Two Roads Home

by Raney, Deborah;

  “How’s come you’re not goin’ in the garage, Mommy?” Sari asked.

  “Don’t you remember? There’s too much junk in there.”

  Despite selling several more pieces to Dallas and Danae, and what they got rid of at the garage sale, the garage was still full of furniture and decorative items that would never fit in this house. If she sold them, it meant she’d given up hope of ever getting out of this house and into a larger one.

  But renting a storage unit for them didn’t make sense either. That would just be one more bill, and who knew if they’d really ever need any of those things again.

  She blew out a sigh, put the Pathfinder in park, and turned off the ignition. She was exhausted just thinking about everything else they had to do before they were really moved in. It took all her energy just to keep her daughters fed and clothed and clean. There was little left over to work on the house, and she couldn’t expect much help from Jesse. If he wasn’t working, he was in school or studying for a class. To make matters worse, she felt like she was coming down with something.

  She unbuckled the car seats and doled out grocery bags. “If you girls can carry in the groceries, Mommy can get these curtains put up before Daddy gets home.”

  An argument ensued over who got to carry what. Corinne herded Sadie and Simone inside and hollered for Sari to close the door behind her.

  They worked together putting groceries away, and then Corinne sent the girls back to their room to play so she could spread things out in the dining room and get the curtains hung. The girls’ shared bedroom was turning out to be a bonus. The girls had become best of friends in just these few weeks, and Corinne couldn’t help but think that even though she and her sisters had complained about it, the bedroom they’d shared as children may have been part of the reason they were so close now.

  The frilly navy drapes Danae had left with the house came down easily, and Corinne quickly hung the colorful floral panels in their place. She stood back to see the effect and smiled. The whole room looked bigger and brighter—and more like home.

  Jesse had won the “the red wall has to go” argument, and they’d painted the whole dining room and kitchen a barely there shade of aqua. She scooted the white-painted hutch a few feet to the left and brought a tall floor lamp from their bedroom to place beside it. The glow it cast, even in daylight, was homey and inviting. Best of all, the whole arrangement looked like her. Like them. Not like Dallas and Danae’s house.

  She hauled a few moving boxes that were still stacked in one corner out to the garage, which opened up the room even more. Then she traded out some dishes between the cupboard and the hutch. The new arrangement brought out the corals and greens in the curtains and pulled everything together.

  One thing led to another, and by the time Jesse pulled in the driveway, she had the room looking like something from her favorite cottage decor blog. She looked at the clock on the stove. She’d only been working for a little over an hour. At this rate, she could have the whole house “tweaked” in a day. Of course, that wasn’t realistic, but things didn’t seem quite as daunting as they had before.

  And best of all, she had a garage full of furniture and decor to “shop” from.

  She heard Jesse’s car on the drive—a warning she’d never gotten at the big house—and she ran to the kitchen window to watch him come up the walk with that lightness she hadn’t seen in his step since they were dating.

  She waited eagerly for him to come in through the front door.

  He rounded the corner, and his reaction was exactly what she was hoping for. He stopped short, drew back, and let out a low “Whoa! Somebody’s been busy.”

  She clapped like a giddy school girl. “What do you think? Honestly.”

  “Babe, it looks great! It looks . . . bigger.”

  “I know! Doesn’t it? And so much brighter.”

  Hearing Jesse’s voice, the girls ran from their room and attacked him, climbing him like a tree in the middle of the living room.

  When he whirled around with Sari on his shoulders, she gasped and pointed at the dining room. “Hey! It looks like our house! Our other house, I mean.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Jesse scooped her up. “Mommy did a good job, didn’t she?”

  “Uh-huh.” Sari nodded. “I like this house the bestest.”

  “Do you really?” Corinne tilted her head, curious. “Why?”

  Sari shrugged. “I dunno. I just do. When’s supper?”

  She ran back to the bedroom without waiting for an answer, subject changed. But the look Jesse gave Corinne was pure triumph.

