Return To You

by Leia Stone

  "Yes. You?"

  "I don't have much interaction with children. But yes, sometimes it happens."

  We look into each other's eyes, and the stare is full of everything we've been holding back. We've held it in for years, knowing it lies dormant, resurrected only by one another.

  "I'm so sorry," Autumn says, a guttural sob escaping her. Her shoulders slump and her head dips.

  I rush in, wrap my arms around her. "I'm sorry too, Autumn. So sorry. I was just a kid. What I said—"

  She shakes her head against my chest. "Please don't go there right now, Owen. I can't take it." She sniffles and wipes her eyes, taking a step back. "Maybe we can talk on your next day off? I'm sure we have an audience right now."

  I look over and Faith darts away from the window.

  I frown. "You're right, we do."

  She smiles ruefully. "My mom is dying to know what happened between us."

  "Do you think you'll ever tell her?"

  Autumn sighs. "Maybe one day."

  "She might take it better than you think."

  "You think you know my mom pretty well, don't you?" A defensive tone creeps into her voice. It's the same tone she uses every time she thinks I'm insinuating I know her mom better than she does.

  "I know her well enough to know she has lightened up a lot over the years,” I tell her.

  Autumn frowns. The conversation is moving away from where I want it to go, and I have to get it back.

  "I have the day off tomorrow. Can we get that coffee?"

  Autumn nods and reaches for the handle to lift the grill, but I get to it first.

  "Let me."

  She steps back and I take care of the fish. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her run her fingers under her eyes one more time, wiping away any evidence of upset.

  "You ready?" I ask, pausing with the tray in my hand.

  She nods and follows me back across the yard and into the house. Halfway through dinner, Faith sets her fork down and says she doesn't feel well.

  "What's wrong?" I ask her, leaning forward. The doctor in me is examining her appearance; the human in me feels the cold whisper of my own fear.

  "Just some nausea, that's all."

  She does look a little pale. "Can I get you anything?" I ask.

  Chemo is a necessary beast. It borders on killing everything good inside of the patient while killing everything bad.

  She pushes away from the table. "I think I'll just go lie down."

  "Faith, hang on." I stand up, coming around the table to stand in front of her. I lift my hand, hovering it in the air in front of her forehead. "May I?"

  She nods, and I place the back side of my hand against her forehead. She's warm, but not hot. Not a real fever, at least not one that's concerning. Chemotherapy side effects are to be expected. Even though my rational doctor brain knows all this, I still feel a trickle of concern.

  "All good," I tell her. It's not a lie. I'm managing her stress level, and I don't have a thermometer. What I know is that she's not burning up.

  She steps around me, but stops when she gets a few feet away. As she turns back around, she looks at Autumn. "Thank you for dinner, hon. I never thought I'd actually like kale."

  Autumn musters a smile, but I can see the worry in her creased forehead. Faith leaves the room and I begin gathering dishes from the table.

  "Why don't you go hang out for a bit and I'll take care of the dishes." Autumn takes them from me.

  I start to protest, but she stops me with a swift shake of her head. "You're clearly exhausted, Owen. And I know you're worried about my mom." She glances in the direction of Faith's bedroom. "I am, too. I'd feel better if you stayed for a while. Just to make sure she doesn't suddenly get a high fever or something."

  Tension I didn't know I'd been holding melts away. I like the idea of staying here for a bit and monitoring Faith.

  "Okay," I agree, leaving the kitchen and going to the living room. I find a baseball game on the TV and sit back in Faith's recliner. I'll give it an hour and then I'll check on her.

  Chapter 11

  Autumn

  After what happened last night with Owen, and then what happened in the back yard with him earlier, I need a little space. That's why, when I finish cleaning up the kitchen from dinner, I don't immediately go to find him in the living room. He's watching baseball. I can hear the booming voices of the announcers.

