Return to Sender

by Ashlyn Kane

  The kid nodded his head with a shy smile and disappeared back into the house, leaving the door open behind him.

  “Who’s at the door, baby?” Jonah heard from inside the house. “Let’s go see, come on.”

  Once you got past the hair color, Deanna Carlisle hadn’t changed much since high school. She was still tall and beautiful, with a friendly, open face and sparkling blue eyes. “Jonah!” she exclaimed. There was never any doubt that her surprise and delight were genuine. She put the little boy down and stepped forward to hug him.

  Jonah let her; he hadn’t had nearly enough hugs in the past week, and it was good to see an old friend again. “God, you did grow up just right, didn’t you?” she teased, running her hands over his back before releasing him. “Have you got time to come in?”

  “If you don’t mind,” he said a little hesitantly, flicking his eyes toward the kid.

  “Don’t be silly.” Stepping back from the door, she motioned him into the house. When she knelt, the little boy ran into her arms. “Gareth, come say hi to Jonah.”

  “Hi,” Gareth said shyly, sticking out his little baby hand.

  “Hey.” Jonah smiled. Gareth’s hand almost fit around his index finger. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Gareth, baby, why don’t you see if you can find your blocks? Mommy and Jonah have some catching up to do.”

  She put him down, and the kid scampered off in the direction of the living room.

  “You want a drink? I think my dad has beer,” Deanna said enticingly.

  Jonah shook his head slowly. “Trying to quit.”

  “You’re cute. Coffee, then.” She flicked on the coffee pot, then motioned to the kitchen table. “I have to admit, I was expecting to hear from you a little earlier. Emerson promised me we’d go out for drinks.”

  Jonah scratched at the back of his neck. “Yeah, Emerson and I are kind of not speaking to each other right now.”

  Deanna raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “Seriously? Come on, you guys were thick as thieves. What happened?”

  “Oh, you know, nothing serious. Except that he thinks I have a secret family.” He looked pointedly toward the door where Gareth had disappeared.

  “Oh my God—I never even thought.” Deanna put her hand over her mouth. “He must be pretty mad at you, huh?”

  “Other way around, actually. Under other circumstances, I wouldn’t have blamed him, but…,” he trailed off.

  Smiling slightly, Deanna shrugged. “Well, I can’t say I blame him either. I have a type, you know? I can see why it might have caused a little rift, but why didn’t you just tell him the truth?”

  This was the part that hurt to talk about. “I already told him the truth months ago.”

  Leaning back in her chair, she hit him with a speculative look. She wasn’t angry—she was too laid-back for that—but she was definitely curious. “You never struck me as the kiss and tell type, Jonah.”

  He took a deep, shaky breath. “Yeah, well, it’s kind of an important conversation when you start a relationship with someone.”

  Deanna’s mouth dropped open. “You and—oh my God. Emerson’s gay?” She paused. “Actually, that explains why he never seemed to like me that much. So, not so much a rift as a lover’s tiff, then, I guess.”

  “I moved out without saying goodbye,” Jonah admitted after a minute. “‘Tiff’ might not be a strong enough word.”

  “This is why you’re skipping the beer?” Deanna said perceptively.

  “I think I had enough this week.”

  With a reassuring smile, she put her hand over his on the table and gave a quick squeeze before getting up to pour the coffee. “How serious is it?”

  “The fight or my drinking problem?” Jonah asked drily.

  “The relationship, smartass.” She set a mug in front of him. “Though I’m curious about the rest as well.”

  He wrapped both hands around the warm mug, staring into its depths. “The drinking was situational. And my sister threw out my last six-pack to help me along with kicking that habit.”

  “Hmm, I knew I liked her.” Deanna finished adding sugar to her mug—she didn’t use quite as much as Emerson, but it was a close thing—and licked the spoon. “Keep going, you’re not off the hook yet.”

  Jonah took a slow sip, buying himself some time to think. “Everything else is pretty serious. You must have heard Emerson’s dad died last June?”

