Holiday Homecoming

by Jillian Hart

  Chapter Five

  Ryan took one look at his childhood home and wanted to keep driving right past the unplowed driveway. I’m not ready for this.

  He was in his thirties. If he wasn’t ready now, when would he be? He’d nearly been away from Montana more years than he’d lived here. How could it be that time looped back upon itself so that as he spun the wheel to the right, slipping and sliding on the fresh snow, he saw the past more clearly than the world in front of him?

  The small wooden, open-faced shed that sided the road looked every bit the same. His dad had built it to keep him out of the weather while he waited for the bus as a nervous first grader, with his superhero lunchbox in hand.

  The hill, grown over with sturdy young trees now, that Dad had cleared and they’d used as a sled run during the long winters. The sounds of younger Mia’s delighted screams as she slid down the slope on an inner tube, the low rumble of Dad’s laughter and Mom’s gentle chiming voice as she brought out a thermos of hot chocolate to keep them warm as they played.

  The past haunted him with every turn of the wheels as he slowed to a stop along a private road where a small ranch house with brand-new siding and vinyl windows waited quietly. It wasn’t the same house he remembered. Mom had made improvements over the years. She’d had a front porch built. She always admired the McKaslins’ and could never afford the lumber for him to build her one when he was growing up.

  Snow carpeted it now and clung like vanilla icing to the rails and steps. The large front window was shadowed, but a generous gray plume of smoke rose from the stovepipe. Homey. He grabbed his overnight bag and loped through the snowfall, snapped open the gate that was new and didn’t squeak, and went around to the back door.

  A glad brightness shone from the new bay windows—he’d sent Mom the money for the kitchen remodel as last year’s Christmas present, and now he could see directly into the small kitchen and eating area. There was Mom, dressed in her usual worn jeans and a sweatshirt, her thick hair caught up in dainty clips, a crisp white apron at her waist as she stirred something at the stove.

  Once again, the past and the present merged. Like every day of his childhood, she’d made breakfast at the stove while she hummed her favorite inspirational songs and sipped a cup of coffee laced with hazelnut coffee creamer. Only the two years following Dad’s death, she hadn’t sung once. Not once. Not even in church.

  Slowly, over time, the music had returned to her life. But there had never been another man in this house. Until now.

  Knowing the door was unlocked, as it had been all his life, he turned the handle so he could see the look on Mom’s face as she turned. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened; tears gleamed in the same instant she dropped the spatula on the counter, the eggs forgotten.

  “Ryan!” As if he’d just rescued the world from certain disaster, she ran to him. “You’re home! You’re here. I can’t believe it! Oh, it’s so good to see you!”

  Happiness lit his heart as he dropped his bag, opened wide his arms and hugged his mom to his chest. She was a little thing, wrapping her arms around him, smelling of coffee and shampoo and the lilac lotion she’d always used. Her laughter bubbled through him as she stepped back and studied him with a mother’s keen, knowing gaze.

  “You’re going to be the death of me, young man. I was worried out of my mind, what with this weather and your flight diverted. Yes, I checked with the airport. You could have called and let me know you were alive.”

  Okay, so no matter how old a man was, his mom was always his mom. “I know. I should have called and I meant to, but stuff happened. Are you gonna ground me?”

  “I have half a mind to do it, too!” But her eyes were laughing and crying at the same time. “Oh, son, you look awful. You’re not getting enough sleep. You’re working too hard.”

  “I’ve just got a lot of stuff going on right now—”

  “You stop sending me money, right now. You’re not taking care of yourself. Have you eaten?”

  “Uh, no. Nothing was exactly open, since we drove up through the middle of nowhere.”

  “We?”

  Boy, did Mom jump on that quick, or what? And how was he going to minimize the fallout? He’d tell her the truth, he wasn’t the kind of man to lie to his mother, and then she’d get all excited because he’d spent time with a woman. And not just with any woman, but with her best friend’s daughter. Wasn’t that just what she’d been hoping for all these years? For him to marry one of the nice McKaslin girls?

