him with a smile on her face, pale hair and braces winking in the sun. Her eyes were brown, an odd contrast to her hair. They looked like maple syrup in the bright sun. And she had freckles on her nose. He realized this was the first time he’d seen her outside the shade of deep woods.

  “Oh, were you looking for me?” he said as offhandedly as he could manage. His chest felt funny, all squeezed and tight. Maybe he was getting sick.

  “Yeah, Goofy, I said I’d make a picnic for us. Did you forget?”

  He shrugged. She’d started calling him Goofy when he’d called her Mickey Mouse. He pretended it made him mad, but it really didn’t. She was sort of cute when she said it.

  “I was too late to get a picnic table, everybody and their uncle are out here today. But I found a good shady spot for a blanket. Come on.”

  Riley followed a few steps behind. It was weird, the way he’d looked forward to seeing her, but now that he was here, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be at all. She was only a stupid girl.

  It was just because he didn’t know any other kids around here, he told himself. Maybe she could introduce him to some guys and then things would be right again. He sure didn’t need all of this creepy uncertainty. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. At school, he always knew what he wanted and went after it; other guys looked to him to make decisions. But here, with her, it was all mixed up.

  They passed several groups of guys their age and none of them even gave a glance their way. Suddenly Riley was certain Mickey didn’t know any boys. Not as friends anyhow. That thought made a fluttery feeling in his stomach. He was her only guy friend.

  Mickey walked beyond the picnic tables. She stopped at the edge of the woods that flanked the creek, by a patchwork quilt spread beneath a giant tree. There was an old-fashioned picnic basket on the blanket.

  “Where’d you get this stuff, from your grandma?” The second he said it, he wanted to take it back. It sounded nasty. Sometimes he just didn’t know what to say to her.

  It didn’t seem to make her mad. She sat on the quilt Indian-style. “The picnic basket was Granny Fulton’s, actually it was her mother’s—so it’s really old. I found the quilt at a garage sale. Can you believe somebody would sell something like this? It’s handmade.” She ran her hand over the stitches.

  One quilt pretty much looked like another to Riley, but he shook his head and sat down across from her. He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone who actually shopped at garage sales. Maybe her family was really poor. Suddenly he felt guilty for her supplying his lunch.

  She opened the basket and started pulling stuff out. “I didn’t know what you like, so I brought a bunch of different stuff.”

  She handed him a bottle of water. “Let’s see, if you don’t want that, I have herbal tea.” She paused and looked at him.

  “Water’s fine.” Herbal tea? She did like grandma stuff.

  “I have a turkey wrap with alfalfa sprouts… a chicken salad sandwich with no-fat mayo on nine-grain bread… a soy-cheese and veggie wrap, that’s for me, I’m a vegetarian… baby carrots and yogurt dip… apples… grapes… and”—she pulled out the last container as if it were the grand finale—“homemade trail mix.”

  No chips? No brownies? No cupcakes? Nothing out of a crackly bag at all? What kind of picnic was this? This wasn’t grandma stuff. It was worse, it was hippie stuff.

  “Do you have any regular food in there?” He made a show of peering into the basket.

  “This is regular food—at least it should be.”

  “If you’re a vegetarian, what about all of that bats-eat-mosquitoes, snakes-eat-mice stuff? What’ll happen to all of the cows and pigs if nobody eats them? The farmers won’t feed them anymore. Then you’re gonna have a world full of starving cows and skinny pigs.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t say nobody should eat meat. I just choose not to. I hardly think the cows of this world are in danger—at least of starving to death.”

  He chose the turkey wrap and tried to pick the stringy grass off of it when Mickey wasn’t looking. He guessed it wasn’t too bad.

  After they’d eaten and Mickey was packing up the basket, Riley sprawled on his back and looked at the leaves overhead. A fat brown squirrel was jumping from branch to branch, chittering and chattering like it was really mad about something. What would make a squirrel mad? he wondered. Maybe its parents are getting a divorce.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, without sitting up.

  Mickey let out a long breath. “My mom.”

  Riley shot to a sitting position. How had he gotten so close to Mickey? His head had been right beside her thigh. He slid sideways until there was at least three feet between them. When he looked around, he realized how isolated they were from most all of the other picnickers.

  Oh, crap! It wasn’t hard to read the look on Mickey’s mother’s face.

  “Michaeline!” She lowered her voice as she got closer, so no one but Mickey and Riley and the squirrel could hear. “Do you want the whole town to think you’re a tramp, lying around on this blanket with this, this… boy?”

  Riley was braced for the fight as Mickey set her mother straight, just like she set him straight time and again. But Mickey seemed to get smaller just sitting there. She hung her head so her hair hid her face.

  “Sorry.” Her voice was the softest he’d ever heard it. “We were just having a pic—”

  The mother’s ice-blue gaze cut to Riley.