  I pour myself a glass of white wine from the bottles I bought last week and take it outside. My mom has set up a covered sitting area near the back of the yard. It's not big, just large enough for a love seat and little round coffee table. Potted geraniums flank the love seat, giving it a nice spring feel. Instead of a wall, the backside is a trellis. A vining flower, I'm not sure what kind, grows unrestrained, winding its way through the diamond-shaped holes. The flowers are a brilliant royal purple and they lighten my mood the tiniest bit.

  Glass in hand, I settle into the center of the love seat, tucking my legs underneath me and laying one arm across the back. My mom's house sits at the top of the gently sloping street, and from this spot I can see past her wood fence and out into acres of pinyon pines and juniper trees. Other homes are tucked in among the trees, but from here it looks like nothing but green. The sky is a dark orange and soon the stars will decorate the sky. If I turn off all the lights inside the house, the sky will twinkle spectacularly. Sedona is a certified dark sky community. Light pollution is taken very seriously here, and it shows. It's part of what makes Sedona so special.

  My heart twists as I realize how much I've missed this place.

  When I left here at eighteen, I didn't walk. I ran. I'd had a problem, something bigger than me. A problem I created.

  But I guess it wasn't just me who created the problem. Owen had a hand in it. A pretty big one.

  When I left Sedona, I wasn’t sure where we stood. He showed up in Santa Clara. After my first day of classes, I dragged myself back to my dorm room to find Owen sitting outside my door. Beside him was a guy with dark hair that flopped over his forehead. This person was a stranger to me, and then Owen stood up and turned into a stranger before my eyes.

  I blow out a breath and take a drink.

  I can't even begin to make sense of what happened to us back then. Or what happened last night. What was I thinking? Did the dark shadows that hid us from detection dim my brain also?

  Or was it Owen who took away my common sense?

  Whatever it was, what happened was probably a bad idea. A bad idea that felt so, so good. Not just how Owen made me feel, bringing me a release I'd desperately needed, but having him at all. Being touched by him. Being back in the arms of the man who was my everything. First kiss, first love, first heartbreak, he was all of it.

  I sit quietly, finishing my wine and looking out at the darkened sky. The baseball game must be good. Owen hasn't come to find me, something I hate to admit I was hoping for when I came out here. An uncomfortable feeling unfurls inside me. I don't like that I wanted him to notice my absence, to search for me.

  Getting up from the love seat, I walk inside, depositing my wine glass on the counter beside the sink and stepping into the living room. Owen, sitting back in my mom's chair, is fast asleep. The TV casts a whitish-yellow glow on his face as I walk closer. His lower lip has pulled away from his upper lip, and a heavy, rhythmic breath slips in and out. A wavy lock of his hair tumbles down over his forehead and I’m entranced by how handsome he is.

  Should I let him sleep? I'd hate to wake him. He was exhausted when he arrived and he looks adorable. His broad shoulders take up so much of the chair. He has it reclined; his feet hang off the end. Looking at him now, it's nearly impossible to remember the way his face twisted in an angry mask that day in front of my dorm room.

  "I'm sorry," I whisper, so quietly it's almost soundless.

  Will he ever know how sorry I am? How deeply I grieved my choice? How much I still do?

  I grab a blanket and cover him before clicking off t
he TV and walking to my room, tears running down my cheeks, my arms wrapped around a womb that once held our baby.

  He’s gone when I wake up.

  The blanket I laid over him last night is folded, hanging neatly over the arm of the recliner. A note lies on top of the gray knitted wool.

  A,

  Thank you for letting me sleep. I needed it.

  Coffee at ten.

  O

  "I see you got your note," my mom says, coming up behind me.

  I turn to look at her. She's wearing pajamas, the ones I sent her for Mother's Day two years ago. Pale pink, trimmed in ivory lace. They swim on her.

  She brings a cup of coffee to her lips and blows across the top, eyebrows lifted, waiting for me to respond.

  "Yeah," I say, tucking the note into my palm. "How do you feel?"

  "Fine." She inclines her head at my curled palm. "Did he sleep here?"

  I knew there was no way she was going to let it go.

