Heart and Home

by Jennifer Melzer

  “Stop it,” I swatted at her with the towel, but within seconds we were both giggling.

  By the time we left Becky’s house, Troy drank his share during the football game and it fell to me to drive everyone home safely. A flourish of snow flurries danced to the howl of the wind, whipping into the windshield before melting against the glass, but it wasn’t enough snow to do more than whirl like dust clouds as the car ploughed along the road.

  Pulling around to the back door, Dad hesitated and then asked, “Hey, Jannie, you think you can come in for a minute. I have something I need to talk to you about real quick and we haven’t really had a quiet minute together since you got here.”

  “Sure, Dad.”

  I looked to Troy in the backseat, and he nodded. “We’ll wait out here.” He was reaching for the handle to slip into the front seat.

  I followed Dad up onto the back porch and waited as he unlocked the door. A few flurries managed to slip through the veil of my hair and sting like tiny kisses against my cheek just moments before he pushed the door opened and a rush of heat from within surged out to greet us.

  “Today was nice,” I said, closing the door behind me. “I’m so glad you wanted to come.”

  “I had a nice afternoon,” he admitted. “It was almost enough to keep my mind off of things.” He walked to the refrigerator and took down an envelope that he’d tacked up with a magnet, getting straight down to business before I could ask how he was doing. “Here,” he handed it to me. “I wanted to give this to you while we were alone, and I haven’t really seen much of you lately, so this is the first chance I’ve had.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” I held the envelope. “I’m spending too much time with Troy, I know…”

  “No, no,” he shook his head and laid a hand over mine. “You’re spending time where you belong, and that’s all that matters.” His gentle understanding gave me the kind of chills that come on like a warning of tears soon to follow. “He’s a good guy, and you two seem right together. In fact,” he looked down for a minute, the silence drawing my attention to the hum of the refrigerator behind him. “I think if she were still with us your mom would approve.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” his nod was reassuring. “Now, about what I just gave you…”

  “What is it?”

  “Open it.”

  I pulled the folded lip of the envelope out and peered inside at a check with my name on it and a rather substantial amount written in the ledger. “Whoa,” I held it back. “Dad, what is this?”

  “Some of your mom’s life insurance,” he explained. “She didn’t have a will or anything, but I know she wanted you to have this. Thought that it would make a nice nest egg, or if you were feeling ambitious, you might use it to break out on your own somehow. And I don’t want to tell you what to do with it, but I had the damndest idea.”

  The figure on that check hadn’t quite sunk into me yet, but I couldn’t help feeling it was like a beacon signal from the universe that I was following the right path, that what my mother would have referred to without reservation as God looking out for me.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Well, I know you’ve been floating since you quit your job, not sure what you want to do, but if you’re thinking of maybe coming back here, why not buy up the old Standard building and give this place a proper paper again?” He was the second person to suggest that I take over the Sonesville Standard, and while I hadn’t really even given it much thought after Katy mentioned it, the idea had an eerie sense of appeal.

  “You know, that’s not a half bad idea, Dad,” I nodded, closing the flap over the check. “I am going to seriously think about that.”

  He nodded, and patted the top of my hand. “I know that whatever you decide, it’ll be right for you. You always were good at getting what you wanted, and hopefully this’ll be a way for you to bring something you want just a little bit closer.”

  “Thank you, Daddy.” I leaned forward and hugged him, grateful for the way he always seemed to reluctantly reach up and pat me on the back.

  I tucked the envelope inside my jacket as I started out the door, distracted and withdrawn as I slipped in behind the wheel.

  “Everything okay?” He asked.

  “Fine,” I nodded, pulling out of the driveway and into the alley.

  I didn’t say much on the drive to the farm. Troy and Lottie good naturedly argued through the details of a Thanksgiving past, though I could feel his curious gaze on me more than once throughout the trip. We both helped Lottie into the house, and I promised to stop in after I returned from shopping the help her do some baking the next day.

  Playful and just a little bit drunk, Troy started to chase me before we were even off the porch, and managed to friskily pursue me up the stairs and into the apartment. We hung our coats on the backs of the kitchen chairs, and while he flopped down onto the sofa and propped his feet up on the ottoman, I slipped into the bedroom and tucked the envelope with that check into my suitcase.

  I returned to the living room and as I walked toward the television to grab the remote, he grabbed for my back pockets and pulled me down into his lap before I could escape. “No TV,” he said.

  “You’re in a good mood,” I noted, sinking down into his lap as I turned to stretch my legs along the length of the sofa.

  “Yeah,” he laid his head back along the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. “Today was good.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?”

  “Even Mom had a good time, not that she’s hard to please, but…”

  “I think my dad was okay too,” I nodded. “It was hard, having a holiday without my mom.” His hand smoothed down the center of my back in an act of comfort. “She was there in spirit though,” I said. “I could feel her.”

  “I worried you might be depressed today,” he said. “The first few holidays are hard. I don’t think you ever get used to it.”

  “I was a little bit.” I looked out the window behind him, the flurries of snow like white moths against the darkness. “But when you’re in good company, it’s hard to stay sad.”

