The Long Road Home (These Valley Days, #1)

by Bethany-Kris

  “I could have done without thinking about that weekend today,” Gracen said more to herself than Mimi as they approached the end of the hall.

  Her grandmother only laughed more. “You kept me wild, Gracen.” She peered back up at her granddaughter, smiling even wider as she pointed at her chest under the loose blouse she’d carefully picked from her closet according to the support worker Gracen found in her nan’s room. “Here—my heart.”

  Well, maybe.

  It was good to know that Mimi’s mind could still bring forth things even Gracen wished she could forget about. It made her think that all hope wasn’t lost, and she wouldn’t have to face a day when Mimi looked at her and didn’t see a familiar face.

  Gracen waved at the nurse in standard scrubs who came to the doorway of another resident’s room to find the cause of the commotion in the hallway.

  Surprise, she wanted to say.

  It’s just Mimi.

  “Nothing new to see here,” Gracen said as they passed on by.

  The nurse actually smiled, but jokingly told Mimi, “You behave, okay?”

  “I’ll see,” Mimi returned, never looking sideways.

  Gracen could only shake her head.

  “N-now, what’s the big secret, hmm?” Mimi questioned, settling back into her chair as they exited out of the block’s main doors.

  “Well ...”

  “You better tell me!”

  Her half-hearted warning disappeared past the doors. The lobby beyond, a rec area connected to all the blocks in their current building for the residents to use for a variety of simple pleasures, bustled with activity. As hunting season was approaching the area, it looked like the team responsible for activities had set up an entire forest of fake trees. Christmas trees, to be exact, but they weren’t decorated or plugged in. Instead, they made up a wall of trees at various spots and heights across the room for an employee dressed up with makeshift deer antlers to dart in between.

  All the while, residents armed with Nerf guns took their shots at the deer, occasionally landing the harmless foam bullets on their target.

  Gracen had fully intended to take Mimi on their usual walk around the manor’s beautifully maintained property, but the joy that lit up her grandmother’s face at the sight of the game awaiting her and the other residents proved her initial thought about the activity true. The girl at the front desk mentioned it to Gracen and Malachi during sign-in as an option for the day.

  The terror—or rather, Mimi’s enjoyment of terrorizing the staff in her own special way—had been written all over the Nerf gun hunt.

  This was right up her alley.

  No doubt, Mimi would have taken half a dozen deer down between the trees had her scooter been fully charged and ready when Gracen showed up in her room. For now, her grandmother would have to make do with popping off shots from her wheelchair.

  Mimi shot a conspiratorial grin up at Gracen after watching a resident, an elderly man who used the seat of his walker to sit while taking his shot, miss the hired deer a second time. “Pew, pew.”

  In other words?

  Where’s my gun?

  *

  Gracen’s cheeks hurt from smiling so much, but somehow it stretched wider when Mimi’s searching gaze found her near the snack bar. She waved back to her grandmother before returning to filling the Styrofoam cup with fresh punch sent out by the kitchen. By the time she crossed the rec lobby, Malachi had reloaded Mimi’s gun and sent her in for another hunt.

  Three more employees, who found headband reindeer antlers from the Christmas before shoved in a cabinet, joined in to make it more fun.

  Keeping hold of Mimi’s drink, Gracen slid in beside Malachi as he popped off the cartridge for another gentleman’s rifle.

  “Here, I snagged an extra round,” the old man told Malachi, proudly presenting a third foam dart for him to take.

  “Nice, Gerald,” Malachi returned, no longer concerned about his mask.

  It probably helped that he noticed other visitors wearing one—like she’d said they would—and the nursing staff that also opted to wear masks in common areas and while serving food.

  He popped the bullets in, slammed the cartridge down into the butt of the orange Nerf rifle, and handed it back to Gerald once he pulled the hammer back.

  “It’s too bad some of those guns are hard to load and discharge,” Malachi told her when the support worker helping Gerald pushed his wheelchair closer to the far line of trees.

