Heart and Home

by Jennifer Melzer

  The truck jerked and creaked like old box-springs as he navigated through the ruts in the path. “We’re bringing stones out tomorrow to fill in these holes.” He said and then with a great deal of pride he added, “We were out here nearly every night these last few weeks trying to make this thing perfect for the kids.”

  “We?”

  “Oh, the guys in the fire department asked if I’d let them use the farm, but I only agreed if they’d let me help out with some of the exhibits.” We bounded over several ruts, and with every leap I felt light with laughter. “We’re coming up on the first section now. It’ll be on the right.”

  I turned into my window and watched the bare and skeletal trees scrape against the starlit sky. The silver moon crawled out from behind a thick patch of clouds to illuminate a staged section of the field.

  “You’ll probably be able to see it better if you roll the window down,” and before he could finish saying something about it being too cold I rolled the window down and leaned out to take in the spooky scene.

  “Is that a band?”

  “They’re hooked up to strings, and there will be music playing, like the “Monster Mash” and “Werewolves of London”. There’ll be lights, and it’ll actually look like they’re playing a live show, at least to kids anyway.”

  “Wow,” I sat back in my seat, but kept the window down as he moved forward. The cold air felt good against my face, which felt hot ever since he’d kissed me in the parking lot. “You guys really went all out.”

  “It looks much cooler in action.”

  “It’s still pretty cool!”

  “Well, the next scene we’re coming up on will have live actors. It’s supposed to be a scene from the ‘Devil and Daniel Webster’,” he explained. “You have to imagine that there’s a storyteller in the back setting you up for the scene.” He slowed the truck to a stop in front of a clearing in the corn on the left side of the path and rolled down his own window. A gust of cold air shot across the seat and I drew my jacket closer. “Right now there’s only the set-up, but the scene is amazing.”

  “Lean back,” I said, straining to make out the scene.

  Even after he leaned back in the seat, I had a hard time taking in the scene, so I unbuckled my seatbelt and crawled across the seat. I surprised even myself when I fell across the space between him and the steering wheel to hang out his window. The stage was carefully crafted, and I wondered who would be acting out the parts of Daniel Webster and Old Scratch.

  “Why didn’t anyone ever do anything this cool when we were kids?” I drew myself back into the truck and paused on my knees right beside him.

  He searched my face in the dashboard light. “It gets cooler,” he said.

  “I can’t wait.” I settled back into the seat, but didn’t bother with my seatbelt as he crawled toward the next exhibit.

  “At this point, we’re coming up on the Van Tassel party just as Ichabod Crane is leaving. We have a headless horseman that will come galloping up alongside the hayride with a flaming pumpkin in his hands. Ichabod will start to run with the horseman following, and just when they’re far enough for him to disappear in the shadows the horseman drops the pumpkin and rides off, leaving Ichabod’s fate to the imagination.”

  On the right-hand side of the path was a third clearing, this time a carefully crafted house had been painted so that in the lights one would see a party within. “Wow,” I marveled. “When are you giving the rides?”

  “This Friday and Saturday and the next.”

  “Oh good,” I said. “I’d like to come and see it live.”

  “I’d like you to.”

  He drove toward the fourth and final featured spot in the hayride and put the truck in park. “This last one is as silly as the first, but a lot of fun.”

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing right now except a car underneath the sycamore tree, but it’s the entire Front Street Dance Group performing the dance from Thriller. They have the whole date scene planned out and everything.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Oh yeah,” there was excitement in is nod. “They’re all dressed up like zombies. It’s really great. The kids are gonna love it.”

  “It sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun, and you can definitely see you guys put heart and soul into the entire thing.”

  A modest shrug followed my compliment. “I always thought that the activities for kids around here could have been better when we were growing up.”

  “Definitely,” I agreed. I looked out into the field that hunkered in on us from both sides. I couldn’t help the leap of claustrophobia that haunted my memory when I thought about my dream from that morning of being lost in the middle of a cornfield. There’d been something else about that dream as well, but try as I might I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  Troy’s voice cut through the thoughts that carried me away, and brought me back to the moment. “So you think you’ll come out?”

  “Sure, I’d like to,” I nodded. “I’m not leaving until Sunday. Maybe I’ll come over with Becky and her kids or something”

  “Cool.”

  With both of our windows open the air in the cab of the truck was chilly, but it felt good. The sharp smell of dried leaves, feed corn and damp earth filled me with every breath. “So, what’s it like being back here again after all those years away?”

  I returned to my side of the truck, but was still unrestrained so I turned in the seat and crossed my legs casually inside my skirt so I could face him. “Weird,” I admitted. “And nothing like I remember.”

  “Eight years is a long time for a place to change.”

  “Yeah, it is.” Everything changed, I noted silently. Not just the place, but the people as well, and sometimes it all interfered with my earlier perceptions and made my mind feel a little foggy. “It’s like ever since my mom died I’ve been walking around in this weird dream where nothing I remember is really how it seemed.”

  He nodded, his stare frontward and distant. “Time shifts perspective.”

