Heart and Home

by Jennifer Melzer

  “Well, yes, but I’m still not ready. As much as I love my dad, I’m not sure I want to move back into his house after having spent so many years on my own.”

  “You could stay here,” he tempted me. “This place is big enough for two.” He knew as well as I did that it was barely big enough for him, and the idea of the two of us cramped into that tiny apartment indefinitely made my heart flutter claustrophobically.

  “Even you are outgrowing that apartment,” I pointed out.

  “We could move into the house.” Desperation dripped from his every word. “Mom would be thrilled to have us.”

  “I have no doubt in my mind that she would.”

  In fact, I knew in my heart that Lottie would gladly step out of her position as feminine head of the household and allow me into it, but giving in so easily would allow a routine to develop. Routines were hard to break, and often became habits, habits like the ones destroying Troy’s good nature minute by minute.

  “It’s just not time yet, Troy.”

  “Before you start to lecture me about good things coming to those who wait, I’m gonna take off and go watch the game at Marty and Becky’s.”

  “Well, while you’re there, think about it.”

  “About what?”

  “That good things come to those…”

  “I’m hanging up now,” he interrupted. “I love you.”

  I stopped myself from reminding him that if he did really love me, he’d want to wait until I felt right and ready.

  “I love you too, and Troy… think about coming down here next week. Just think about it.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  I didn’t tell anyone what I was up to, but I’d been secretly browsing the real-estate section of the Williamsport Sun Gazette, trying to find out who to get in touch with about the old Standard building. Not that I’d made up my mind about the whole thing, but it was starting to make more and more sense than I thought it would. Unfortunately, I discovered the realtor showing the property was none other than Amber Williams-Baker, and that put a huge dent in my willingness to schedule an appointment.

  I put off contacting her on Tuesday, convinced that everyone in town would know I’d expressed an interest, but Wednesday morning I decided I didn’t care who knew what I was up to. I didn’t even know what I was up to, so it’d be interesting to hear what my dad heard around the water cooler Wednesday afternoon at work.

  I got her voicemail when I called, and left a message for her to call me back, briefly explaining I was interested in the Standard building, and then headed out to the Carnegie Library to do some research. Amber didn’t call me back until Thursday, and while I wasn’t sure what to expect when she finally did return my call, she was pleasant and professional and promised to take me in to show me the property the next time I was in town.

  She surprised me even more when she said just before hanging up, “It’d be really great if you did start that paper back up, Janice. I think everyone in town would be real pleased.”

  By that evening conversation between Troy and me was easily agitated. My insistence that he come and stay with me for the week inspired some strange remarks, including a series of questions about who I met up with at the library when I went in to do some research.

  “This isn’t Sonesville, Troy,” I pointed. “You don’t know every single person you run into. In fact, I know surprisingly few people here considering how long I’ve lived here.”

  “I know you dated while you were there. You have friends there.”

  “Dated, Troy. That doesn’t mean I had tons of intimate relationships with half the men in the city, and yeah, I have friends, but most of the people I talked to regularly seemed to disappear once I left my job.” I pointed out. “Look, I understand that you miss me, but I don’t like that you don’t trust me. It makes everything you say to me when we’re together feel like a lie.”

  It was like the darkness I felt coming on possessed him in some way, and the distance made it impossible to make sense of.

  “I just don’t understand why you don’t want to come home this weekend. It makes me think there’s something else holding you there.”

  “And I don’t understand why you won’t come and stay with me for a week,” I urged. “It’s one week, Troy.”

  “You already know I can’t leave everything here for a whole week.” He had been using the same excuses since his last visit, that there was work to be done and he couldn’t very well just leave it.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I have responsibilities here,” he droned over the same excuse. “There are people who depend on me, so I can’t just up and quit on them.”

  “Up and quit on them? What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I can’t just leave.”

  “But why did you say it like that, you can’t just up and quit… is that some kind of reference to me quitting my job? Like I’m out here just living it up while you’re stuck in your mire of responsibility?”

  “Yes, Janice, because everything is about you.”

  “You know what…” The anger burned under the surface, raging even more powerfully than it had during our first argument because I couldn’t just reach out and hold him in place when he started to pull away. “I’m not gonna do this, Troy. I’m hanging up now. When you’re ready to be the man you are when we’re standing face to face, call me back.”

  “Janice,” there was a very real sense of fear in his voice, as though my hanging up would destroy him. “I am the same man.”

  “No you’re not.” I was shocked by the strength of my own resolve. “I swear all you’ve done is argue with me since I came back here.”

  “Because I can’t stand to be away from you like this. It’s killing me, Janice.”

  “Then come and stay with me for a week.” Before he could start to make all the regular excuses, I said, “Becky already promised she’d stop in and check on Lottie twice a day and take her anywhere she needed to go.”

  “Is Becky gonna come and make sure all the animals are fed and cleaned up after too?”

  “No, but Ernie will,” I reminded him. I knew he hated the idea of leaving the farm in the hands of his cousin for more than a day or two, but his greatest reservation generally centered on his mother. “You need this, Troy. We need this.”