  She shook a finger playfully at him. “Never mind we can’t fit even half of our stuff in here. Never mind the girls are shoehorned into that bedroom like sardines. Never mind we can’t get one car in the garage, let alone two.”

  But he wasn’t offering sympathy today. “You look like you’re adjusting okay.”

  She didn’t have an answer for that. Because the truth was, she was adjusting. She’d agreed to make a sacrifice, and well, it wouldn’t really be a sacrifice if it was all roses and sunshine, now would it?

  31

  Corinne slipped her sunglasses off the top of her head and put them on before backing out of the driveway. Though September was half over, recent rains had seen to it that the carpet roses remained in full bloom and the trees forming a canopy over their street still wore the full spectrum of greens. She had to smile. Their. She’d begun to think of it as their street. Without even wrinkling her nose.

  They’d been in the house for just over a month now. The chaos of the move had finally subsided, and life had taken on a comforting, crisis-free rhythm.

  She was headed out to the inn, sans kids, and was looking forward to a day helping Mom and Landyn get ready for a teachers event the inn had been rented out for—a celebration luncheon for staff at a local Christian school. Mom was going all out with decorations and a new menu.

  Thankfully, Jesse didn’t have classes today and had volunteered to watch the girls for the day. Well, maybe volunteered was too strong a word. But he hadn’t complained too loudly either.

  The route to the inn was so familiar that the SUV almost went on autopilot as she wove through their quiet neighborhood. Heading out of town on Highway K, she relished the quiet inside the car. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. She’d gotten a later start than she intended and sent a quick text to Landyn through her car’s hands-free system. She was grateful every day that she hadn’t had to give up her beloved Pathfinder.

  Well, not yet anyway. They still had a few years of poverty-level living to go. She immediately checked the thought. Applying the word “poverty” to any part of her life was tantamount to sacrilege. They were blessed. In so many ways. How strange that she’d had to “move down” in the world to recognize that.

  She rounded a curve on the gently winding highway and saw a vehicle stopped on the side of the road ahead. She slowed and checked for oncoming traffic before moving to the left of the center line. But as she got closer, she saw a woman kneeling beside the car. She tapped the brakes and approached slowly.

  The woman appeared to be attempting to change the tire, but dressed in a rather fancy white dress and layers of bracelets, she didn’t exactly look up for the task. Corinne tried to see into the vehicle to determine if there was anyone with her. She could only imagine how frightened she’d be if she had the girls in the car and had to try to fix a flat. Emphasis on try.

  Dad had taught them all how to change a tire when they were teens, and she’d had to relearn it in driver’s ed, but that was many years and many brain cells ago, and the only thing she remembered about it was that the lug nuts required muscles. Probably more muscles than she had these days. Certainly more than the dainty young woman on the side of the road possessed.

  She pulled over behind the vehicle, a sedan about the same color as hers. Checking for traffic, she started to get out of the car but decided it wasn’t wise to leave her car running,
so she turned off the engine, tucked her phone and keys into her jeans pocket and stepped from the car.

  She walked toward the woman, who seemed not to have heard her approaching. She cleared her throat. “Do you need some help there?”

  The woman started and looked up from the tire. She leaned on the crowbar end of the tire iron with one muddy hand and shielded her eyes from the sun with the other. “My tire went flat, and I can’t even get the stupid hubcaps off.”

  Corinne reeled and took a clumsy step backward. She would have recognized that voice anywhere. Michaela Creeve.

  For one terrifying moment, she wondered if this was all a setup, another stunt of this woman who’d made it her mission to disrupt their lives. She braced her knees, ready to turn and dash for her car if necessary. Yet she was afraid doing so might set Michaela off.

  But Michaela stayed on her knees, eyes downcast. Was she on something? But when she looked up again, Corinne saw that tears had carved rivulets through the dust on her face. Tears that seemed genuine.

  She didn’t think Michaela had recognized her yet.

  “Have you called anyone?” Corinne took another step backward, wanting to put as little distance between her and her means of escape as possible.

