Coming Home to You

by M. K. Stelmack

  “Yeah,” Cal said. “Not much here. Not unless you got something tucked away. No jewelry box with diamond necklaces, eh?” He laughed, overly loud.

  This was the Cal Mel remembered, the one always after the Big Break. Then again, hadn’t he once hoped Daphne would be his One Big Break? “Wouldn’t need to do this if I had that kind of box,” Mel said.

  Cal laughed again, this time not so loud but a little too long. “Something tells me you make a good living without any of this.”

  Exactly what Daphne had said. “Doesn’t hurt to have a backup plan,” Mel said.

  “I hear you,” Cal said, his gaze drifting along the shelves and floor, probably making mental calculations. It came to rest on baby Isaac’s box.

  Mel spoke quietly. “Nothing to sell in that box.”

  “Eh?” Cal adjusted his glasses. “I was actually thinking we could do a fairly quick turnaround on this stuff. Especially on the bigger ticket items. I could use my camera phone and get them up for sale in a few places.”

  “Online?”

  “Not just there.” Cal flipped through cassette tapes in an open box. “I have contacts in the oil field who might want your generator and some of your tools.”

  Mel had thought of that already, except he had focused instead on building his inventory. Or, as Daphne put it, buying junk. “Sounds good. How long do you figure before it’s all emptied?”

  Cal seesawed his hand. “There’s still three more sheds I’d have to check out, but I’d say I could have the salable goods cleared out in a month, six weeks.”

  Twenty-five years of collecting gone in less than two months. About the length of his relationship with Daphne. So easy to lose it all. “All right.” Rather than tiptoeing around it, he said, “What kind of cut do you expect?”

  “What do you think I’m worth?”

  “That’s no way to negotiate,” Mel said.

  Cal shrugged. “I’m not so good anymore at figuring out my worth.”

  “You and Daphne have something in common.”

  Cal flipped through a box of board games. “How’s that?”

  “She accused me of placing more value on these things than her.”

  “She’s a professor. Isn’t she supposed to have more sense than that?”

  Mel appreciated Cal’s loyalty. Camaraderie, pity, appreciation...probably all these positive feelings were filling in for the vacuum left by Daphne. Had she gone back east yet? Three days had passed since the Santa event, after all.

  Let it go, Mel. She’d given up on him, plain and simple.

  “Tell me,” Cal said as they stepped out into the bright late afternoon, “what will you do when all the stuff’s gone?”

  Mel registered the hopeful light in Cal’s expression. His dad wanted to go into business with him. Except then Mel really would be like his dad.

  And he wanted to be somebody else. What had Daphne said about filling a locker to make up for everyone he’d lost?

  Isaac. Seven relationships. His mother. His stepdad.

  How many lockers would it take to make up for losing Daphne?

  He hadn’t lost Cal, who was still holding out for his Big Break. Mel couldn’t find a way to forgive Cal for Isaac, but neither would he stand in his way of scoring another deal.

  “If you want,” Mel said, “you can restock them. As for me, it’s no longer my thing.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  DAPHNE WAS AT Connie’s house, transferring the last box of unsold items from Santa’s workshop into Connie’s car when Cal pulled up in his car.

  “Hello there,” he said and peeked into the boxes. The man truly can’t help himself, Daphne thought.

  “Mel said that I might catch you before you left for the storage units,” he said to Connie, who was busy texting the caterer for her December wedding. He nodded at Daphne. “You haven’t left yet?”

  Undoubtedly, Mel had spoken to him about their breakup. “In the next day or two, I’m hoping.” Setting the RV to rights was taking longer than expected. Then Linda took her to lunch the other day, an RV neighbor invited her to a barbecue, she’d gone to The Big Scoop for one last ice cream, Tom and Linda had both come by to thank her for repairing relations between them, and now Connie had enlisted her help.

  “What can I do for you?” Connie said, pocketing her phone.

  “I arranged with Mel to sell some of the product from his storage units.”