  There was hesitation and defeat in the sigh that followed my little piece of truth. “I’ll see what Ernie says, but I can’t make any promises.”

  “Ernie will do it,” I assured him.

  “We’ll see.”

  I wondered if it was the hold of the moon that made him say he’d see, because I was hoping inside that by morning, as the moon began to wane again, he’d come to his senses and realize I was right. We needed that time to really find out who we were together without the backdrop of that town in all of our affairs.

  If I could have called Ernie myself, I would have done so, and told him to call Troy and offer to help out, but Troy actually surprised me with an early phone call that prodded me from sleep the next morning around seven-thirty.

  “You win,” he said just after I mumbled hello into the receiver.

  “Hmm? What did I win?”

  “Against my better judgment, I am going to leave Ernie to tend to things here for a week, and Mom told me herself that if I didn’t go she wasn’t gonna talk to me for a month.”

  “Bless the waning moon,” I sunk back into my pillow and sighed relief.

  “What?”

  “Never mind,” I could feel the joy of a minor victory crawling across my lips. “When are you coming?”

  “I’ll be there Sunday.”

  “Good, I can’t wait.”

  An entire week together. The prospect was both exciting and daunting when I thought about the unraveling task I seemingly undertaken. With the waning moon on my side, I hoped I couldn’t lose, that on my terms and my turf, I’d be able to turn the tide of pain that held him back from embracing who he truly wanted to be. I h
ad no strategy, no plans, only the notion that I had nothing more than myself without conditions or limitations to offer. If that wasn’t enough, I wasn’t sure what more I could do.

  Sunday afternoon arrived, bringing Troy with it, and after his long drive we decided to order take out and stay in to watch the Steelers game on television. Shortly after the game ended, a storm hit the city and we lay snuggled up in bed together watching the snow fall like little shadows against the streetlight just outside my bedroom window.

  “I’m so glad you came.” I lowered my cheek onto his shoulder and drew the quilt up around us for warmth. “Especially now that the snow is here. It has this calming effect on the monotony of the city that really gives you a picture of its beauty.”

  He said nothing, but tightened his arm across my back and rested his chin atop my head.

  “I love it when it snows at night,” I admitted. “The whole world seems to hold its breath after a while.”

  “I love to walk out in the early hours just before the sun comes up and find it still snowing after a long night,” his voice was thoughtful. “Just to stand there with the world so quiet you can almost hear the snow fall.”

  “Mm,” I drew in a breath and closed my eyes, the image he painted fresh in my mind. “You feel like you’re the only soul in the world in moments like that.”

  “I wonder what it’d be like to share that kind of moment with someone else,” he said.

  “We could set the alarm for four o’clock and go see.”

  “I don’t think it’d be the same here,” he admitted.

  “You’d be surprised how amazing and beautiful this city is sometimes,” I told him, propping up beside him on my elbow to look down at his shadow in the dark. “On the nights when it snows it’s so quiet it feels like the city itself has fallen asleep. You walk along the sidewalk and it feels like you’re sneaking through the hallways of a sleeping giant.”

  “But what happens if you wake the giant?”

  “I don’t know,” a sound half-laughter and half-sigh escaped me as I drifted back into the pillow. “I’ve never woken it. It’d probably eat me alive.”

  In the quiet darkness he was silent for so long that I actually started to drift away. I could feel myself falling, slow at first, and then speeding toward the earth like a snowflake when he broke the silence with his voice.

  “I love it when it’s undisturbed and secret, like a blanket over the sleeping world. There’s a part of me that regrets having to walk through it and break the endless cover, but you know what’s even better?”

  “Hmm?” I lifted my head to keep from drifting any further while he talked.

  “Being in the woods when it snows, it’s like you’re in this whole other world.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been in the woods while it was snowing,” I admitted. “Not even as a kid.”

  “I’ll take you there,” he said. “There’s this spot by the creek I like to hunt. It’s the most peaceful place in the world, and when the snow comes sometimes I just sit there for hours and watch it fall.”

  I stared out at the shadow snow, no longer ambling in its pace, but fat, speeding flakes tumbling heavily toward the ground. “There is so much more to you than you let the world see, Troy. I feel like you hide this part of you away sometimes.”

  “Maybe I don’t want the world to see this side of me,” he admitted. “Maybe it’s a side I’ve been saving just for you.”

  “But how did you know it was me you wanted to share it with?”

  I listened as he exhaled.

  “Because I’ve been back in that town for five years,” he started, “and even after five years’ time you were the only one who didn’t hesitate to look me in the eye. Even when we were at the fire hall after your mom’s funeral, when I looked up and caught your eye, you didn’t look away like you were ashamed or felt sorry for me. There wasn’t that same sense of pity I see in everyone else because you knew, you were going through it too.” For a moment he was quiet, putting his thoughts together, and then he added, “It was like you looked up and you just saw me. Not my failure to get out of that town, not the shackles that tie me to it, just me. Which is weird because of them all, you actually got away.”