  “No.” Michaela threw down the tire iron and struggled to her feet. “I let my Triple A expire and I don’t—” She gave a little gasp, and Corinne saw recognition come to her eyes. “You’re—”

  “I’m Corinne.” She stood there, not knowing what else to say.

  The young woman’s head dropped. “Oh, God.”

  Corinne didn’t think it was a prayer. But she was saying prayers of her own. Desperate ones. What should I do, God? Do I need to get out of here? Do I need to call Jesse?

  Strangely, she felt no urgency to flee. “I’m not very mechanical, but can I help you? Is there someone you can call?”

  “No,” she said, a little too quickly. “There’s . . . no one.”

  Corinne thought she heard despair in the response. Jesse had said someone at work told him Michaela’s husband had left her. But she had no one? What would it feel like to be a person who truly had no one to call in a crisis? Was that why she’d attached herself to Jesse?

  “I—I really don’t know enough about it to try to change your tire, but let me call—” She’d been on the verge of saying “let me call Jesse” but something stopped her. Jesse would have had to bring the girls with him, and that seemed like a recipe for trouble.

  “Let me call my dad,” Corinne said more firmly. “He doesn’t live far from here, and he can have it fixed in nothing flat.” She realized her pun as soon as the word “flat” came out, but somehow this didn’t seem the time to point it out and laugh about it.

  Michaela seemed not to notice. “Why are you here? Why did you stop?” She almost looked as if she was afraid of Corinne.

  If that were true . . . oh, how the tables had turned.

  “I didn’t know it was you. Not until you looked up. I’m sorry. But that’s the truth. I just saw—someone who needed help. So I stopped.”

  “So why are you here now? Still.”

  Corinne shrugged. “You needed help.” Oh, brother. Truer words . . .

  Michaela narrowed her eyes. “You don’t get how lucky you are, do you?”

  “I’m sorry?” Oh, God, please show me what to say, what to do. Please give me the right words.

  The woman brushed at a streak of dirt on the hem of her dress. “You have a whole list of people you can call, people who will come running for you.”

  “Just . . . let me call my dad, okay?” She scrolled for his number on her phone and pressed send, not waiting for Michaela’s permission.

  But she didn’t argue. She leaned against the driver’s side door of her car and traced the toe of her sandal in the fine gravel. “Is your dad going to hate me? Your whole family probably hates me.”

  Please pick up, Dad. Please. She started to play dumb. But it seemed she’d been given an opportunity for honesty. “No one is going to hate you, Michaela.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well, it’s true. We . . . we’re not happy with the things you’ve done. You’ve made things very difficult for us. For all my family. I don’t know what we did to deserve that.”

  “You—”

  “Hello? Corinne?”

  “Dad! Hi. Um . . . Hey, can you help me out?” Her voice sounded unnatural even in her own ears.

  “What’s up?”

  Corinne could tell by the caution in his voice that he was curious, maybe even suspicious that something was off. “I’m stopped out here on Highway K, and there’s . . . a woman here with a flat tire. She can’t get the hubcaps off. Would you be able to come and help us out? We’re probably about two miles out . . . maybe three.” She looked around for a landmark. “You know where that old machine shed is? I think it used to be a body shop? I passed that a minute or two ago.”

  “I know the place. . . . Is everything okay, honey?”

  “Yes. I . . . think so.” She glanced at Michaela, who was watching her closely. “I’m not sure how far past the machine shed I am, but it’s right by that outcropping where they blasted the road through, you know . . . just before you get to that school.” She knew she was jabbering a mile a minute, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. “That’d be great if you could come, Dad, and um . . . I’ll wait here with Michaela.”

  “Corinne—” His pause told her he was putting two and two together. “Are you talking about that woman? Honey, are you okay?”

  “Yes. I am. We’ll wait here for you. Thanks, Dad.” She pressed End, hoping she hadn’t scared her dad. Or triggered something in Michaela. She truly didn’t think she was in any danger. But neither did she want to take any chances.