  “What?” Connie said. “He’s going to sell the stuff? Mel said that?”

  Cal held up a clipboard with a thick printout of tables. “I have a few more items I want to inventory, but Mel’s on a job and I don’t have a gate fob. He said you had extras.”

  “I do,” Connie said. “Daphne and I were just going out there now.”

  “Why is Mel selling it now?” Daphne couldn’t help asking.

  Cal lifted his chin and brought her into focus at the bottom of his glasses. “I guess he now has the support he needs.”

  A not-so-subtle jab at her disparagement of Mel’s collection. Now that his secret stash was revealed, was Mel out to prove that his sole reason for amassing five storage units of stuff was entrepreneurial? Daphne didn’t trust that Cal understood how liquidating Mel’s stuff would damage him.

  “Fine by me,” Connie said to Cal. “Meet you there?”

  Cal eyed the boxes. “If you like, I can run them out for you. Save you a trip.”

  “Good idea,” Connie said and reached for a box. “I’ve got a million things coming at me right now.”

  The strangest expression flitted across Cal’s face—part relief, part anticipation. What was he up to? “That’s quite all right, Cal,” Daphne cut in. “Connie and I had to go out there, anyway. I— That is, Mel... Mel has a copy of a book in his storage he said I could have. Sense and Sensibility.” Mel had offered her a copy, and technically he hadn’t withdrawn the offer. “I thought I’d pick it up while we were out there.”

  “If Cal’s going, why doesn’t he give you a ride, Daphne?” Connie said, ever the problem solver.

  “That won’t work,” Cal said. “I got errands afterward that’ll take me—” he gestured to the west “—to the north.”

  “Right, then,” Daphne said quickly, “see you there.”

  Connie grudgingly agreed.

  Cal left ahead of them with a borrowed fob, and unexpectedly Connie tossed Daphne the keys. “I don’t know what that was all about, but if you’re so gung ho to get out there, you drive.”

  “I can’t,” Daphne said automatically.

  “Mel says you’re a quick study. Show me what you got.”

  Connie sat in the passenger seat.

  Daphne darted to Connie’s open window. “No, really. I can’t.”

  Connie grinned. “Alexi and I were reading this pregnancy blog the other day, and apparently that’s what seventy percent of women say just before they start pushing out the baby.”

  No, no, no. She would have to accelerate to one hundred kilometers per hour on the highway and then brake to make a left-hand turn. Would she get an advance green, or would she have to time it right herself? And the traffic circle. No lights, constantly changing traffic, relying on her increasingly poor judgment...

  “Honestly, Connie, I can’t—”

  “You don’t want Cal to be there by himself for long, do you?” Connie said and slipped on her sunglasses.

  Connie was worse than Fran.

  It was absolutely hair-raising. Daphne sped through the playground zone ten kilometers per hour over the speed limit, crawled through the highway stretch in town, unleashing a long horn blast behind her, rode the curb in the traffic circle and then drove the inside lane four complete revolutions to torque up the two seconds of courage required to exit. Then she white-knuckled it down the highway in excess of eighty kilometers per hou
r, and took the dreaded left-hand turn at a dizzying thirty kilometers per hour. She finally slammed on the brakes just before the gate to the storage facility. Connie got out to close the gate, while Daphne pulled to a full and complete stop by Mel’s storage lockers.

  Connie ran up to the car, laughing her guts out. “That was the wickedest ride I’ve ever taken with anyone in forever.”

  Daphne bailed from the car. “I’m never driving again.”

  “How are you getting home, then?”

  “If you don’t drive, how are you getting home?”

  Daphne thought she had made a very good point but Connie opened the back, still giggling. “Chill, sister. You did fine.”

  Sister. You did fine. Two blatant lies. Yet—Daphne took a box and followed her long-legged, ponytail-swinging relative-by-trial-of-fire to the storage shed where Cal was waiting.

