Heart and Home

by Jennifer Melzer

  “Yeah,” she followed my gaze into the dining room where her youngest son had managed to hoist himself onto Troy’s lap. “Definitely a good quality, I mean if you ever wanted to have kids.”

  “I keep forgetting you have already married us off in your head,” I laughed. “But in all honesty, I don’t think that thought is on either one of our minds, and it’s probably better if we keep it that way for a while.”

  She shrugged, “You never know. I know you’ve been pretty career minded, but what comes after career for you? Have you ever thought you might want to get married, start a family?”

  I shook my head and pressed my back into the counter behind me. Crossing my arms over my chest, I clamped my lips a little tighter before I said, “I never really thought about it at all. I always just assumed those things would present themselves when it was time for me to think about them.”

  “Hello?” she waved her hands in front of me.

  I started to laugh at her, “Just stop it, you!”

  “It’s a guilty fault,” she admitted. “I just can’t stand to see two people I know belong together beating around the bush about it, but I’ll back off a little.”

  “Thank you,” I was still laughing at her. “But seriously, thanks for having us over. I’m having a good time, and I think he is too.”

  “Yeah, well, I have a feeling it wouldn’t matter if you guys were sitting at the dentist. He’d be having a good time just so long as you were there.” She took the dishes I’d set down on the counter and placed them in the rising, soapy water. “I swear he hasn’t taken his eyes off you all night.”

  “That’s not entirely true,” my face flushed pink with warmth. “He makes eye contact with Marty every time they talk.”

  “There is that,” she chuckled. “So, onto other matters while we have a minute to ourselves, did you find anything else out about the ghost situation?”

  “No, I didn’t get much of a chance to do anymore research today, what with him coming over for lunch, and then having to take those bags of clothing up to the women’s shelter. I did find this forum for people who have had similar experiences to mine.”

  “Did you post?”

  I shook my head, “Not yet. I read a few of them though, strange stories.” I shrugged off a chill as it began to move through me. “Truth is I still feel a little weird about it all, like maybe I’m just crazy, or something.”

  Becky switched off the water, and then turned in to face me. “You’re not crazy, Janice.”

  I lowered my eyes toward the bubbles in the sink and sheepishly admitted, “I tried to talk to her this morning.” I paused as my throat constricted with emotion and waited until it passed before I added, “I tried to reach out and let her know I was listening, but nothing happened.”

  A frown stretched the corners of her mouth, and as if she knew exactly what I needed, she leaned in and gave me a hug, squeezing my shoulders gently. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  “I hope so,” I nodded. “I hate to think that she’s trying to tell me something and I can’t hear her. It gives me the shivers.”

  “Mama, I wanna have dessert now,” her oldest son came barreling into the kitchen and threw his arms around Becky’s legs.

  She moved away to lift him up, and I admired her from the side. I really hadn’t ever put any thought into getting married or having kids of my own one day. It was always about my career, which numbed me into a false sense of satisfaction. I realized that when we’d been out with Becky’s friends on Tuesday night. I was writing for a living, and I really loved it, but sometimes it really did overtake my entire life. I don’t think I’d even realized just how much I was missing until my mom’s death forced me to slow down and take a look around me.

  “I made cheesecake,” she grinned over at me. “With home-made strawberry topping that I froze during the summer for just such an occasion.”

  “I like strawberries,” Galen said.

  Becky nuzzled her nose against his, her grin more precious than anything I’d ever seen. “I know you do, now why don’t you go sit down in your seat and I’ll be right out.” She lowered him to the floor and he raced back into the dining room.

  After desert, Becky put the boys down for bed and then we played cards. More than playing though, we talked, and the games kept getting put on hold while we’d get caught up in conversations about old teachers and future vacation plans. It was just going on ten o’clock when I noticed Troy trying desperately to hide a yawn.

  “Last round,” I noted. “Poor Troy was up two hours before the sun this morning. I have a feeling he’s going to nod off into his hand if I don’t let him go home and go to bed.”

  He reached for his iced tea and took a sip. “I’m used to it. I’ll have to get up and do it again tomorrow,” he said. “It’s that time of year.”

  “The harvest,” Marty noted. “Are you doing most of the work on your own now?”

  “No way,” he shook his head. “I’ve got my cousin and a couple of hands I hire part time that work spring through summer and then help with the harvest in the fall. There’s no way I could maintain it all myself.”

  “It’s a lot of work,” Marty acknowledged.

  “Speaking of, you guys ought to bring your kids over to the hayride tomorrow night,” he winked over at me, and I grinned. “We’re having it over at the farm this year, and it’s really gonna be some show.”

  Becky leaned into the table, holding the mug of hot tea she’d just made herself. “I didn’t know that started tomorrow night.”

  “I’m gonna go check it out,” I said. “Maybe you and Marty want to bring the kids and tagalong?”

  “We could do that.”

  “Sure,” Marty agreed.

  When our final game fizzled out it was just past ten, and by ten-thirty we were clearing up the cards and saying goodnight to Becky and Marty. Troy helped me into my coat before he turned his attention to Becky and Marty. “Thank you for having us over, Becky. I had a good time.”