  “They don’t care if they can get the bullets in or out,” Gracen replied, nodding at her grandmother who aimed every shot very carefully. Lots of staff, and people who were sweet like Malachi, were there to help the residents maintain guns or pull back the hammers before their shots. “And she just wants to shoot.”

  Malachi cracked up with a laugh when Mimi once again hit her target. In the side of the cheek, actually, as the nurse who’d joined in with a pair of reindeer antlers jumped between one taller tree to the next shorter one. Not quickly enough to avoid a rubber tipped foam dart to the face, unfortunately.

  “Ow, Mimi, not the head!”

  “She’s great,” Malachi said to Gracen.

  She leaned into the painted white brick wall of the lobby, smiling once more when Mimi searched the room and found her standing with Malachi. Squinting one eye, her grandmother made it a point to glance between her and the man standing close at her side.

  She’d introduced him as a friend, at first.

  Malachi had been busy getting guns ready and already helping the residents figure out their individual weapons—which had been apparently donated by the high school—when Gracen brought Mimi to the rec room. He’d won Mimi over with laughs as he readied a Nerf gun that looked vaguely like a pistol and shot off five rounds for her to use, but she didn’t think her grandmother had paid much attention to the fact the two seemed to be at the manor together.

  At the time, she’d barely noticed Gracen’s friend comment regarding Malachi, but that could have been because of her excitement to get her gun.

  Gracen had a feeling her grandmother had taken notice now.

  Mimi eyed the two again, and then pointed her Nerf gun between them while raising her left eyebrow in a silent question. Despite being across the room and not saying a single word out loud, Gracen understood what Mimi communicated clearly.

  “Is she threatening to shoot me?” Malachi asked after noticing Mimi’s attention.

  “Watch it. She could probably get you right in the eye.”

  If he got close enough.

  Mimi simply needed the opportunity.

  “I won’t load her gun again,” he warned.

  With a hell of a lot of false bravado.

  Gracen laughed and swatted him lightly in the stomach before pushing off the wall. With her grandmother temporarily distracted by another resident taking her chance with a Nerf gun, Gracen didn’t immediately think to check on Mimi when Malachi grabbed her wrist. He tugged, pulling Gracen close enough that he could lean in to kiss her cheek. Beneath his mask, obviously. His hand slid from her wrist to her palm, and her fingers weaved with his.

  “Thanks,” he murmured.

  “For what?”

  Malachi nodded toward the room. “Asking me here. She’s important to you, I know.”

  More than, really.

  In a way, Mimi was one of the only people in her life that Gracen had left before she would be all alone.

  Malachi’s gaze cut across the room, and his grin widened. “She’s aiming the Nerf gun at me again.”

  Of course, she was.

  Gracen pulled her hand from his, and headed for her grandmother. Malachi didn’t follow but that was only because the gentleman with the walker gestured nearby for help.

  While the darts were gathered for another round by the staff, Mimi sipped the punch Gracen brought her. Quiet, but plainly contemplating in her chair, Mimi continued to watch Malachi while he fixed the resident’s gun.

  “So,” Mimi said,
smacking her lips after a noisy sip, “who’s he really?”

  “I told you, Nan, a friend.”

  “Oh?” Mimi peered back at Gracen. “Or maybe more?”

  “Don’t look too deep into things. I just wanted you to meet him.”

  “He’s more,” her grandmother said with a nod to confirm her beliefs. “You brought him here, so.”

  Gracen only laughed.

  One of the nurses approached with a handful of Nerf darts for Mimi’s gun. She gave Gracen her empty cup as the woman reloaded Mimi’s pistol.

  “But I like him,” Mimi told her.

  Gracen beamed. Joy spread inside her chest like a rocket had lifted off with a giant explosion within her heart. “Yeah, Mimi, I do, too.”

  *

  Malachi moved sideways to move out of the doorway of Mimi’s private room as the meal crew came through with lunch. He’d been terribly patient throughout the morning, engaging Mimi and every person she stopped to introduce him to as Gracen’s friend, and winning her grandmother over even more with every charming smile when he did pull his mask down for it to be seen.