  “Yeah, a heart attack,” she said sympathetically. “I’m sorry. He was a great guy.”

  “He was,” Jonah reflected. “Emerson was kind of a mess. I was in San Francisco at the time—he was supposed to come visit, but obviously that didn’t happen. So I came home instead.”

  “Go on.”

  “I stayed as long as I could—I’d booked some time off for his trip—but I had a job and other responsibilities back in San Fran, and I was supposed to start school in August, so I had to go back. Emerson’s mom figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea for him to tag along, get out of the house for a week or so. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “Well, if anyone could make him feel better, it’d be you.”

  That brought a lump to his throat, and it was another few sips before he could continue. Even then, he wasn’t really sure what he wanted to say or even how much he wanted to share. “I was—kind of a big chicken about it. I left it ’til the last minute in case things didn’t work out, but when he left we were….”

  “It’s alright,” Deanna supplied when he didn’t continue. “I mean, I am dying for details, but I get that it’s private, and you’re not really in the mood to talk about specifics.”

  “Thanks. Anyway, when I said Emerson was a mess—I don’t know exactly what happened while I was gone, but I know he did some things he regrets.” Even saying that much felt like a betrayal of Emerson’s confidence, but honestly, Jonah needed someone to talk to, and turnabout was fair play. “And I think it maybe made him a little, uh, neurotic.”

  “He always was kind of highly-strung.”

  Jonah huffed. “That’s one way of putting it. Anyway, after he saw you at the store, he came home looking for a fight. It took him a while to get to the point—he kept just hinting sideways that I was a father and hadn’t told him about it, even though he should have known I’d never slept with you. Basically he insinuated that I was a liar.

  “I thought he’d finally put his insecurities behind him, you know? I was never anything but patient. Everything was going well. I mean, okay, we were fighting about whether I should move in—I was subletting one of the rooms from one of Emerson’s housemates for the summer—but other than that it was perfect. I can’t believe he thought I would do something like that.”

  Deanna squeezed his hand again. “I’m sorry, Jonah. In his defense, Gareth does look just like you.”

  “And he has my middle name.” He was curious about that.

  She ducked her head and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “When he was born—well, let’s just say his real dad didn’t exactly step up. I wished you were his father. And I liked the name. I never thought it’d cause you any trouble.”

  Suddenly he found himself blinking hard, fighting off unexpected tears. “Hey—no. Dee. I’m kind of insanely flattered. This isn’t your fault.”

  Deanna laughed a little wetly and wiped at her eyes. “Sorry. The first year was kind of hard. I wouldn’t trade him for the world, but it’s definitely not the life I thought I wanted.” She shook her head. “But we were talking about you.”

  “Yeah—I’ve been sort of monopolizing the conversation, haven’t I?” he asked, chagrined.

  “I don’t mind. It’s obviously weighing on you pretty heavily.”

  “This is the first time I’ve left the house all week.”

  She gave him one of those incredibly perceptive looks. “You’re searching for a reason to forgive him.”

  If Emerson had apologized at any time, Jonah knew he would have forgiven him on the spot. He wasn’t c
apable of holding a grudge. But he wasn’t sure Emerson would apologize. He wasn’t even sure Emerson knew why Jonah was so upset. “I’ve never been this miserable in my life.” Oh, hell, while he was at it, he might as well tell her the rest. “I… it’s not like I’m completely blameless either.”

  “Nobody’s perfect,” Deanna said gently.

  “No, Dee. I think I scared him.” Jonah looked at his hands. They were big, just like the rest of him. Jonah had never hit anyone in his life—he’d avoided fights before he hit puberty because he was small for his age and didn’t want to get beat up, and afterward, when he was taller than everyone else, no one ever bothered him. He had a slow fuse; it just wasn’t in his nature to get angry.

  When he’d stared down Emerson that day in his bedroom demanding that Emerson move, though, he’d been very aware of his size. He could have moved Emerson out of the way easily—and he knew Emerson knew it too.