  He stood, squared his shoulders and offered his hand. “I’m Riley Holt, ma’am.” Now maybe she would yell at him and leave Mickey alone. She could yell at him all day long as far as he was concerned. They hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Suddenly the mother’s head tilted slightly to the side, her mouth formed a relaxed O and her eyes grew wider. It was the same look Riley had seen on people’s faces when they heard he was William Holt’s grandson.

  “Nice to meet you, Riley.” She shook his hand in a totally girly way. Now she was smiling—he guessed it was okay to be a tramp if you did it with a rich kid. “Your mother and I went to school together. Michaeline and I just saw her the other day and said how we should get you children together. How did you two manage to meet all on your own?”

  Riley felt, more than saw, Mickey cringe at his feet. She remained sitting, rearranging things in the basket. He said, “Mom dropped me off and we ran into Mick—Michaeline. She introduced us.”

  “Is your mother still here?” Mrs. Fulton looked around.

  “Ah, no. She had to leave.”

  “I’m sorry to have missed her. Tell her I said hello.” She started to walk away, floating this time instead of barreling like a steamroller. “You two behave yourselves.”

  Riley watched her go, unable to look at Mickey.

  “Thanks,” she said in an almost imperceptible tone.

  He sat back down. “For what? Changing the Wicked Witch of the West into Glenda the Good? I wish I had that power over all adults.”

  Mickey laughed, sounding like herself again.

  Jesus, they were only having a picnic. It’s not like they were doing it right here in the park. Riley wondered what kind of life Mickey had at home. But he had a pretty good idea.

  He wanted to punch Mrs. Fulton right in the mouth.

  The return to earth from Lily’s sexual high came with a crash. She’d just added one more memory to The Place—and this particular memory was one she almost wished she could erase. She couldn’t deny that she’d done what she’d sworn to herself she wouldn’t do under any c
ircumstances—allow Clay Winters back into her heart. But, as she lay naked in the woods with her head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart, she couldn’t deny it had happened.

  She was still trying to decipher the man he was deep inside. Obviously, he wasn’t the hard-ass he wanted everyone to think he was. But he was different from the way he used to be—in ways that seemed dark and unfathomable to her. She didn’t really know him anymore.

  They lay in false intimacy—two people separated by time and experience. For a brief moment they’d been able to pretend. But they were adults, with adult lives that were on intersecting, but not in the least similar, paths.

  Having sex might have felt good, but it didn’t solve any of the issues between them. It just made them more difficult to bring up.

  She wished he would say something.

  Finally, keeping her head where it was because she didn’t want to look him in the eye, she said, “Why did you come back to Glens Crossing?”

  He took a deep breath that lifted her head slightly. He settled his hand on her hip. “Looking for the things I lost, I guess.”

  She didn’t understand. He was the one who’d turned away from what he had here without a backward glance. She wanted to ask him to explain, but she wanted to do it with her clothes on.

  Taking a quick scan to see if she could locate all of her clothing, she was disappointed. The only article within reach without getting up and moving was her bra, which somehow had become tangled with Clay’s boxers.

  She decided to brave the question. “I don’t understand.”

  He breathed deeply. “I always felt the most at home here. I guess I’m just trying to recapture the good moments of my childhood.”

  “And?”

  “And you can never go back.” A cool edge crept into his voice. “I’m not the same person I used to be.”

  “None of us are.” She tried not to think that what they’d just done had been, for him, a last snatch at youth. “We change with the world around us or we break into a thousand pieces.”

  He didn’t say anything further, so she pressed on. “Tell me about yourself—what you’ve been up to these past years.” She felt like she was being noble, the first to step into dangerous territory.

  She felt him shift under her, putting just a bit more space between their bodies. “I was in the service for a long while—overseas.”

  “Really?” She couldn’t help but look at him now; she propped her chin on his chest. “Luke’s an Army Ranger.”

  “I know.”

  “You two keep in touch?” Why wouldn’t Luke have told her that?

  “Not really. I’ve run into him a couple of times.”

  “Oh.” Now that she had a crumb, she was more curious than ever. His being in the service seemed good, safe ground. “What branch of service?”

  “Started in regular army. Then I did some specialty work.”

  “What kind?”

  “I could tell you—”

  “—but then you’d have to kill me.” She laughed. “Luke’s used that on me a hundred times.” She was feeling more at ease. “Ever married?”

  She heard his sharp intake of breath.

  It had just fallen out of her mouth, flowing in the same way it would in a conversation at a class reunion. The question was out there, there was no calling it back.

  She had to remind herself, this wasn’t just any conversation. Clay wasn’t just any man.

  “No.”

  “Ever get close?” The best way to diffuse this was to forge ahead, deal with it like a normal exchange.

  “Never.”

  “No family, then?” God, this was painful. But she’d taken this path, she had to finish it.

  “Jesus Christ, no! I can’t think of anything worse than having kids. Not in this world. Besides, I wouldn’t be any good at it. God spared me that particular misery.” He made it sound like he’d been dealt plenty of other miseries, though.

  Well join the club, buddy. She’d dealt with miseries by the boatload, many of them delivered by Clay’s own hand.