  “Me too,” I chimed in.

  “Anytime,” she shrugged as Marty slipped in behind her and braced her shoulders affectionately. “If Janice didn’t live so far away right now, I’d say let’s do it again next Thursday.”

  I pinched my lips tightly together before working up the courage to promise, “There will be other Thursdays. Come on, there are a whole slew of holidays coming up in the next six weeks that I won’t be able to leave my dad alone on.”

  “I’m gonna hold you to that,” she promised, leaning in to hug me.

  “You and me both,” Troy added.

  They saw us out into the chilly evening. Troy rested his arm across my shoulders as we walked toward his truck, and then he opened the passenger’s side door. I climbed inside, while Becky and Marty stood on their doorstep watching us leave. When I looked out the window at her, even from the curb I thought I noted a weary sadness about her.

  While I wasn’t sure what brought it on, I felt a little sad myself. I hadn’t had a friend like Becky in years. I still talked to Erika through email when we actually had time to respond to each other, but everyone in Pittsburgh was an acquaintance or a colleague. I was sure that there was some lesson, some stark truth about how I was being punished for isolating myself in the city. I mean, really, there was no denying I hadn’t dated anyone like Troy all my life, so there was no sense in even dwelling on that aspect of things anymore. I drew my coat closer to me, despite the evident heat blowing from the vents, and tried to warm away the cold I felt inside.

  Earlier in the week I would have felt sure that once I was back in Pittsburgh, back to work and slipping into my old routines, it would be easy enough to just forget Sonesville and move on again. But the truth of the matter was that for the first time since I’d left for college I was starting to think maybe the city wasn’t the right place for me. After all, I took an extra week off of work out of concern for my dad, and I hadn’t spent much time taking care of him at all. I’d been wit
h Becky and Troy, and deny it as I might try, I felt comfortable with the two of them in a way I couldn’t explain.

  “You’re quiet,” Troy noticed.

  “I was just thinking.”

  I was caught off guard when he asked, “Should I be afraid to ask?”

  “Oh,” I glanced across the car at his profile, which was highlighted by the passage of an oncoming car. “It was just Becky,” I said. “She looked so sad when we left. It broke my heart a little.”

  “She seemed real happy that we came over,” he noted.

  “Yeah, she was,” I nodded. “It’s just how close we’ve gotten this last week. It’s almost unreal.”

  “The universe works in mysterious ways.”

  “It seems right now like it’s working double-time against me,” I muttered, glancing out the window at the blur of street stretching alongside us.

  “You’re still thinking about leaving on Sunday,” he surmised.

  I watched the air freshener sway against the blowing heater and reflect the glow from the dashboard lights. I couldn’t see his eyes in the dark, but I felt his stare on me. “Maybe just a little,” my admission was a stubborn one, and I hugged my arms tighter against my chest. “I mean, you don’t spend your whole life dying to get away from this place only to come back for two weeks and have a complete change of heart.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I don’t know, maybe I’m just confused and frustrated because I know I have to go back, but there’s a greater part of me than I ever expected that doesn’t want to.”

  “Janice, your mother just passed away,” his voice was quiet, thoughtful as though it took a great deal of courage for him to speak up and remind me of the obvious. “Now, I am no psychologist, hell I don’t even watch that Dr. Phil guy, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but it just seems like making any kind of rash decision so quickly after losing someone so close to you is a bad idea.”

  I knew he was right, the tingling of truth pricked at the nerves in my spine. “So,” I reached across the truck and rested my hand on the top of his thigh, “if what you’re saying is true, letting myself fall for you should be out of the question.”

  “Well,” his gaze drifted momentarily downward, and he cleared his throat. “Theoretically, you’re probably right. Grief is a very powerful emotion.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “It can confuse everything you think and feel.”

  Hadn’t I spent the hours before breakfast that morning sobbing in bed?

  “So, you think that maybe my sudden change of heart about this place… you think it’s because of my mom dying?”

  “I think that…” he hesitated as we drew up to a red light. “I think it would be a bad idea to come rushing back here without giving yourself a little more time to think things through.” The light changed, and the truck sluggishly moved forward. “Don’t get me wrong, I can see how close you and Becky have become, and I certainly wouldn’t complain if I knew we didn’t have just two more days to really make a lasting impression on each other, but…”

  “But staying here now really wouldn’t have anything to do with you or Becky,” I said quietly, knowing that even if that wasn’t what he was going to say, it was the truth.

  “You might even grow to resent us,” he said.

  And while I couldn’t imagine it even for a second, the thought alone was heart wrenching enough. I withdrew my hand and glanced over my shoulder at the abandoned Standard building. The sign suddenly seemed sadder than it ever had. I remembered what Katy said to me at breakfast two days earlier and felt an eerie prickling sensation roll down the back of my neck.

  I sat back in my seat and tried not to let my emotions get the best of me. I hated the truth; the fact that I was so vulnerable and confused was so unlike me I didn’t know how to deal with it. Even the things I was sure were right and made sense suddenly seemed clouded and strange.