  Jonah hated that he’d done that, but he’d been desperate. At first the realization that Emerson was accusing him of hiding a child had been ridiculous, but when his incredulity faded, it was like being punched in the gut. It hadn’t taken much for the deep hurt to turn to anger. He didn’t want Emerson to see him like that—to see how upset he was. He’d needed to get away, to clear his head, and when Emerson hadn’t let him leave, he’d purposely intimidated him. It wasn’t something he could ever take back. It killed him to think that now he’d given Emerson a reason not to trust him.

  “Jonah, you wouldn’t hurt a fly. Anyone who knows you knows that.”

  “But I could. It’d be so easy.”

  “But you wouldn’t,” Deanna emphasized. “I may not have known all the facts about you in high school, but even then I knew you’d throw yourself under a bus for Emerson. That if it ever came down to a choice between the two of us, you wouldn’t hesitate.”

  “You were a good friend too,” Jonah said hoarsely.

  “I’m still a pretty good friend,” she said with a small smile. “Now, pie or cookies?”

  “Cookies!” said Gareth from the doorway.

  Jonah started and looked up as Gareth flung himself across the kitchen and into Deanna’s lap.

  “I… pie or cookies?” he asked.

  “Super-secret mom remedy for broken hearts,” she told him, swinging Gareth up and giving him a noisy kiss where his T-shirt rode up. “Though it’ll work better if you actually talk to him.”

  Talk to Emerson. Jonah didn’t know if he was ready to do that.

  “Mommy’s cookies are the best,” Gareth said from his place of honor.

  “Well, I guess I won’t argue with the expert,” he said finally. Either one of them. “Cookies it is.”

  §

  THEN

  LATER, Jonah would say that he knew something was wrong long before Emerson failed to get off the plane. He was nervous—of course he was nervous; he hadn’t seen his best friend in two years—and the coffee wasn’t helping. He finally threw it away when he was halfway done and sat there in the arrivals area with his netbook balanced on his knee, jiggling in time with the tapping of his foot. He refreshed the flight status page about seven times a minute despite the fact that it was flashing on the airport television screen not twenty feet away.

  An hour passed.

  Maybe he missed his flight, Jonah thought hopefully, checking the next incoming flight from Austin. It would land in another twenty minutes. Maybe he got bumped for someone with a family emergency. That would be just like Emerson, to give up his seat to someone who needed it more. Maybe—

  In the corner of the screen, Google Talk blinked with an incoming message from Natalie.

  Jonah’s stomach sank. Emerson wasn’t coming.

  He clicked on the message to answer it. “Natalie?” He frowned at her image on the computer screen, sickly pale with serious, sad eyes. Oh, God, Emerson. “Natalie, what’s going on?”

  Natalie rubbed the corner of her eye like she always did when she was pretending not to cry. “You’d better come home.”

  Jonah was on a plane less than an hour later.

  With the netbook still on his knee as they sat on the runway waiting for clearance, he fired off a few e-mails—his landlord, Katie, his supervisor at the library—letting them know he might be out of touch for longer than he anticipated and that he would be out of state. His fingers hesitated for a few moments over the phrase “death in the family,” but he’d known John and the Blackburn family since he was ten—if that didn’t make them family, neither would blood. Then they were taxiing, and he folded the little computer up and shoved it into its case, the only piece of luggage he had.

  At least he wouldn’t get held up at the baggage claim.

  §

  “EM? HAVE you had anything to eat today, hun?” Emerson looked up to see his mother’s sister standing in the door to his bedroom. Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry and filled with compassion.

  Emerson, who was not feeling particularly talkative, simply shrugged in response to her question.

  “Honey, you really should think about eating something.”

  Emerson simply stared at his knees.

  After his aunt had brought them home from the hospital, Emerson had suddenly been overcome by the scent of disinfectant and death on his clothes. He had jumped into the shower and begun to clean himself with single-minded intent. He wasn’t sure how long he had stayed in the shower, but he had been there for some time, scrubbing himself down, attempting to remove all trace of the smell.