  I pursed my lips against the chills of emotion that rippled through me. “You’re not a failure, Troy.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” his hand slid along the bare skin of my shoulder. “When I’m with you, none of that matters.”

  Before I was able to insist it did matter to me and should matter to him, that it mattered more than anything in the world that he realize the truth about how amazing he was and he wasn’t a failure, he drew me into his waiting kiss and made the world and all its crazy notions disappear for the time being.

  I fell asleep beside him, but woke alone a couple of hours later, only to find him standing in the window watching the snow fall over the city. I walked over and slipped inside the blanket he’d wrapped around himself and he lowered an arm over my shoulder.

  The quiet world surrendered to the wind and snow, and for the moment so did we. The unbroken cover on the streets below would soon yield to daybreak and a world that didn’t stop to take a breath, but we did.

  Chapter Thirty

  On Monday I planned to drive into North Hills to do some shopping at the mall there, but the weather did not let up and we wound up staying in. While I committed myself to a couple of hours in front of the computer, Troy flipped through the TV channels repeatedly, until at last I disappeared into my bedroom closet and brought out the book I’d bought for him on Black Friday.

  “I was going to give this to you for Christmas.” I held it behind my back at first, part of me afraid of how he might react to it. “But maybe it’ll give you something to do right now while I’m trying to get this idea onto paper,” I handed it over and drew my arms away uncertainly.

  I watched as he studied the front cover’s stark primary colors, and then he flipped it over to peruse the back. “You didn’t have to give this to me now,” he insisted. “I would have found something to watch eventually.”

  I shrugged one shoulder and bent to kiss his cheek, “The only thing on at this hour is trashy talk-shows and soap operas.”

  “So, I’m not going to find out today if Miranda is carrying Dylan’s baby?”

  “I saw that episode last month. Miranda’s not even really pregnant,” I said.

  He already opened the cover and was flipping through the pages. Occasionally he would pause to read, creasing his hand along the curved page to hold it in place. He barely noticed when I slipped behind my desk in the dining room and started typing again.

  Occasionally I glanced out from behind the screen and watched him tug on his bottom lip while he read. Though it may not have seemed like much, my reservations about giving him the book itself turned out to be false, and so I felt inside as if I’d already achieved a small victory in a war he hadn’t even realized I was about to wage.

  By Tuesday the city turned the snow to ash. Salt trucks stained the streets, cars and sidewalks with off-white splatters, and even though the expanse of clouds threatened to tear open and dump another mountain of white over the world, we took off for the North Hills Village Mall to do some holiday shopping. I hadn’t had a boyfriend shop with me for so long that I almost forgot how much it seemed to take out of them, and when he started to just nod and agree with everything I showed him, I knew it was time to grab lunch.

  With piles of bags packed into the trunk, we stopped at a small pizza shop on the way home and tucked into a cozy booth near the window. After placing our order and receiving our drinks, I finally reached across the table and took his hands into mine.

  “Isn’t this nice?”

  “It was a mall,” he laughed. “We do have one of them back home,” and he exaggerated the words back home with a mock-country twang.

  Laughing, I leaned further across the table, “Not the mall, this, us just being together out in the world without any
cares or responsibilities.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he nodded. “It’s been good. Nice even.”

  “Do you feel relaxed at all?”

  “I guess, a little.”

  “Relaxing is good,” I pointed out. “I know you work hard, but sometimes you need to stop and take care of you. You need to relax more.”

  I sensed discomfort in him as he drew his hands away from mine and reached for his drink. “Have you thought anymore about what you’re going to do at the end of this month?” Cleverly played, I thought, him drawing the attention toward me and my inevitable situation.

  “No,” I admitted. “I did tell my landlord that I wasn’t going to renew my lease, so I guess I better get busy and start packing.”

  “So, you’ll be moving then?”

  “It looks that way, but where to is still up in the air.”

  He folded his hands together and looked down at his knuckles, “You’re not still thinking about staying here in the city, are you?”

  I shook my head, “No, I’ve more or less decided I’ll be coming back home. I’ll probably just move all my stuff to Dad’s before Christmas and figure out where to go from there after the holidays. I’ve even been talking with Amber Williams about making an offer on the Standard building, but I want to take a walk through it first, see how much work needs to be done.”

  He stared at his hands a moment, silently incredulous that I hadn’t mentioned such big news before then. “You’re really thinking about reopening the Sonesville Standard?”

  “I’m considering my options, that’s all. I want to do what I know in my heart I was meant to do, on my terms, you know?” I half-hoped phrasing it that way would give him a little hint I wished he would do the same, but my subtlety went completely over his head.

  “I know maybe some people might think it’s too soon, probably even you, but I was being serious when I said you could move in with me.”

  I didn’t quite know what to say, so at first I drew my purse onto the table and spent a few seconds rooting through it in search of lip balm. After coating my lips in a shiny layer, I dropped it back in and returned my purse to the bench beside me.