  Yeah, right. He wasn’t the marrying kind. He’d always suspected it, but Francine had been all the proof he needed. The last thing he wanted was to settle down. Not that Mom was going to understand that. Not in the slightest.

  Look at the way she was practically vibrating with hope. He knew his mom, and she was secretly praying right now, as she retrieved her spatula and rescued the eggs from the frying pan, that he was going to say he’d driven up from Boise with a woman. A special woman.

  And the second he admitted it was Kristin, she’d leap ahead and draw her own conclusions and there was nothing he could do to stop her. It would snowball into this big thing, when the truth was simple. He’d offered her a ride. She’d accepted. That was it. End of story.

  “A stranded traveler I picked up at the airport, that’s all.” He shrugged out of his coat and dropped it on his suitcase. “And before you start getting all crazy, it was one of the McKaslin girls. She was alone and it wasn’t safe for her to spend the night in a strange city.”

  “Oh, I should hope not!” Mom lit up, shining as if she was about to spontaneously emit her own energy field. “Kristin McKaslin. My, my. You know, she’s got some fancy job on the coast. Alice was just saying—”

  As if on cue, the phone rang. Mom lifted the eggs from the pan with her spatula. He was gentleman enough to hold out the platter for her and carry it to the table as she raced for the phone.

  “Oh, Alice! Yes, Ryan told me. Isn’t that something? On the same flight from Seattle?”

  Yep, some things never changed. Mom was an eternal optimist, and he was an affirmed bachelor. How could he be anything else? There were only three chairs at the table, in the nook that had been widened to accommodate the same wooden table Mom had bought after her wedding long ago. It had been refinished and looked as good as new sitting on the braided rug on the polished hardwood floor. Although the room had changed, life went on.

  But the little boy who’d lost what mattered most—his father—and the grown man who watched people die every day in the emergency room in the hospital he was affiliated with had taught him one thing. Nothing in life was guaranteed. The only certain thing was God’s grace, that was all, and getting close to people was a fool’s quest. It was bound to end. People died, and their love went with them, and that was it.

  While his mom chatted with her lifelong best friend, he rescued the bacon and sausage links from the oven and set four slices of bread to toasting. Just as he did when he was a kid. He settled into his chair at the table, facing the windows that looked out over the meadows and forested hills to the giant jagged mountains that were shrouded with clouds.

  He couldn’t say why his heart felt as if it was shattering all over again, and the pain was blinding. He blinked hard as he gulped down orange juice, the past like a ghost standing behind him, and the future as hard to see through as the clouds at the horizon, bringing more snow.

  Over the sounds of Dad and the brothers-in-law settling into the football game, Kristin scooped the newest addition to the family out of the playpen and into her arms. Four-month-old Caitlin with her curls of gold gave a final outcry before settling against Kristin’s shoulder with a whimper of relief.

  “You just wanted to be held, huh?”

  As if in agreement, the infant relaxed in Kristin’s arms. So precious. She brushed a hand over Caitlin’s soft, soft hair. So fine and downy it was like touching the most heavenly cloud. With the drowsy baby falling back to sleep, Kristin rocked her gen
tly from side to side, beneath the new collection of framed pictures Mom had started on the wall.

  Photos of the six grandchildren filled the space between the living room and kitchen, from newborn to christening to every stage along the way. The newest picture of Kirby’s son, Michael, dressed up like a fighter pilot for the church’s Harvest festival. Karen’s two girls, Allie in a ballerina’s costume and one-year-old Anna in a bunny suit. Michelle’s Emily taking her first steps captured forever with Dad holding out his strong, capable hands for her to toddle to.

  It was what was missing that made her eyes burn. If Allison had lived, she would have married, and her children would be on this wall, too. Sadness gathered inside her until she had to turn away.

  If Allison had lived, then Kristin’s life would have been different, too. Mom and Dad wouldn’t have fallen away from one another in their grief. The family would have remained whole. And Kristin would have been different, too.

  She closed her eyes and turned away, willing down the memory of taking a calculus test one moment and the next having her safe world torn to shreds as the principal interrupted to pull her out of class. Her dad was waiting in the office to tell her of her sister’s death.