  Still, she hadn’t wanted her dad to be shocked when he got here and realized who it was. She hoped he hadn’t gotten the wrong message from her voice and called the police or something. She slipped her phone into her jeans pocket.

  “Must be nice to have a family to call.”

  “I’m sorry you don’t—” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. And that fact caused a stab of guilt. They’d been so focused on their fear and their . . . fury over the havoc Michaela Creeve had wreaked in their lives—and they’d needed to be, certainly—but she knew nothing about why this young woman was so broken, so damaged. A husband who’d left her . . . but there had to be more to it than that. “I’m sorry you’re . . . alone.”

  Michaela narrowed her eyes. “Are you? Really?”

  “I am. It’s . . . it’s very sad. And I’m sorry for that. No one should be all alone.” She wanted to lecture Michaela with all the biting words she’d rehearsed, all the anger she’d hoped to someday have a chance to spew. But the words seemed strangely unavailable to her. And she knew God was answering her prayer for the right words.

  Sometimes silence was the answer to a prayer for the right words. Thank you for closing my mouth. Perhaps there would be another day to say those things. But that day was not today.

  She looked up the road, watching for her dad’s Highlander. They were only five minutes from the inn, and she knew her father wouldn’t waste any time getting here, but every minute seemed like an eternity.

  The sun was hot overhead, and heat rose up from the surface of the highway as well. If it was anyone else, she would have suggested they wait in her car with the air conditioner running, but she was leery of getting into a vehicle with this woman. Instead, she motioned across the road where a couple of sprawling oaks offered shade. “Why don’t we wait over there . . . get out of the sun.”

  Michaela looked across to the opposite ditch and shrugged, but she looked both ways, then crossed with Corinne.

  Corinne imagined herself telling Jesse about this strange encounter. In her mind, she heard Jesse’s first question. “What was she doing out there?”

  Startled, she heard the question come from her own lips. “Where were you headed?”


  Michaela moved deeper into the shade of the tallest oak tree. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I’m sorry. I . . . didn’t mean to pry. I was just making conversation.”

  “If you must know, I was going out to the Chicory Inn.”

  Her heart stuttered. Did Michaela know the inn belonged to her parents? Willing her voice not to give her away, she took a shallow breath. “Oh? That’s a nice place.”

  “You do the PR for them, huh?” The sly look on her face sent a wave of nausea through Corinne.

  “My parents run the inn.” She forced a smile. She had no doubt Michaela already knew that, but she didn’t want to tip her hand. “Are you . . . staying there tonight?” Over my dead body. She hoped that thought wasn’t prophetic.

  “No. Not staying. I just wanted to see it again. To see what a place like that looks like.”

  Again? Had Michaela been to the inn before? “A place like that?”

  She shrugged. “Jesse always talked about it at work. Telling the guys how your family all gets together there. You don’t get how lucky you are,” she said again.

  “I do get it, Michaela. I know I’m very privileged, very . . . blessed. I don’t deserve anything I have. I know that.” She was trying to say the things she suspected Michaela was thinking. But she meant every word.

  “Kind of funny you’re the one who came along.”

  “Came along?” She wasn’t sure what that meant.

  “On the road.” Michaela waved a thin arm in the direction of the highway. “Just seems like an omen or something that I’m going out to see what it must be like to be you. And here you come. That’s kind of odd, don’t you think?”

  Was she implying that Corinne had followed her? How did someone carry on a conversation with someone as emotionally disturbed as this woman had to be.

  “I know you think I’m pathetic and—”

  “No. Michaela . . . I don’t.” But you’re freaking me out a little, reading my mind like that.

  “You don’t have to pretend. I know what you must think. I’d think the same if the tables were turned. But that’s just it. They’re not. The tables won’t ever be turned. I’ll always be the one who’s on the outside looking in. I’ll always be the one who can’t have what she wants. And girls like you will always be the ones who get the good men, the good kids, the good parents.”