  Once clean enough to satisfy himself, he had returned to his bedroom to stare at his closet for a long moment, contemplating clothes. In the end, it was a no-brainer to pull out his favorite worn jeans and the T-shirt of Jonah’s he had kept so long ago. After pulling it on, he had stood there a moment, rubbing the soft green fabric beneath his hand. Then, he pulled on one of his zip-up sweaters and sat down on his bed.

  He had curled himself into a tight ball and had been unable to move since. He had neither the energy nor the inclination to uncurl himself from his protective huddle.

  His aunt sighed.

  “Alright. I won’t push it right now, but you’re eating something tomorrow, just so you know.” Then she ran a tender hand over his head before she left him alone again.

  A great, empty ache had filled his chest and hollowed him out. He didn’t know what to do now, to do next. He felt crippled by grief. He felt all at once that his whole body would cave in on the yawning ache inside him, and yet that all the pieces of him would float away and bring him to nothingness if he were not careful. He wished Jonah were here. Jonah, who could hold him and comfort him, who would fill the empty spaces and keep the pieces together.

  Jonah.

  Jonah, who was in San Francisco… where Emerson was supposed to be right now.

  Oh. Oh, he had forgotten about his trip, hadn’t even sent Jonah a message. Jonah must be so worried by now that Emerson hadn’t shown up.

  Slowly, his limbs filled with lethargy, though his mind was quick enough, he scooped up his laptop and opened it to contact Jonah. He wasn’t on Skype, so Emerson opened a new e-mail. He stared at it for a long time, watching the cursor blink on the blank white page. He didn’t know what to write, how to explain. There were certain things he just couldn’t bring himself to write, not yet.

  Finally, his fingers shakily tapped out, “Still at home. I need you,” before they failed him. He could write no more, it seemed. He hit “send.”

  His laptop stayed open on the bed, waiting to tell him should Jonah respond. The computer stayed silent, and Emerson waited. His eyes still hurt, swollen and itchy from the tears, yet he didn’t cry again. He had no more energy to cry. He had energy for nothing. He simply sat and waited. He waited to stop hurting. He waited to have energy. He waited for Jonah to contact him.

  He could hear a knock at the front door. Someone, probably his aunt, answered. There was talking, and Emerson could see her, in his mind’s eye, talking to a neighbor or maybe
a salesperson, trying to explain that the family was in no condition to talk to anyone, friend or stranger. A fresh wave of grief interrupted his musings, and he lost track of the noises downstairs.

  There was a knock on his bedroom door, and then it was opening, and then Jonah was there. Jonah was standing in his bedroom, looking serious and wan, but still like Jonah. His Jonah.

  Emerson stared, frozen with shock. Then Jonah took one hesitant step toward him, and Emerson was unfrozen. He was unfolding his limbs and stretching out and reaching—

  Jonah wrapped both arms around him and held him tight. One large palm curved around Emerson’s waist, while the other was around his shoulder. Emerson felt safe for the first time since his father had first turned pale.

  “Jonah,” Emerson gasped, only to be answered by a soft, soothing shush and Jonah murmuring his name. Emerson broke. Huge, gulping sobs climbed their way up his throat and forced themselves out of his mouth. He gasped and shuddered in Jonah’s arms as the tears came unrestrained. He could not stop them now, not now that Jonah was here to keep him safe.

  §

  NATALIE met him at the airport, still ashen pale and too quiet, and she was the same girl Jonah had taught how to swing a bat and climb a tree, only taller and more grown up, as if he needed something else to be sad about. He caught her up in a fierce hug as soon as he saw her, not saying anything, and it was a long time before he was able to let go.

  Then she pulled away and put her hand on his arm and gave him one of those brave smiles their mom was so good at, and Jonah knew it was time to go.

  “Do you want to drive?” she asked.

  “Do you want to live?” Jonah asked back, and could have punched himself for it. “No, you—I haven’t driven in years, Nat.”