  “True,” I couldn’t take my eyes off of him, the green light from the dash playing on the intense silver-blue of his eyes. “And then what about me being here after all those years?” I wondered. “How has that affected other people and their own perspectives?”

  “I, for one, never thought you’d come back to this place,” he admitted, slowly turning his gaze toward mine. “When I saw you the day after your mom passed I couldn’t believe it was really you. If the circumstances hadn’t been so bleak, I don’t know, I’d say it was like you walked right out of a dream I’d been trying to remember for a long time with no luck.”

  I tilted my head back and shook it just a little. “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, that part of me that liked you in high school fell dormant after I went off to college, and then you went off to college, and I didn’t really think about you much after that.” His right hand curled around the curve of the steering wheel. “After I came back here, I always made it a point to ask your mom how you were, but never seeing you… I don’t know how to explain it.” He paused, that hand tightening as it squeezed the smooth surface, and then relaxing again just before he lowered it to the seat. “It was like you didn’t really exist, almost. Like maybe I’d made you up in my head, so when I saw you again after all that time, it was like a dream.”

  God, those words crawled inside me, melting every part of me like warm butter. “Troy, I honestly don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” he said.

  I reached over and took his hand inside mine, my fingers tracing the back of his knuckles before turning it palm-side up and learning every crack and crevice in his skin. “This is probably gonna sound real sick, but even after she died, I just wanted to get it all over with and get the hell out of here again,” I admitted. “But then something started to change the day of her funeral. I don’t know if maybe I hit my head when I fainted…” I stopped for a moment
to try and put my thoughts into words. “I started to see everything differently. All those people loved and adored my mom, and I felt like they all knew her better than I did, and then there was Becky and you.”

  “I didn’t set out to try and change your perspective.” He curled his fingers in around mine. “I just wanted you to know you aren’t alone during what has probably been one of the hardest times in your life.”

  My eyes stung a little from the truth of that emotion. “Thank you for that,” I said. “I mean it.”

  Night air filled the cab of the truck, and though I was grateful for how fresh and real it was, I couldn’t help but shiver a little inside my jacket. Instinctively he moved to roll up his window, and I did the same. As I returned to my cross-legged position facing him, all I could think about was how much I wanted him to kiss me again and warm me in his arms. I wondered if he would smell as wonderful as he had while we were dancing the night before.

  “Janice, I know you’re going back to the city on Sunday,” he started. “And I know this is probably something crazy I shouldn’t even ask, but I don’t want to even think about you leaving right now.”

  I lifted my hand against his cheek, and while I expected the stubble to feel rough to the touch, it was surprisingly soft. My fingers moved toward his temple and without thinking I tucked his hair behind his ear, never taking my eyes from his face. “You could probably ask me anything right now and I’d say yes.”

  He closed his eyes and pressed his cheek against my palm. Lifting his fingers to curl around mine, his mouth landed a strand of gentle kisses along my fingers. “When you go back to Pittsburgh, promise you won’t forget all about us again.”

  “That’s not too much to ask,” I said.

  I closed my eyes and leaned inward and up just enough that I was able to press my own cheek against his. I moved in closer and kissed the sensitive skin just beside his ear before drawing my lips in toward his. He was waiting for me, and lifted his hand into my hair, tangling fingers in and pulling me closer with such intensity that I felt my own desire tingling in the center of my body. I lifted my leg up over his lap so we could move face to face. With one hand pressed firm against the small of my back, the other still caught up in my hair, he drew my head back while lowering his mouth down into my neck. The sigh that escaped me gave away my weakness, inspiring him to take advantage and explore the other side.

  I breathed him in and noted a definite hint of sandalwood and cedar, mixed with the fresh air from outside made me long to be outdoors with him. Under the moon, no care for the cold, just the two of us with the stars as our witness and the earth beneath our feet.

  He returned his mouth to mine, lips parted, our tongues ready for the velvet dance, and as we both relaxed into the peaceful release of that kiss a thousand thoughts shot through my mind. Primarily in place was the notion that I had never been kissed that way in all my life. I could feel it in every cell of my body, tingling all the way down in my toes, and though he’d kept his hands in gentlemanly places, the passion his touch ignited in me was unlike anything I ever felt.

  I knew right there if it went any further than a kiss I would be lost on my own quest, unable to ever turn back from the path I was sure wasn’t meant for me to follow.

  On the other hand, I wasn’t about to give up the intensity of that kiss. The voice that guided me into the moment and told me to deal with the consequences later kept whispering inside me, “It’s just a kiss.” But just a kiss or not, it was the most incredible kiss I’d ever had, and it was already inspiring a ton of half-baked notions in my head.

  It had been a long time since I’d been with a man, over a year, and even that was nothing to write in my diary about. There was definite electricity between Troy and me, and I could only imagine that if the sparks from a simple kiss were so intense, how might things be if we were to make love?

  And then, as if he were following the lead of a voice all his own, he finished the kiss off with a lingering movement of his lip against my cheek. “I swear this isn’t why I brought you out here.” His voice was a rough whisper that sent shivers through me.

  “I know that.”