  “Oh, did you see the latest addition?” Mom appeared around the corner, her full apron smudged with flour from the rolls she’d been making. Wiping her hands on a dish towel, she gestured toward a golden framed photograph. “Caitlin’s christening. It was a shame you missed it.”

  Kristin knew her mom didn’t understand. Over half of the company’s business rode on their clients’ successes at the trade shows. Her boss had refused her request for a day off flat out. “I’m here now. Do you need more help in the kitchen?”

  “Don’t change the subject, young lady.” Mom gave her sternest look, but it faded away as she studied the pictures. “I expect your little one to be on this wall one day. I understand you like having a career, it must be exciting to live in a big city, but your roots are here, Kristin. Your family is here.”

  It was an old argument. One that hurt. What did she say to her mother? That marriage and family hadn’t made her mother happy? She couldn’t say the words. Couldn’t stand the distance between her parents and knew there was no way for her to fix it. That it couldn’t be fixed.

  “Gramma’s asking for you, Mom.” Kendra came to the rescue, breezing in to sweep her baby daughter from Kristin’s arms. “Oh, she likes her auntie Kristin.”

  “The feeling’s mutual.” Kristin stroked Caitlin’s soft cheek, careful not to wake the drowsing infant. “She’s pretty great.”

  “Cam and I think so, too.” Kendra beamed with the quiet glow of happiness, and Kristin wondered about that as she watched her mom and sister retreat to the warm kitchen, where the women in the family gathered.

  This was her favorite part of the holidays. In the flurry of activity in preparing the meal, for one moment, the family felt whole. Undiminished. Michelle laughing as she teased Karen about her latest shoe faux pas, Kirby whipping the potatoes and stopping midway through to search through the kitchen for more butter. Karen teasing Michelle back when a carrot coin rolled off the center island and onto her shoe. Kendra, with babe on her hip, digging the condiments out of the back of the fridge. Gramma bemoaning the lumps in her gravy that didn’t exist, interspersed with the disorganized discussion of the latest family news.

  Dad ambled into the women’s domain in his only good red-and-black flannel shirt and brown jeans. Quiet as always, he searched through the drawers for the carving knife.

  “It’s right there on the counter.” Mom’s tight words broke the magic, and the cheer faded.

  Dad picked up the knife and went to work slicing the waiting turkey, and Gramma tried to heal the awkward silence by complimenting Mom on the perfect turkey.

  Kristin took the covered wrap off the fruit salad and sunk a serving spoon into the sweet froth of whipped cream, sliced apples and bananas and carried it and the serving dish of jellied cranberries to the table. She wondered how Ryan was faring. Better, she hoped.

  Images of him whisked through her mind. Was his first Thanksgiving at home since he’d graduated as happy as it should be? Surely this hardworking man with values and integrity, who had undoubtedly saved the accident victim’s life, deserved one good day. At the very least.

  She set the bottles and bowl on the table. Why was she thinking about Ryan? She liked him. She wished him well. But it wasn’t as if she’d see him again. Why would she? Their paths would never cross again.

  She couldn’t say why that made her so sad, but it did. It felt like another loss that didn’t fade but lingered as she returned to the kitchen, where the strain between her mom and dad was as unmistakable as the floor at her feet.

  He was suffocating as sure as if his lungs had collapsed. Ryan took a long pull of the cherry soda Mom had dug out of the back of the refrigerator, from behind her bowls of salad and cranberry jelly and the covered plates of homemade fudge. The bubbly sweetness chased down his throat but didn’t help him breathe any better.

  Snow was starting to tumble from a peaceful sky, falling in a hush. With the pop of the woodstove and squeak and bang of the open door and Mom’s cheerful hum as she checked on the turkey in the oven, he couldn’t hear the quiet reverence that came. But it was there just the same. The world quieted, as if just to hear the fragile tap, tap, tap of snowflakes on the earth.

  Heaven must be like this, Dad had said once, on their early Sunday-morning forays into the wilderness. Ryan nudged aside the ruffled edge of the frilly curtains to gaze out at the tree line.

