Coming Home to You

by Liesel Schmidt

  My eyes traveled to the clock.

  It was noon, and my stomach registered the time with a slight rumble.

  I’d been concentrating so hard on the stack of invoices I was logging into the computer that the morning had whipped by without my noticing it. I sank back into my chair, lazily swiveling to and fro, and let my head rest against the back.

  “Tell me, tell me!” I knew I sounded a bit demanding, but I was so anxious to hear the news that I didn’t care. Not that I had any doubt of her answer, but still. I wanted to know the details of how and when. I wanted to hear what he had said, what she had said. If there had been tears or laughter or any grand gestures of any sort.

  I wanted to hear it all.

  And yet, I didn’t.

  I swallowed the warring emotions as I listened for her reply.

  “I can’t talk long—we have so many calls to make! But I wanted to call you first and tell you before anyone else,” she said, sounding breathless. “Not that you didn’t already know about everything, of course,” Kate laughed.

  “Well, I was your matchmaker, you know,” I said. “And he did have to get my blessing before he asked you.”

  “Naturally.” Kate sounded happier than I’d ever heard her, and I couldn’t help the twinge of jealousy that squeezed in.

  “Anyway,” she said, breaking into my guilty thoughts. “Ray asked me to marry him! And I said yes!”

  “Well, of course you did!” I laughed, regaining my toehold in the happiness of the moment. “So tell me what happened! How did he do it?” I asked.

  “Oh, Zoë, it was just perfect. Really just perfect. Not a big, grand gesture, like you see in all the cheesy movies. Just him and me, and it happened naturally.” Her voice drifted off a bit. “But can I wait and tell you everything when we get into town next weekend? I’ve really got to make a million calls to tell everyone the news, and I don’t want to have to feel so rushed.” Kate paused. “Will you be upset to wait that long?”

  I sighed before answering, playfully baiting her into guilt.

  “I guess I’ll have to,” I moaned.

  “Thank you, Zoë, Patron Saint of Patience and Benevolent Facilitator of Love,” she laughed.

  “Details, lady,” I replied. “When you get here, you owe me details. And sushi.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I love you, Kate,” I said, staring at the ceiling as I blinked away tears. I was glad for the seclusion of my cubicle, away from the eyes of anyone who might have questioned the flashes of sadness and joy that seemed to vie for real estate in my emotions. “Congratulations. And tell Ray I love him too, okay?”

  “I will. And I love you, too.”

  Zoë,

  This letter might be somewhat unexpected, since most people seem to have forgotten how to use a pen and paper. That, and most guys seem to suck at communication in general.

  After two months, though, I thought it might be about time to check and see how things are going. Since I didn’t have your e-mail address, I decided to take the old-fashioned route and write you a letter. At least I know your mailing address, right? (Ha ha, I know, that took so very much thought on my part.) So.

  How are things going? How’s my house? Hopefully no kitchen fires while you’re in the middle of baking cupcakes? I really like chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate. And whipped frosting. Just in case you were wondering…

  Ray seems to have complete confidence in you and thinks very highly of you, which is why I even considered this entire arrangement. Some of the guys here call me crazy for letting some woman I’ve never met watch my house, but most of them shouldn’t be so quick to hand out the free advice. That may sound a little bit on the harsh side; but if you met some of them, you’d definitely agree.

  Anyway, I just wanted to check in, make sure I still had a house to come home to. I’ve enclosed an index card with a couple of quick references for you on it, one of which is my e-mail address. Please feel free to contact me anytime you have a question about anything in the house. I know there are a couple of things coming up due like the annual termite treatment, so all the necessary info for those things is on the card, as well.

  I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet before I had to take off, but I’m sure Ray explained the circumstances. Thanks again for watching things for me.

  Neil

  The letter in my hands felt hot and alive.

  Finally! Here was something concrete from Neil, a proof of life of some sort. It was reassuring and unsettling at the same time, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. I was glad to hear from him, glad to know that he was at least aware of my presence here. But it also made me feel a bit vulnerable. What would I say to him, now that that I actually had that chance? It had been easy enough, writing him those letters before—the ones I’d written to the illusion, the ones I’d never sent and had never intended to. Those were meant for my eyes alone, an open door to every emotion I’d had over the past few months here, a gateway into my soul. And now, here was the man—the real one—finally reaching out to me and breaking the spell.

  And part of me was afraid that the broken spell, that the reality, would feel like another loss.

  Illusions have no flaws, and Neil was no longer an illusion.

  Chapter 9

  “You have fantastic credit, Mrs. Trent,” the man across from me said, his eyes never straying from the computer screen in front of him.

  “It’s Ms., actually. I’m not married.”

  I almost choked on the words, my cheeks flushing feverishly. I still wasn’t used to having to say it, and I wondered if he could see what I felt was so plainly written on my face. Maybe if he hadn’t been so focused on the computer, he would have.

  He glanced at me, then at my left hand, which rested—ringless—in my lap.

  “Oh, excuse me,” he replied, seeming not to notice as I quickly covered my left hand with my right. The action didn’t even register with him.