  He withdrew the arm that was around her and laid his hands on his chest. There was more to his action than physical distance. Lily felt a change come over him.

  “You are on the pill….”

  She felt a little spark of anger; now was a fine time to ask. She certainly didn’t see him digging for a condom a few minutes ago. She lied, “Yes, of course.”

  In truth, she hadn’t worried about birth control for years. After trying unsuccessfully to have another child while Riley was a toddler, she’d given up even the thought of birth control.

  “Good.”

  That pretty much dried up her desire for conversing. She was suddenly naked and vulnerable.

  “I have to go.” She rose and started to gather her clothes, making every effort not to look at him as he sat up on the blanket.

  He didn’t try to stop her.

  She was nearly dressed when he spoke again. “Lily.” She froze as she was zipping her shorts; there was something very distant in his voice. “Yes?”

  “This doesn’t change anything. You were right. We’re both different.”

  She didn’t know what she expected him to say. She’d been thinking many similar thoughts herself. But his voicing the words stung like lemon juice on a rug burn.

  “Do you think I want something from you?” she asked, keeping her tone as cool as his.

  “Women always do. Don’t try to make things what they aren’t. I’m not the same. You’re not the same. We can’t try to fool ourselves.”

  A dread chill crept over her. The door that had cracked open briefly, allowing her to think she could understand him, slammed closed. She guessed that was exactly what she had done—fooled herself. Again.

  He didn’t care. He was interested in getting laid.

  He sat there, unconcerned about his own nudity, as she put on her shoes. She didn’t know if he watched her, because she kept her eyes turned away from him.

  “Well,” she said as she started for the path. “Goodbye.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Clay?” She stopped and turned back around. Even as she did it, she cursed herself for being weak.

  “Go home, Lily.” His voice was flat, final.

  She didn’t know if he meant to the cottage on Mill Run Road, or to Chicago. Her pride kept her from asking.

  * * *

  That chill that crept into Lily’s belly when Clay had told her not to fool herself spread like frostbite. By the time she got back home, she was actually shivering. She felt light-headed and her stomach had turned sour.

  She had deluded herself once again. She’d let her body take charge, and no good was going to come of it. She felt stupid and cheap and alone. If only he’d opened up to her, given her the opportunity to understand. But he’d turned so cold, it was as if he had been the wounded one in their last parting. She remembered that argument of fourteen years ago as if it had happened this afternoon:

  “Hey,” Clay said, as Lily arrived at The Place. He walked over to her and hugged her tightly, then gave her a kiss that made her ears ring. “I’m glad you could come.”

  Kissing him had yet to settle into routine for Lily. She still couldn’t believe it. He loved her. Her. She’d been so used to furtive gestures and her own unfulfilled longing that it was going to take some getting used to. After all this time, thinking friendship was all she could ever hope for, he loved her. He’d loved her for six weeks, three days and sixteen hours. He said he’d loved her for far longer than that, but wanted to wait until she finished high school before he let her know. So she’d started counting from the moment he told her.

  No one else knew yet. It was getting harder and harder not to slip in front of Peter. Luckily, Luke was away, he’d enlisted in the army a year ago. Lily doubted she’d have been able to shield her emotions from her brother. He always honed right in on whatever was going on in her mind.

  So this
summer, instead of four of them, their group had been reduced to three. And their time wasn’t as carefree as it once had been. Clay was working at the marina part-time and Lily had a job at Arctic Express, “Frozen treats straight from the North Pole,” for the summer. She planned on commuting to Indiana University in the fall—which somehow had suddenly become next week.

  “Well, you sounded pretty funny on the phone. Is something wrong?” In fact, her heart had started racing with the call and hadn’t slowed since.

  “Oh, God, no!” Clay said, taking her hands. “Everything’s right. Last night was the most incredible moment of my life. I’ve wanted us to be together for so long.” He paused. “I was just worried, did you… are you… okay?”

  “Clay.” She took her hands from his and cupped his face. “I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do.” She looked down for a moment and her cheeks warmed. “As I recall, it was my idea.”

  “I just don’t want you to have anything to regret. Not now. Not when it’s taken us this long to… get together.”

  He was so sweet, just like she knew he would be. Her heart was near to bursting with love for him.

  She slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer, until her heels lifted off the ground.

  “God, I love you,” he said against her ear. “I wish I didn’t have to leave tomorrow.”

  She groaned. “Me, too.” She’d been dreading it all week as she’d watched Mrs. Holt ready the cottage to close it up for fall.

  “I’m going to tell my dad when I get home. I’ve only got one more year before I’m done at Northwestern. He might as well get used to the idea that I’m going to be coming back here and not going on to law school.”

  As much as she wanted to jump at the chance to tell everyone, she reined in her emotions. Douglas Winters was an imposing and formidable man. The only thing more powerful than his wealth was his will. Lily had only met him once. He had done nothing to hide his contempt for this small Indiana town and everyone living here—especially her and Luke. Seems they were an unwanted influence on his son, tarnishing his city polish with their very presence.