  “I’m gonna go find myself a bottle of water,” he told Gracen.

  “I’ll be here,” she returned with a smile.

  Malachi winked before he disappeared. Mimi didn’t miss it.

  “It’s good he’s cute,” she said.

  Gracen gawked at her grandmother while the lady who brought lunch stifled her laugh by turning her head away. “Mimi.”

  “What?”

  The old woman had the decency to look confused.

  “Men-n could n-not just do that in my day,” her grandmother explained, but the twinkle in her eye and her pleased grin said she’d meant to get the reaction from Gracen that she did.

  “He didn’t do anything,” Gracen argued.

  He didn’t even speak, in fact.

  Mimi rolled her eyes. “Mmhmm.” Then, she beamed at the woman waiting with her tray. “What’s for lunch?”

  “Vegetable soup and fresh rolls today, Mimi,” chirped the shorter of the two women who brought the tray of food into the room. The other waited outside, manning the cart. Also outside every resident's room was their name, so staff could greet them properly, and anything pertinent to know, like their level of need or care. “Are you thinking juice or tea?”

  “Coffee?” Mimi returned.

  “Decaf?” the woman who’s name tag read Kels.

  Mimi scowled. “Why bother?”

  Gracen laughed, standing from one of two recliners that could be spun to face the bed, bay window overlooking the rolling rear grass, or the TV mounted high on the wall. Mimi sat in the other. She adjusted the coffee table so the top lifted high using hidden arms underneath for Mimi’s dining table. “Tea is just fine, right, Mimi?”

  Kels placed the tray and pulled off the cover showcasing the covered bowl, wrapped rolls, crackers, and tiny cup of condiments and spices waiting underneath.

  “You n-need to eat, too,” Mimi said, not bothering to answer about the tea.

  Her choice of drink was obvious.

  Without the rum, now.

  “We will,” Gracen assured her grandmother. “Thanks, Kels.”

  She returned a wave on her way out the door.

  “The cafeteria—”

  “I planned to take Malachi to the take-out for lunch,” Gracen interjected, wanting Mimi to focus on eating and less on whether or not her granddaughter needed to as well. “Burgers and poutines, you know?”

  Mimi peered over at Gracen when she retook her seat in the chair, the frailness in her voice making it shaky when she said, “Phil and Marla love the take-out, too. They n-never visit me.”

  Gracen blinked.

  The names of her dead parents slipped so easily from her grandmother’s lips. Almost as if Mimi didn’t realize she’d used them—and in the present tense, too—like they were still alive. As if she could still pick up the phone and call her son and his wife to complain about their lack of visits to the manor. The numbness settling over Gracen came on too fast and strong for her to shake off, but Mimi had already moved on to the food in front of her like nothing had happened at all.

  In fact, for the five minutes it took for her to realize Malachi had yet to return to the room, her grandmother didn’t mention Gracen’s parents again.

  She knew better than to prod or question Mimi when her recall of events from before the strokes were cloudy at best, but it took Gracen off guard.

  It made it a bit hard to breathe for a second.

  “Where did he go?” Mimi asked, her trembling hand holding a spoon full of soup broth high for her to blow cool. “The water is down-n the hall.”

  Yes, the dispenser for residents or staff to use when needed. Not the vending machine meant for everyone else, however. At least, Mimi remembered Malachi. She didn't drift back into conversation of Gracen’s deceased parents, but that said nothing about Mimi’s thoughts.

  Gracen did her best to hide the tears gathering in her eyes and the quake in her voice when she stood, telling Mimi, “I’ll go find Malachi.”

  Chapter 28

  It never failed to amaze Malachi how the world managed to get a laugh at his expense. He glowered at the glowing front of the vending machine that had stolen his toonie and counted it as a single loonie—a two-dollar coin being counted as a single. He didn’t carry a lot of change to begin with, so the couple of dimes and nickels in his wallet wouldn’t get him to the extra seventy-five cents he now needed to get the bottle of water. Seventy-five cents he wouldn’t have needed in the first damn place had the vending machine counted his first two-dollar coin correctly.