  He cleared his throat. “Well now, my dear, let’s get this ball rolling.”

  He flashed me his best smarmy car salesman smile and tapped away on his computer keyboard, his fingers seeming to fly across the keys. Pages spewed out of the printer behind him, stacking up at an alarming pace.

  I sat there silently, feeling more alone than I’d thought possible.

  This was one of those moments in life where the state of being single is so strongly reinforced. Kind of like rubbing salt in a wound. I was sitting there in this guy’s office, a woman alone, against all the advice I’d ever been given about buying a car. But what choice did I have? It was a fact, a stone-cold fact: I was alone.

  And I was going to be alone for the foreseeable future, so I was going to have to get used to it. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s, birthdays…all alone. There would be people there to celebrate with me, but they would all have someone there who was theirs.

  And I would go home at the end of the party to be alone.

  Alone, alone, alone.

  I might not have been a drinker, but right then I was thinking I needed a drink.

  “Ms. Trent?” the car salesman, whose shiny gold name tag informed me that his name was Bill, was staring at me with a slight air of concern. For all he knew, I was sitting there having second thoughts about the car I was about to buy from him. I could see him mentally calculate the loss in his paycheck. There went the vacation in Tahiti. He was probably even already formulating the speech he was going to give to Mrs. Bill about not getting to go this year.

  “I’m sorry, what?” I asked, hoping to cover my momentary mental defection from the task at hand.

  “Did you want to trade your car in?”

  Did I want to trade it in? Of course I wanted to trade it in. What else would I do with it? No one in their right mind would buy it outright from me, being the piece of absolute shit that it was. Yes, I wanted to trade it in. It was a junky, air-conditioning-deficient, noisy, banged-up excuse for a car. A car that I’d had since I was eigh
teen and newly graduated from high-school.

  It was the car I’d had when I met Paul, that we’d spent so many Saturdays running around town in. The car I couldn’t drive without thinking about the fact that he would never again sit in the passenger seat next to me and sing along to the radio in ear-splitting falsetto.

  The car I’d been sitting in when I got the call from the paramedics.

  Yes, I wanted to trade in the car.

  I nodded.

  “Yes, Bill,” I said more firmly than I felt. Now was the time to get steely-eyed and determined. “How much can you give me for it?”

  He almost perceptibly sighed with relief. He could tell Mrs. Bill to put sunscreen back on the shopping list.

  I sat silently on the driveway, my knees drawn up to my chest, my arms locked around them. Staring at the shiny new car sitting in the driveway, I wondered if I’d just made one of the biggest mistakes of my life; or if the vaguely sick feeling in the pit of my stomach was simply a need to eat.

  The cell phone I had sitting next to me on the pavement started to sing.

  “Hello?” I said into the phone, not even really sure who was on the other end. I’d been too distracted to be curious at who might be calling me.

  “Zoë, sweets, are you alright?” My mother always seemed to be able to pin even the slightest hint of distress in my voice, no matter how few syllables I’d uttered.

  I wondered if I’d be able to do that when I was a mother. If I ever was a mother.

  I sighed and rubbed my forehead, feeling a thousand things at once, too many to even put a finger on one of them long enough to define.

  “I think so. I guess so. There’s just a lot going on right now, and I’m feeling a little overwhelmed and lost, and…” I trailed off, hoping I didn’t sound as helpless and childish as I felt.

  Not that it was necessarily a new feeling. The past year seemed to be one in which I felt more helpless than any other time in my life. People were probably used to it by now. There she goes again, whining about something else…

  “What’s the matter, honey?” she asked without the slightest hint of annoyance.

  “Well, nothing’s really the matter, per se,” I returned, feeling vaguely silly. “I just bought a car, and I’m hoping I didn’t make a huge mistake. I mean, it’s not like a pair of pants, that you can take home and then decide they make your butt look big and then return them.”

  I looked sidelong at the object in question, trying to swallow the bubble of panic I felt rising at the back of my throat.

  Does this car make my butt look big? The thought popped, unbidden, into my head, and I almost laughed at the complete absurdity of it.

  Almost. I was still too worried to be at the laughing point yet, even if it was simply out of hysteria.

  “Zoë, you bought a car? How wonderful! And all by yourself, too!” She said the words proudly, but it still felt as sharp as a slap across the face.

  All by myself. I nodded mutely into the phone.

  “Hank, honey, Zoë bought a car!” I heard her yell to my father, probably off at some other end of the house. Tinkering around with whatever looked like it might need tinkering with.

  “He says it’s about damn time,” my mother said with a laugh to me. “Now. Tell me why you sound so worried. Most young women who just bought a car would be excited and running all over town to show it off to their friends.”

  But I’m not most young women.

  It hung in the air, unsaid, but I knew it was a thought we were both having.

  I sighed and pulled at an errant curl of hair. Closed my eyes and opened them again, one at a time.

  Yup, the car was still there.

  “I don’t know, Mom. It’s not just one thing; it’s everything. It’s that I have a new car that I had to buy alone, with no one there to make deals or reassure me that I’m making a good decision. And that I came home a couple of days ago to an empty house, only to find that the water heater had sprung a leak that damaged a whole room of carpet.”