  Ten minutes later, they had all the boxes returned to the shed. Cal stood in an open space in the center and began filling in his inventory sheets, glancing up and down as he went. Daphne couldn’t resist asking, “How can you list what’s here when you’re not looking inside the boxes?”

  “I saw a lot already. This storage locker doesn’t have much that’ll sell. I’m only marking down what Mel and I consider marketable.”

  “Does he get to review the list before you remove the items?”

  “You are very concerned about him,” Cal said.

  “I am.”

  “Considering you’re leaving here forever in, what? A few days?”

  “Sooner.”

  “If you’re concerned, then why are you leaving?”

  “I have concerns back home, too.”

  “Well, then.”

  She waited for him to add more. Instead, he continued to check the boxes and fill his tables with who knew what.

  Daphne left to find Connie, who had entered storage locker number three.

  “Oh, there you are,” Connie said. “I was thinking, since the Santa workshop was such a great success, I could do it again in December. Can you spot anything to use? What about these canisters?”

  Daphne felt a little like a teacher at a nursery school. First Cal, now Connie. “Do you have Mel’s permission to take his things?”

  “Yeah, remember? He told us we could take anything we wanted.”

  “That was for the one event. You are talking about something else entirely.”

  “He’s getting rid of it, anyway.”

  “No, he’s selling it. He’s not giving it away. There is a difference, Connie.”

  “I will give him a charitable tax receipt for everything. He still makes money by giving the stuff to me. Sheesh.”

  Daphne bit her lip. It wasn’t any of her business. As Cal had pointed out, she had no claim on Mel; she had relinquished it outside Santa’s workshop. She’d gone from being Santa’s wife to Santa’s sister’s little helper.

  “Canisters like these are a dime a dozen, anyway,” Connie continued. “And, look, paint is chipped off.”

  Daphne couldn’t stand to be in the locker anymore. It was like scratching and tearing away at Mel’s sore and lonely heart. “I’m stepping outside for air.”

  Now rooting through the drawer of a defaced dresser, Connie waved her off. Outside, Daphne squinted against the morning sun. Her eyes adjusted and she spotted Cal across the lane, exiting the first storage unit. In his hands, he held Isaac’s box.

  Daphne gasped. “Where are you going?”

  Cal didn’t stop, just moved faster. “Oh. Mel texted me. I have to run an errand for him.”

  Daphne didn’t like the looks of this one little bit. “Uh-uh. And why are you taking that box?”

  “Mel asked me to. He said it had some family papers in it. He didn’t want the box to get accidently thrown out once we started shuffling everything around.”

  It certainly made sense that Mel would want to make sure his baby brother’s remains didn’t accidently get lost. It also made sense that he wouldn’t tell Cal what the real contents were, given Mel’s animosity toward Cal on the matter. Still...

  Cal opened the trunk of his car and carefully set the box snugly into a tub already padded with Bubble Wrap. A tub snug between two suitcases.

  The pieces snapped together in her mind.

  “You are stealing that box!” Daphne said, running to him.

  “Why would I—”

  “Because you know exactly what’s in that box. You’re taking his baby brother.”

  Cal slammed down the trunk. “I’m taking my son.”

  “He’s not yours to take.”

  “Watch me.” Cal threw open the door to his car. Then, as he pulled away, achingly slow, he added, “Because that’s all you can do.”

  Cal drove down the lane at a crawl, to taunt her. If Cal took this box from Mel, it would destroy him. Mel had given Cal a second chance, opened up his secrets to him, given his father an opportunity to get back on his financial feet, and all Cal planned to do was cheat his own son.

  Daphne ran to get Connie, whom she found on her knees before a pail of fake flowers. “Come on. Cal has taken Isaac’s ashes. He’s leaving. We have to catch him.”

  Connie sat there. “What? What are you talking about?”

  “Get up. Move, woman! We’ve got to stop him. Now!”

  Connie rose like an arthritic cow.

  “Are you being slow on purpose? I said hurry!”

  “What you’re going on about?” Connie said.