  I wasn’t sure why, but from any other man I might have expected such a move, but Troy’s animation while showing off the hayride was genuine and just a little bit childlike. To show him my trust, I leaned inward and kissed him again before resting my head on his shoulder.

  “All I’ve been able to think about is being close to you and holding you,” I admitted, the warmth of an embarrassed confession rushing into my face. “And talking about everything and anything.”

  “We’ve got plenty of time for all of that,” he promised, nuzzling the tip of his nose against my cheek. He didn’t say it, but I sensed he was thinking that as long as I didn’t forget about him or Sonesville once I’d gone back to my life.

  I don’t know how long we sat together like that, curled close, wrapped up in the occasional moment where one kiss just wasn’t enough. When he finally admitted he had a lot of work around the farm he needed to get done in the morning, I buckled into the middle seat and sat content with his arm around me all the way home.

  “Can we do this again tomorrow?” I asked between kisses.

  “We can do anything you like tomorrow,” I felt his grin against my lips.

  “Good,” I drew away. “Call me when you’re finished with all your work.”

  “I will.”

  He drew me into another kiss, and it was five more minutes before we finally said goodnight. He lingered at the curb until I unlocked the door and turned to wave. He lifted his hand in goodbye, and then I slipped inside and closed the door behind me. I locked and pressed my back against the door, feeling the intense agitation of butterflies inside. They hadn’t stopped for hours, and every time I closed my eyes and thought about his kiss they only grew stronger.

  “Janice, Janice,” I sighed, “what are you doing, girl?”

  I started toward the stairs cautiously expecting to see my mother’s ghost standing there at the top again waiting for me. There was nothing, not even the light from her sewing room shed into the hallway, so I climbed the stairs and headed into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. It took forever to finish my routine because as I stood in front of the mirror studying my face I tried to understand what he saw as beautiful.

  It certainly wasn’t the smattering of freckles across the bridge of my nose, the kiss of the faerie folk, my mother called it when I was a kid. By the time I’d reached high school, I’d called it just plain annoying. I’d tried every freckle-removing remedy I could find, but it was no use. They were there to stay. A lot of guys liked red-heads. I tousled fingers through my ginger hair, noticing that the golden, summer highlights had all but faded. Hazel eyes with flecks of gray and green squinted back at me in judgment.

  “Maybe he’s blind,” I decided with a cynical scowl.

  Tucking my hair behind my ear, I left the bathroom and tip-toed toward my bedroom. I snuck a glance over my shoulder at the silent sewing room and wondered if maybe all those times I imagined it all. Stress and grief conjured up images of her, and I saw what I wanted to see. I’d never even got to say goodbye.

  Turning the knob in my hand, I reached for the light-switch before fully opening the door. The room was empty, and with a sigh of relief, I closed the door behind me and stripped out of my clothes. As I was lifting my shirt up over my head, I noted the faint scent of Troy’s cologne mingled with my perfume. I breathed it in and sighed.

  “You are digging yourself a hole,” I whispered with a stern headshake, but the greater part of me didn’t care at that moment about the hole I was digging. As long as Troy was that hole, I wanted to bury myself under the weight of the situation and stew there.

  I switched off the light and crawled into bed, and for the first time since I was a teenager, I curled up with my shirt and fell asleep breathing in what was left of his scent.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It
was the familiar sound of her quiet voice that woke me, and when I say quiet voice, I mean that she deliberately spoke in a hushed tone. For a moment I thought I was still dreaming, suspended in some place and time from my youth. She’d done that often when I was a girl, come into my bedroom to sit at my bedside watching me sleep. She didn’t say much in that quiet voice, but sometimes she would press her lips against my brow and tell me how much she loved me, how proud of me she was and how she knew that no matter what path I chose in life, I would shine.

  As I was crossing the threshold between sleeping and waking I heard her say the words, “and even though the events that led you to this place were painful, this is your path.”

  “Mom?”

  I propped up on my elbow in the bed and searched the shadows of the room for her. I breathed in and smelled the faint lavender scent of her, and the spot just on the edge of my bed felt cold, as if a block of ice had been resting there. I swallowed and sat up fully, remembering Becky’s suggestion about trying to talk to her and find out what she wanted.

  “Mom, if you’re here, it’s okay. I want to see you and hear you.” I waited. “I miss you.”

  Sunlight curled around the edges of my blinds, and when I looked to the clock, I groaned to see it was only 7:30. Under a normal schedule, I would have been up, out the door and half way to work, I realized, even if I was out late the night before. We hadn’t even really been out that late, I sighed and fell back into the bed. I closed my eyes and thought about Troy and our date, momentarily distracted by the daydream.

  “Come on, I want to tell you all about it, Mom,” I admitted as my throat constricted with emotion. “I want to ask you what I should do, if it’s too soon to even worry about the future.”

  There came no reply, and though I was more than certain she really had been there only moments before, no trace was left, and I was alone. I rolled over onto my side and just laid my hand over the spot on the bed where I’d felt her sitting. I closed my eyes against the sting of my tears, but in the end I gave over to them and let myself cry.