  My nose was burning and my eyes were filling with tears. Again.

  “Oh, and then there’s Kate and Ray’s engagement. What kind of friend does it make me that I can’t simply be insanely happy for them? That I can’t forget for one minute that I was there once, that I was supposed to get to walk down the aisle in the big white dress and have the happily ever after part?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line as she listened. She was such a good listener, such a good advisor. I wanted her to be able to tell me some magic thing that would make everything balance somehow.

  “Zoë, I know you’ve always prided yourself on being different, but this is one thing that you’re going to have to realize: all of this that you’re feeling is normal. You’ve suffered a huge loss, and you’re allowed to feel angry about it. You’re allowed to be a little bit sad that your best friends are getting to a point in life that you should have already reached,” she said reasonably. “What you’re not allowed to do is let the anger and the hurt and the loneliness that you’re feeling overshadow who you are and alienate the people that love you. You’ve come too far in the past few months to lose your grip on it now, honey.”

  She paused and I could picture her, cradling the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she sat on the couch and folded laundry. It was Saturday, so she’d be methodically folding towels into neat rectangles.

  “You’re such a strong, beautiful young woman, Zoë. Don’t waste that.” She whispered the last words, a hushed plea that she desperately wanted me to heed.

  I nodded.

  “I won’t.”

  It was a promise: to her, to Kate and Ray, to me.

  Dear Neil,

  I bought a car today. It has air conditioning that works (imagine that!), power windows and locks, and even all-wheel drive! Now I can go four-wheeling through the woods… All of the little luxuries. I know it might sound strange, but I’m still wondering if I made the right decision. My mom and dad seem to be strangely proud of me. Not something I really would have expected, it being such an expensive decision and all, but I think they’re concentrating more on the fact that my old car had no air and all sorts of problems with various mechanical things. I’m not sure exactly what was wrong with it, since I’m far from mechanically inclined; but I’m pretty sure cars aren’t supposed to send smoke signals. I think the biggest reason they seem so proud about the new car, though, might be that it seems to signify that I’m moving on with my life.

  Making steps to, anyway. Each step I take makes them feel just a little better about the fact that they can’t be here with me, I think. It’s a small thing, a normal part of life, I know, to buy a car. But for me, it represents one of the many things that I will have to take responsibility for—alone.

  I had to sit in the car dealership alone, Neil, wondering if I was going to be given a fair deal. Or if I would even know a fair deal. I don’t know that much about cars and depreciation and playing the back-and-forth negotiating game with slimy car dealers to know if things are going the way they’re supposed to be going. And it made me feel very much alone.

  Some people say they can feel the person that they’ve lost, that they know that person is still with them, even if they can’t see them. I don’t feel Paul. I haven’t felt Paul, even once, since he died. I feel the memories, though. Sometimes they’re more than I can bear, which is why I had to leave the apartment. I think some people might think it was running away.

  Maybe it was, to some degree. But it was the only way I could move on. There were so many, many memories inside those walls.

  Sometimes I look at these walls and wonder what memories they have for you.

  Maybe someday you’ll tell me some of them.

  Take care and stay safe, dear Neil.

  Zoë

  Chapter 10

  I woke the next morning to pounding on my door.

  Not a polite knock, not a civil push of the doorbell.

  The very funct
ional, very visible doorbell.

  Instead, there was an urgent, rude pounding that pissed me off more than it scared me. It was Sunday morning, for Pete’s sake—who the hell could possibly need something from me on a Sunday morning?

  Ray was in Atlanta for the big proposal weekend, and he wouldn’t be back until sometime next weekend. Much as I was dying to see him and congratulate him in person, I was having to satisfy myself with the quick phone call that had been made late last night.

  So unless it was someone looking for Neil, I had no idea who it might be.

  I fell out of bed and stumbled out of the bedroom, trying to rouse myself as I neared the living room.

  The pounding continued as I crossed the small living room to the front door and put my eye up to the peephole. The distorted view I got of the front stoop revealed the source of my wake-up call to be a stocky, dark-haired guy who looked like he was ready to beat down the door.

  Okay, now I was feeling a little bit nervous.

  I had a mental argument with myself over the foolishness of opening the door to this guy. However, to give him his due, I had no idea who he was. Perhaps he was a friend of Neil’s who didn’t actually know he was out of town.

  More pounding.

  A friend who maybe wanted to break his kneecaps.

  “Who are you, and what do you want?” I hollered through the door, finally finding my voice.

  I was trying to sound commanding, channeling my inner warrior princess. But I was thinking I was coming off more as…fairy princess.

  Yes, be afraid. Be very afraid. I might hit you with my magic wand; and, boy, would that hurt.

  “Nick. I’m here to fix your carpet,” he yelled back.

  I raised a suspicious eyebrow.

  My carpet?

  Ray had said he knew a guy who knew a guy, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about a Sunday morning visit from said guy.

  A rude Sunday morning visit. This was borderline insanity, I thought, glancing down at my watch. It was seven-thirty in the freaking morning. I wasn’t even supposed to be awake yet.