  To make matters worse, the machine appeared like it had seen much better days. If the damn thing was younger than him, he wouldn’t believe it. Even the warning sticker and last machine check date was so old it had faded and peeled beyond recognition.

  There wasn’t an obvious refund option on the buttons, so he could try the toonie again on the off chance the machine might count it correctly the second time.

  Located at the far end of the lobby, he couldn’t even give the machine a good smack without drawing some attention. The juncture between the blocks and the cafeteria for the manor, it seemed like the lobby saw a lot of movement between staff, residents, and guests.

  Malachi wasn’t trying to cause a scene.

  Yet.

  It was hard to believe a fucking machine could test his patience, but here it was. Malachi blamed his stretched-thin nerves on the fact he’d been looking over his shoulder ready to stare into a familiar face from the moment he walked through the front doors of the manor. He did his best to ignore it, and thankfully Gracen hadn’t noticed, so his effort wasn’t for nothing. Although, even as the minutes crawled into hours, he’d not been able to shake the paranoia.

  Like his gut was trying to tell him something.

  “Did it eat your change?” came a voice from behind him.

  “Yeah,” Malachi said, swinging away from the machine in just enough time to see a dirty blonde slide past him. “There’s no change return.”

  “There was. It’s been broken for a long time.”

  She leaned in around the side of the machine, and grabbed the wire trailing out from the back. Giving it a yank, the cord’s plug popped from the socket. Instantly, the coin Malachi had previously shoved into the vending machine clanked down into the slot where the change should return. All it took was her plugging the machine back n again for it to whirl alive once more and for the buttons and counting screen to light up again.

  “Someone must have torn the note off,” the girl said, turning around in her standard scrubs.

  Malachi came face to face with his little sister.

  She smiled wide, face unmasked—not like his—and for a second, clearly didn’t recognize him. If he were honest, it took him a blink or two to put the young woman’s face in front of him on the chubby-cheeked child that had once been his constant shadow. Her eyes were still
the very same, though. A perfect match to his own steel-blue.

  “It only takes exact change, and it miscounts a lot,” she explained, glancing back at the machine.

  Malachi blinked again.

  Speak, he told himself. Say fucking anything.

  Alora turned back around with a beaming smile, but her gaze remained down on the messenger bag slung over her shoulder as she dug inside for something unseen. “If it happens again, just unplug it to get your change out. They really should buy a new one,” she said with a shrug of one shoulder and a dismissive wave of her free hand. “It’s so old they can’t get the parts to fix what’s wrong with the counter and change return, I guess.”

  “Huh.”

  His exclamation came out soft.

  Barely louder than a breath, even.

  At the same time, Alora found whatever she needed in her purse. A pair of car keys, it seemed. She produced the black fob and ring of keys at the same time she glanced back up at him. Maybe it was because she took a moment to really look at him that time, her gaze mapping from the bridge of his nose upward to his eyes, and brows.

  Her eyes narrowed.

  The recognition bloomed.

  Malachi tugged on the bottom of the medical mask to pull it down around his jaw. Being that she didn’t smile back, but he couldn’t stop the curve of his lips all the same. It wasn’t her fault that after all this time and silence—before her private life and church could even be factored in—she didn’t know how to feel about a run in with him.

  “Hey, sissy,” he said.

  Whispered, really.

  For a pause, while time seemed to stand still in the bustling lobby around them, the two didn’t move a single muscle. Not to look away. The keys in her hand didn’t even jingle. Until they did when all at once, Alora swallowed the fob and key ring in a clenched fist that didn’t quite hide the way her hand shook.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she told him quietly.

  Her gaze darted to the side when she said it like she had to look for someone waiting nearby to hear. Who was she worried the invisible spy might take it back to? Malachi didn’t really have to ask when the answer had been a demon chasing him for most of his adult life.