  If he looked hard enough there was the past, alive within him, as he remembered the cold creeping through the layers of wool Mom had wrapped him up in. Snow crept over the top of his high boots to wet his pant legs tucked inside, and melted as it slid down to his ankle.

  There was a cadence to the falling snow, and he, like nature surrounding him, leaned forward, holding his breath to hear it. Feel it. The reverence of the hills, as if relaxing to accept their mantle of snow. The mountains rising like awed worshipers, their faces lost in the mist and clouds.

  Everywhere, the land felt at peace, as if at prayer, and Ryan had felt it, too. The stroke of God’s hand in everything, and then Dad’s low baritone, rumbling low out of respect for the Maker, as he leaned close.

  “I’ve always thought that heaven would feel like this, solemn and awesome and so beautiful it makes your eyes water to look at it.”

  Ryan cleared his throat, looking away, setting the half-empty soda can on the edge of the counter. Too many emotions. He’d worked most of his life not to remember. Not to feel. Like ice cracking beneath the snow, pain splintered inside his chest.

  “Oh, that was Alice.” Mom set down the cordless handset he hadn’t noticed she’d even picked up. “She loved my recipe for cranberry jelly. She said it was much better than the recipe she’d used last year. It was the hit of their Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “We had a bet going. I told her if she didn’t just love it, then I’d treat her to lunch. It’s a new recipe I found in one of those fancy cooking magazines, and oh, it’s a winner.” Mom beamed with a steady happiness as she brushed lustrous strands of hair out of her eyes. “Oh, it’s so good to see you standing in my kitchen.”

  “It’s kinda good to be here, too.” Okay, here it came. The mushy part. He braced himself. He wasn’t one to let his defenses down. He opened his arms and let her walk into them. Let her squeeze him in a bear hug. Warmth glowed inside him, melting away the pain. But love came with its own pain.

  “I love my little mom,” he said to make her laugh.

  She stepped away to look up at him. “How did my little boy get to be so big?”

  “Remember those vitamins you made me eat with breakfast every morning? They worked.”

  “I see that.” Tears gleamed in her eyes, eyes that were wise and kind and a beautiful hazel-green. In them, he saw her pleasure at having him home, and noticed something
else. No more shadows. She was finally at peace.

  She’d worked so hard for them. For him.

  Time looped back on itself, in the fluid way of memories, and he saw the kitchen of his youth. The yellowed linoleum floors and the ancient cabinet doors that wouldn’t stay shut but would swing open whenever the mood suited them. The red countertop worn white in places from several decades of wipe downs and dripping dishes drying in a rack beneath the window. Mom, hollow-eyed with exhaustion as she worked, humming away to make their meager Thanksgiving Day meal a feast.

  It wasn’t the poverty that had ever bothered him. It wasn’t the odd jobs he worked for the neighbors to bring in cash to help out, before he’d been old enough to be hired on at the grocery. None of that really mattered. It was the deep yearning for his dad.

  If only he could have one more day. Just one more day of wading through the knee-deep snow and listening to the music of snowfall alongside the man who’d always been so tall, seemed so big and strong and everything good in a man. Invincible.

  I miss you, Dad.

  The ice shards in his chest seemed to splinter into more sharp blades stabbing into his heart. If he let it, it was a pain that could drown him until there was nothing else. He fought it by shutting off his feelings.

  “My, it gives me a start to see you standing there.” Mom had turned from checking on the progress of something on the stove, one hand clutching the neck of her shirt. “You look so much like him. Like your father. It’s takes me back to when he was alive and standing in my kitchen. Right there at the window, like you are now…”

  Don’t go there, Mom. The thought blared in his mind, but he didn’t dare open his mouth to speak. He couldn’t take any more memories.

  “…with shoulders so broad and strong, I felt as if he could handle anything. That nothing would ever hurt me as long as he was there.” Mom’s words resounded with true love, like a candlelight hymn, but they bore wounds in his heart as surely as if they’d been bullets blasting into his flesh.