  I nod. "He fell asleep watching TV and I didn't have the heart to wake him. He was exhausted, and he looked so peaceful."

  Mom turns, walking back to the kitchen, and I do too.

  She pours coffee into a mug for me and hands it over. "Thanks." I take it, adding a little oat milk from the fridge.

  "You know," she says as soon as I lift the cup to my mouth, "last week you wouldn't have let Owen stay and watch TV, let alone allow him to sleep here."

  I nod slowly. "Probably not."

  But then he fingered me on the side of his dad’s house and suddenly I’m feeling forgiving I guess.

  I’m not ready to talk to my mom about Owen yet. I’m still trying to figure it out for myself.

  She sets down her coffee and pushes it across the counter until it's out of her way, then reaches into the cupboard and pulls out the bowl she uses to mix pancakes. It's the same bowl she's been using since I can remember. It's olive green, with a flower decoration. It's hideous, but right now the sight of it is filling me with warmth.

  "Is coffee with him today a date?"

  "No." I shake my head and go to the pantry to retrieve the pancake mix. She looks me in the eye when I hand the box to her, but I look away so I don't have to see the hope nestled there.

  "I know you don't want to tell me what happened between you two, and Lord knows I've hinted enough to both of you that I wouldn't mind having some idea what went on. But even your silence says something, and it's telling me you two hurt each other pretty badly. Am I right?"

  This time, there is no avoiding her gaze without being rude. I sigh. "Yes, Mom. You're right."

  "Has either of you apologized?"

  "I think that's what coffee today is about. Finally saying the things we've been holding in for years." I want to throw up just thinking about it.

  "Hmmm." Mom dumps in the mix without measuring. She adds an egg and milk without measuring the milk. I guess after years of making pancakes, eyeballing becomes its own precise measurement.

  "What?" I ask her, because I know I'm supposed to after she makes a sound like that.

  She removes a whisk and pushes it into the mixture in the bowl. A little puff of white flies into the air. "Maybe that's not all your coffee date is about."

  "Not a date," I remind her.

  "Oh, please." She pauses her whisking to look at me. "I see the way you two look at each other. He caught you before you hit the deck when you saw that needle last week and it took the breath away from both of you when you touched each other. Not to mention how he chased after you."

  I frown and shake my head as I bend down to pull the griddle from the back of a cabinet. "It didn't mean anything," I tell her. If only she knew what happened two nights ago while his dad was just fifteen feet away, passed out in the front seat of her car. We were like two horny teenagers again. Embarrassing. I lay the griddle across two burners on the stove and turn them on.

  Stepping back, I ask, "Mom, do you know if Owen's dad is okay?" I lean one arm on the counter and watch her pour pancake batter onto the griddle. A soft sizzling fills the air, along with the smell of batter.

  She glances at me as she pours, distracted by my question.

  "Mom…" I nod at the griddle. The pancake she has just made is twice the size of the others.

  "Oops," she mouths. She tips the bowls over again, giving the oversized pancake two ears. "Minnie Mouse pancake, like I used to make for you."

  "Thank you," I tell her, smiling. As sweet as her gesture is, it hasn't escaped my attention that she is avoiding my question.

  "Owen's dad?" I press.

  She reaches for a spatula and holds it poised in midair over the pancakes. "I think that's a story for Owen to tell you."

  Shit. My stomach sinks and now I’m wondering if that wasn’t just one night of bad drinking … if it’s every night.

  "Is it bad?"

  She shrugs. "Depends on your definition of bad, I suppose."

  "Well, in your definition of the word, is it bad?"

  She purses her lips and looks at me. "Yes."

  My teeth capture the inside of my cheek. I was afraid of that answer. Owen didn't seem shocked to find his dad passed out.

  "That's sad," I murmur, taking a drink from my coffee because I don't know what else to do or say. My heart hurts for Owen. The only parent Owen has ever known is hurting himself, and in turn, hurting Owen. And Owen takes care of him, because that's what Owen does. He's a caretaker, right down to his core. But who takes care of Owen?