  Impatient, Daphne darted outside and ran to the corner to see up the exit lane. Cal’s car was already approaching the gate. Daphne ran back, Connie having just emerged from the storage unit.

  “Whoa,” Connie said, blinking. “It is so bright.”

  “Get in the car,” Daphne said. “He’s at the gate. We can’t lose him.”

  Connie laughed. “Daphne, this isn’t a car chase from a cop show. We can’t just tear after him.”

  “We can’t just do nothing!”

  “Okay. Let’s just think about this. Maybe—”

  Daphne rounded Connie’s car to the driver’s side. The keys were in the ignition, where she’d left them. She got into the driver’s seat and whipped the car into gear.

  “Daphne!” Connie banged on the closed passenger window. “You can’t drive by yourself. Stop. This is illegal. It’s wrong.”

  “No more wrong than what Cal’s doing right now,” Daphne muttered and hit the gas, Connie’s pleas for common sense quickly fading away.

  * * *

  DAPHNE’S HOPE OF catching Cal quickly clanged shut along with the gate Cal passed through. She fumbled for the extra fob in the center console tray. The quarter-size device slipped from her fingers into the gap between the seat and the console.

  Daphne howled in frustration, and shoved her hand—her small, child-size, just perfect thank-you-very-much hand—into the opening and nudged the fob forward. Ahead, Cal’s car rounded the turn at the facility office and serenely proceeded to the main entrance.

  The fob popped free and Daphne steered the car over to the sensor post. She stuck out her arm. Too far away. She threw open the door, leaned forward and was immediately snapped back into position by the seat belt.

  As she finally activated the sensor, shouts rose from the lane. Connie, with her long and swift legs, was running like an Olympic athlete after her.

  The gate gave a metallic click and folded open. “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” Daphne ordered the gate, and once a space wide enough for the subcompact opened up, Daphne shot through. She didn’t wait for it to close behind her. Or for Connie.

  Once clear of the storage facility, she tackled the short stretch of road that led to the highway, the car’s wheels catching on the loose gravel pinging against the undercarriage like ricocheting bullets.

  At the highway,
she automatically turned right, back into Spirit Lake, the way she’d come. If her prediction was correct, Cal would take the highway and head west to his home in British Columbia.

  “Catch him fast,” she told herself.

  A traffic controller yelled at her as she whizzed past some sort of road repair. It hit her that she recognized the woman—Fran had smashed her car during the Tim Hortons accident. The woman ought to know by now that more than a safety vest was needed to avoid accidents.

  The phone in her purse chimed an incoming text. “Go away.”

  At the dreaded traffic circle, Spirit Lake’s own ring of hell, Daphne shot in ahead of a gravel truck and out again. The straightaway of the town stretch lay before her and she picked up speed, eighty now her new sixty.

  Forced to stop at lights, she surveyed the road ahead to identify Cal’s black car. She spotted it cresting the hill, beyond which lay the intersection for the east-west highway. She shuffled with the other vehicles as they pulled away from the lights.

  She’d never catch Cal at this rate, and she couldn’t very well chase him all the way to British Columbia. She didn’t even know where he lived, so she couldn’t drive there and hope to cut him off at the pass. The next few miles, the next few minutes, were all she had.

  She peeked at the speedometer. Heavens, she was only going the speed limit.

  Her only option was to pass all these cars, a terrifying procedure she hadn’t done since she was sixteen.

  No time like the present.

  She pulled out into the opposing lane a bit wildly and hit the gas. She had not realized how much faster you needed to go in order to overtake other vehicles. All the while, oncoming vehicles were also advancing.

  Daphne cleared the car beside her and ducked back into the lane, earning her a long, hard horn blast. She shrieked and sped up, fearing that the vehicle behind her was about to ram her.

  She was now thirty kilometers per hour above the speed limit. More good news awaited as she cleared the hill. Stymied by a long light at the highway junction, cars were only now spilling east and west, and—there!—Cal’s black car was merging right onto the highway. She could catch him. She could.