  “Becky and Marty are good people,” he sighed. “I like them.” As adorable as it sounded, the simplicity of his admission made me wonder just how much he actually had to drink. “And you’re good too,” he added, lifting his head. “I like you.” I was surprised by the intensity and focus of his kiss just then, lips pausing to linger over mine, and then stealing in again. I was even more taken aback when he drew away to look into my eyes, heavy lidded as he said, “I’m in love with you.”

  “Troy,” I whispered, not sure if it was the alcohol talking, or if it acted as a kind of freeing agent, giving him the strength he needed to admit a difficult truth.

  “No, really,” he went on. “You’re the first thing I think of in the morning, the last thing I see when I close my eyes at night. I dream about you, and when I wake up alone I feel empty inside. It’s like I hold my breath every time you leave, and can’t breathe again until you come back. If that’s not love…”

  It had been just a little more than a month, but I was feeling it too. I’d been feeling it for weeks, and trying to deny it. I turned in his lap so we sat face to face, me with a slight advantage over him that allowed me to look down into his eyes. Before he could say another word I kissed him with such intensity that I felt it tingle all the way down in my toes.

  “I love you,” I whispered against his lips.

  The playful side reared again. I could feel his grin broaden as we kissed. “No, I love you.”

  I laughed and shook my head, retorting, “No, I love you,” for the first of many times to come before the night was out.

  *****

  The field was empty, the only evidence left behind that it had once been filled with corn were the scars of harvest drawn like lines upon the frozen earth. The icy wind cut through my nightgown, which felt paper thin as a defense against it no matter how closely I drew it around me.

  It was th
e same field I’d met with my mother in, I was sure of it, but I wasn’t sure how I knew. Was she there somewhere? I scanned the vast emptiness, listened hard for some sign of her, but the only answer I received was the wail of the wind swirling patterns of snow all around me. It stung my skin, and every step I took seemed to numb my bare feet so that I could hardly feel them at all.

  “Mom?” I called out to the night. “Mother?”

  The sound of the alarm clock rent through the fragile fabric of the dream, and within seconds Troy’s arm shot across my back to stifle its cruel bleating. He stretched and groaned beside me before his body instinctively curled into the back of mine. “Hey,” he whispered, the coarse curl of his beard drawing along my neck. “I love you.” His voice was serious, as though he felt he needed to reaffirm his confession without the alcohol there to back it up.

  “No,” I grinned, drawing his arms tighter around me, “I love you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Seriously though,” Becky noted. “It’s so sweet you’re actually making me sick.”

  Laughter bubbled between the two of us as we slipped in and out of department store piles of mayhem. We’d been out since dawn, both of us managing a few good bargains, but with the noon hour drawing nearer the wind had been knocked out of most of the sales, leaving behind a trail of torn or mediocre goods.

  “Yeah, well, thank Marty for me later for stocking the fridge with beer. I seriously don’t think he’d have said it if he hadn’t been a little buzzed.”

  “He might have,” she shrugged. “I noticed that he seems a little bolder when you’re around than he’s been known to be in the past. Not that he wasn’t confident. Even in high school he seemed pretty sure of himself, but you give him a bit of an edge. Like when he first came back after his dad died, he withdrew a bit, got all shy.”

  “Shy?” I turned a questioning gaze in her direction. “I haven’t noticed a shy bone in his body, except for the whole talking on the phone thing, but he got over that pretty quick too.”

  “Of course he wouldn’t be shy around you,” she said. “You empower him.”

  “You make me sound like some kind of talisman.”

  “Well, didn’t he say himself after crushing on you in school all those years, he wasn’t going to let another opportunity pass him by while you were here?”

  “More or less.” I unfolded a sweater I’d been considering for my dad, but dropped it back down into the pile. “I just hope things keep going as well as they have been. I’ve never felt the way I feel right now, and it’s scary.”

  Becky held a shirt out at arm’s length and squinted at it, as if she were trying to picture someone inside it. “Is that a hint of doubt I detect in your voice?”

  I shrugged, “Maybe a little.”

  “Well, I am no psychic, but I can tell you right now that I have a good feeling about you two. I have since the very beginning.”

  “Hearing you say that would make me feel a whole lot better if you actually were a psychic.”

  The barren field from my dream had been rolling in and out of my thoughts all morning and I wondered if it was somehow related to the dream in which my mother spoke to me. Where had the crops gone? What about the strange faceless children and my mother herself? I could almost feel the brittle wind breaking like glass against my skin, but what did it mean?

  She hung the shirt back onto the rack and sorted through a few more. “I told you Lydia knows that psychic in Montoursville. Maybe we can get an appointment with her.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I shrugged. I stepped back, giving up on the picked over clothing in front of me and let my arms hang with the weight of my score of purchases. “Hey, did I get to finish telling you about that dream I had yesterday?”

  “No, you never got a chance.” She stepped back from the rack as well. “These are all picked over. Let’s get outta here.” We started for the nearest exit that led back into the swarming mall. Becky hollered over the hub-bub, “Did you want to go anywhere else out here?”