  I blink hard, twice. That is a dangerous thought, one I have no business entertaining.

  I watch her flip pancakes, then get out plates and forks, butter and maple syrup.

  We eat, and talk about the garden she wants to plant. No mention of Owen or his dad, her cancer or my lack of a job. There is no shortage of depressing topics of conversation, but we manage to avoid them all.

  When we're finished, I clean up from breakfast, then go get myself ready for coffee with Owen.

  The not-a-date coffee. The maybe-an-apology coffee. The coffee I thought would never come.

  Here it is.

  If only I felt ready for it.

  Chapter 12

  Owen

  My slick palms slide down the front of my shorts, my eyes trained on the front door of the coffee shop. It's opened three times in the past four minutes. Each time my breath has caught in my throat, and for nothing.

  Autumn's almost ten minutes late. I'm not worried that she won't show. Autumn has plenty to say to me, tucked back behind her cool exterior. This is her time to let it all out.

  Five minutes later, the breath catches in my throat once more, and this time Autumn steps in, eyes sweeping the place. Her gaze lands on me, and I see her throat move as she swallows.

  Seeing her nerves relax my own, but only just slightly.

  I leave my table and go to her. When I reach her, I lean down, and although I mean to give her a hug, something in me takes over and I end up with my lips pressed to her temple.

  Her shoulders stiffen and I pull away. An apology is on my tongue until I see the look in her eyes. Longing and sadness swim in the brown-copper color.

  I don’t know how to act around her, so I clear my throat and take a step away. "Would you like something to drink?" I motion to the blackboard listing their house specialties.

  She shuffles from foot to foot, gathering herself. "Sure," she murmurs, leading the way to the register. She orders first, something that sounds complicated, but the guy behind the counter doesn't bat an eye. I order my plain black coffee and remove my wallet to pay.

  "I can get it," Autumn says, her hand disappearing into her purse.

  "No, I've got it."

  "This isn't a date," she says, her voice sharp around the edges.

  Great, she’s more keyed up than I thought she would be. I’m mentally preparing myself for the verbal ass kicking she’s going to give me.

  "I'm aware," I tell her, my own voice taking on a razor quality. I hand cash over to the barist
a and we move on to the pick-up counter.

  While we wait, Autumn spins the delicate gold bracelet she wears on her wrist. "I'm sorry," she says softly, not looking at me. "For the whole 'not a date' thing back there. My mom said something before I left, and I guess it put me a little on edge."

  Wow, that’s the second time Autumn has apologized to me. She’s grown from the headstrong teenager I once loved. It also shows me how much she cares.

  I nod, hands tucked in my pockets, watching the barista make Autumn's drink. "What did she say to you?"

  Autumn's gaze finds me. "That she thinks today is about more than just us meeting to talk things out."

  She says the words so matter-of-factly, I can't get a read on what her mother's opinion means to her. "Did you tell her she's wrong?" The barista appears in my peripheral vision, sliding Autumn's drink across the smooth stone countertop, mine comes right after it. I pick up hers and hand it to her, before taking mine, then lead her back to the table I sat at to wait for her.

  "Yes. She's stubborn though." The corner of her mouth turns up as she talks about her mom.

  "She certainly is," I agree, taking a sip of my coffee and trying not to wince at the heat.

  "You've grown a lot closer to her since I left," she says, attempting a relaxed tone. She's not fooling me. I know she doesn't like how close I am with her mom.

  "I saw her on and off before I became her doctor—when I came home from U of A to visit my dad, and during summer break."

  Autumn nods. "I guess I'm glad she had you all this time."

  "You don't sound like you mean that."

  Autumn laughs. "I do … sort of." She stirs the little wooden stick around her drink. "I'm just jealous. You know that, right?"

  "I do." I push up the sleeves of my shirt until they're bunched near my elbow. Autumn's gaze falls to my forearms. Her eyes widen as she looks over my tattoos.

  "Those are new," she comments, nodding her head at the ink.