  I watched the houses run together as he crawled closer to my street and the end of our date, and even if it wasn’t good for me emotionally I didn’t want our date or our time together to end. But what could I say? After everything he’d laid out logically on the table for me, I really didn’t think he’d let me push my luck too far. Maybe that was best. Instead of saying anything at all, I listened to the quiet hum of the radio under the blowing heater and tried to identify the song. He was just turning onto my street when I finally realized it was Santana’s “Black Magic Woman.”

  “I hope I didn’t keep you out too late,” I said just as he was pulling up to the curb.

  “No,” he insisted eagerly, putting the truck in park. “No, not at all. I was a little surprised when you were ready to call it a night.”

  “You kept hiding your yawns. I figured it was time to put you to bed.”

  I thought I detected the hint of a rare grin in the streetlight. “I don’t sleep enough, really,” he admitted. “So that was probably the nicest thing anyone has ever done on my behalf.”

  “Well, I’d invite you in and offer to tuck you in personally, but uh…” I glanced over my shoulder at the house behind me. “Being a guest in my parents’ home puts a damper on that sort of thing.”

  “I imagine it would.” He tilted his head to look at me, the playful shine in his eyes complimented by the full revelation of his hinted grin. “I actually have my own apartment above the garage,” he said. “Keeps me from having to explain myself when I come home at four a.m., not that I do that often.”

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to tempt me into begging you to take me home with you.”

  “No ma’am,” he tried to soften that grin into a more sober expression. He reached across the space between us and ran his thumb down the curve of my cheek. “As much as I would love to take you home with me tonight, I made a solemn promise to do everything in my power to make sure I didn’t hurt you.”

  I swallowed and reached for the first witty comment that came to mind, “And how do you know I’m not into that whole pain thing?”

  He sucked his breath in through his teeth and tilted his head back against the window behind him. “I can already tell I’m gonna have my hands full with you. I’m gonna need all the sleep I can get just to stay on my toes.”

  I stopped myself from going too far and instead said “Well, it’s gonna be a little hard for me to tuck you in from here, but I hope you’ll at least think about me as you’re crawling into bed all alone.”

  He took my hand and drew me sideways in the seat so we were closer than before. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’ve thought about you every night that I’ve crawled into bed alone this last week.”

  “Well then,” I released a breath. “I’d say we’re even, and practically already sleeping together.”

  He chuckled, and then leaned forward to brush a lock of hair behind my ear. His smiling eyes searched my face as though he was memorizing every detail, and then he returned his gaze to mine. Our goodnight kiss started there, and for all it was worth to try and get Troy home and into bed at a decent hour, it didn’t end for nearly forty minutes. When I finally slipped out of the truck with a wink and a promise to see him in my dreams, it was going on Midnight.

  I crept quietly into the house and listened as his truck pulled away. Dad left the light in the living room on, and I stood there in the center of the room trying to feel its energy. I had sleepovers in that living room, birthday parties and holidays with my family. For the first eighteen years of my life it was my haven, just like the upstairs bathroom was my sanctuary and my bedroom a fortress against parental invasion.

  But now… I turned again toward the unfamiliar book case that arrived sometime after I’d gone off to college, and new furniture that replaced the cozy, petite floral patterned set that always reminded me of a Victorian tea party. She’d painted over the pale mauve with a brilliant yellow that lit up the room. I could still see everything the way it was before, but even if they put it
all back that house was no longer my home.

  I tried to think about Sonesville in the same way. Yes, it was a different town now, maybe it even grew a little bigger, but it wasn’t mine any longer. On the other hand, I realized as I slipped into my bedroom to get dressed for bed, I’d never exactly allowed Sonesville to be my town. Did that mean maybe I was finally growing into it?

  I wanted to literally throw up my arms and surrender to whatever was going on. Troy said the universe worked in mysterious ways, and with the strange ghostly presence in the home coupled with my new friendship with Becky clouding my judgment I already had it up to my neck with mystery.

  I just wanted an answer, and while I couldn’t exactly see it outright, I had a feeling that was exactly what my mother was trying to give me.

  In the dark I curled close to my pillow and smiled when I thought about how numb my lips felt when we’d finally said goodnight. That’s when you know you’re on to a good thing, I decided. When you can’t stop kissing each other and your lips are numb and tingling when you finally do break away; that’s when you’re on to a very good thing.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Typical Northeastern Pennsylvania fall, Friday started out rainy and dark, and while I finished packing away the last of my mom’s clothing for the church clothing drive, I feared the rain wouldn’t let up in time for the hayride. I equated the hayride with seeing Troy, and was afraid I wouldn’t get to see him at all, but he surprised me again by showing up around lunchtime, this time with homemade lasagna from his mom.

  “What, is she trying to do? Fatten me up?” I sat down across from him at the table and tucked my leg up under me for some height.

  He buttered a piece of bread. “Honestly, I have no idea what she’s up to. If I told you even half of the stuff she’s been going on about these last couple days, you’d be halfway back to Pittsburgh with no thoughts of turning back.”