  “Just the bookstore.”

  On the way to the bookstore I managed to relate the first dream about the strange children, the open crop circle and my mother’s words of wisdom regarding healing a weary heart.

  “And then this morning,” I continued, stretching upward to reach for a book two shelves above me. I drew it down along with a heavy volume on the history of urban modernism and architecture. “This morning I dream I’m in the same field, only now it’s nighttime and freezing. It’s been harvested and my mother is nowhere to be found.” I scanned the back cover of both books, leaving the heavy tome on the lower shelf.

  Becky flipped through a scrapbooking magazine while the store bustled madly with Black Friday shoppers and hordes of teenagers in search of entertainment. It was a small wonder we even managed to hold a conversation without passing a megaphone back and forth, I realized.

  “I don’t know a lot about dreams, but with everything that happened while you were staying at your parents’ house...” She flipped the magazine shut.

  “That’s what I thought too.” Turning the book in my hands to study the artistic front cover, I proceeded to check the publication date. Having only just come out that year, I was almost positive it was a book Troy didn’t have in his collection. “And maybe I’m dead wrong, but I swear she was telling me I have to somehow help Troy heal this guilt he feels inside since his dad’s death.”

  “Maybe,” she nodded. “What the heck are you reading?” She drew the book out of my hands as we started toward the checkout counter and read over the back cover.

  “Le Corbusier,” I said. “He was a famous urban modernist. Troy has pictures of this guy’s greatest achievements on his living room walls, and he even hand crafted his own furniture based on Le Corbusier’s designs.”

  “You’re such a clever girl,” she nodded.

  “Yeah, though I’m a little scared to give it to him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when it comes to anything else talking to him is like the easiest thing in the world,” I admitted. “I can tell him anything, ask him anything and he’s open and willing to share himself, but whenever it comes down to talking about architecture or the man he stopped being when he came back here, he gets really defensive.”

  “Well, under the circumstances that’s to be expected,” she agreed. “You don’t go as far as he did and then get yanked backwards without feeling the tug.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Becky and I were momentarily separated as a pack of rude teenagers raced through the aisles chasing each other with Chinese yo-yos. I shrugged when we came back together, and we burst into laughter at the chaos.

  “What do you mean, what do I mean?” she asked.

  “That far? You mean the whole act of leaving and then having to come back?”

  She stepped aside and regarded me with one eyebrow arched slightly higher than the other. “He didn’t tell you everything, did he?” She asked. “Like that he only had two more semesters to go when his dad died, and that he was halfway through the first one when Lottie had her accident?”

  “No.” A cold feeling trickled through my blood and my stomach felt suddenly heavy, as if I’d swallowed a brick. “I thought maybe he’d gone a year, but he never mentioned he was so close to finishing.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything,” she noted, as we slid up to the counter.

  “Well, he obviously wasn’t going to bring it up anytime soon.” I handed my credit card to the cashier and tossed Becky’s magazine on top of my books. “The last time I brought up the possibility of him finishing school he told me to drop it in his nicest mean voice.” I shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe it’s none of my business, really.”

  “God, that is the worst part about a relationship being new,” she threw up her arms in exaggerated irritation. “You invest such strong feelings in each other, and care about every little thing that happens because it’s like their life is a
part of your life, but when it comes to telling the other person they are being a complete and total idiot, you feel powerless.”

  “Yeah, I think he might take even more offense to the word idiot.”

  “They always do,” she rolled her eyes. “But that’s just the thing about men. I don’t think they try to be idiots on purpose. They’re just so damn proud.”

  “And stubborn.”

  “Yes, and stubborn,” she agreed as I grabbed my bag and started away from the counter. “And that is what makes them idiots.” We slipped back into the hustling mall crowd. “God, I remember when Marty and I first started to get serious, and he was thinking about asking me to marry him. He was all messed up because his mom had this whole sob about me not being Jewish.”

  “Marty’s Jewish?”

  “Non-practicing, but yeah,” she nodded.

  “I didn’t know that.” I admitted. “That explains why I never see you guys at church the last few Sundays dad managed to force me into a pew.” I realized. “I never even thought to ask.”

  “Yeah, well, like I said, we don’t practice or anything, but I’ve never been big on going to church anyway. My grandma always said if God couldn’t hear our voices outside of a manmade construction there was something wrong with his hearing.”

  “Hmm,” I nodded. “I like the way she thinks. Maybe I should use that excuse next time Dad gets pushy.”

  “But yeah, so Marty had a hard time coming to terms with the whole proposal because his mom really messed up his head. Truth be told,” she paused to admire a sweater in the window of a boutique, “We almost didn’t end up together at all. I finally told him that if he wanted to marry his mother, that was fine by me. There were plenty of other guys in the world who already cut the cord, and I’d just find one of them!” Her tone was so serious that I couldn’t help but laugh. She flashed a grin of fire in my direction. “Needless to say he proposed the next day with a full confession that the thing he loved most about me was how much I was not like his mother.”