Coming Home (18 page)

“So you’re saying I’m not being honest now?”

“I’m saying you haven’t really given it much thought because you’d rather be angry. You’ve stopped thinking.”

Jessie pursed her lips. “That’s not fair, Andy. You don’t know me anymore—”

“Yes I do,” he interrupted.

“No you don’t.”

“You may have changed, but you’re still—”

Jessie held up her hand like a stop sign. “Please. Stop saying that.”

“Don’t you remember—”

“I don’t
want
to remember anymore—”

“But, Jess—”

“People grow up,” Jessie finished. “I don’t wear my life on my sleeve anymore.”

“Is that how you want to live?”

“Yes,” Jessie replied firmly. The tiny crack had exploded into a giant chasm, breaking them apart.

Andy leaned back, as if the conversation was over. A minute passed in silence, and Jessie wondered how something so good had suddenly turned so bad.

Andy met her eyes. “Still friends?”

Jessie smiled, but it felt weak. “Of course.” She looked at her watch. They’d been here for an hour. As if on cue, they were interrupted by shouts. Laura was pushing Betty in her wheelchair, and in her lap were their watercolor paintings. Andy caught Jessie’s eye again. His face communicated warmth and reassurance.

At least I didn’t hope this time,
Jessie thought.
I knew we were doomed from the very beginning.

They attended a few more shows, but the day was obviously winding down. Betty looked tired, although she pretended otherwise. Only Laura was eager to stay. When they finally headed toward the exit, Betty pointed to a craft shop across the way. “I’d like to get a souvenir.”

Andy wheeled her to the shop while Jessie and Laura waited on a bench. “Do we
have
to go?” Laura whined.

Jessie checked the time. Five o’clock. “We’ve been everywhere, sweetie. And Mrs. Robinette is wiped out.”

Laura nodded glumly.

In spite of the earlier tense discussion, Jessie was enjoying the wait, the exuberant buzz of the crowd. More and more people were heading out the exit. Dads were carrying bags of souvenirs. Moms were holding the hands of their children or pushing strollers. The conversation with Andy played in her mind as she waited. Laura sat still, crestfallen, apparently lost in the specter of going home. Jessie felt sorry for her.

Among the exiting people she spotted a blond woman wearing a yellow sundress. Jessie’s mind clicked and everything went numb again. Fuzzy. Automatic. Jessie put her hand on Laura’s shoulder. “Stay here, sweetie.”

“Where are you going?”

Jessie didn’t reply as she rushed across the pathway, weaving between couples and families. The closer Jessie got, the farther the woman seemed to diminish into the crowd.

“Wait!” Jessie whispered, but the woman couldn’t possibly have heard her.

A man stepped in front of Jessie, and they collided. “Sorry …” Angrily he stepped aside, but the woman in the sundress had disappeared.

Jessie stood in the middle of a crowd of people, circling around and around in one spot, her panic building.
Where’d she go?

And then she spotted her. She took off again, this time in a full sprint, and by the time she reached the woman, she had completely lost her composure, not to mention her grip on reality. She slowed down at the last minute and reached out and touched the woman’s shoulder.

“Mom?”

The woman turned and Jessie shrank back in horror, realizing what she’d just done. “I’m sorry, I thought you were someone …”

The woman forced a smile, and her little girl looked up at her and said, “Mom, who’s that?” The woman, who was no older than Jessie herself, smiled again, but there was a glint of fear in her eyes. She didn’t even answer her little girl, instead pushing her forward, saying, “Just keep walking, okay?” Yards away the mother glanced back again, likely worried that the “crazy” woman was still following them.

Jessie just stood there, the entire park swirling around in her mind like a Tilt-a-Whirl. She felt a hand on her own shoulder. It was Andy.

“You okay?” he asked gently.

Jessie hugged herself. “I just … I thought I saw … someone I knew.”

Andy slipped his arm around her. “Too much excitement, huh?”

She nodded. They walked back to the bench, where Laura was fiddling with one of her toys, and Mrs. Robinette was serenely examining a piece of carved wood.

Chapter Twenty

ANDY AND JESSIE helped Mrs. Robinette into her house. She marveled at the “wonderful day” and hugged Jessie, who promised to visit again.

Jessie hurried back to the car to wait with Laura, who seemed to be descending into despair, a startling contrast to her earlier exuberance.

“Can I get you anything?” Andy asked Betty.

Betty took a tentative cane-assisted step. “Just a kiss on the cheek.”

Andy complied.

“Now don’t keep your lady friend waiting,” she clucked.

“Laura doesn’t look so good,” he commented.

“Today was a good day for her,” Mrs. Robinette said. “Outings like these are few and far between.”

Jessie got back out of the car and met Andy on the porch. “Laura isn’t ready to go home yet.”

“Ice cream, maybe?” Andy offered.

“You always could read my mind.”

Andy raised his eyebrows humorously. “I thought I wasn’t allowed to talk that way.”

“Don’t make me hit you.”

They drove to Betty’s shop, where her daughter, Kay, was running things. Laura, whose smile had made a faltering reappearance, ordered mint chocolate chip. Andy watched curiously as Jessie stepped up to the plate.

“Pistachio again?” He asked.

“Not tonight,” she said slyly. An immediate throwback to their childhood. “Okay, Mr. Andrew, go for it,” she challenged, making a sweeping gesture with her arm.

Andy ordered banana nut for her.

Jessie began laughing.

“Am I right?”

“Not even close. Are you serious? Banana nut?”

After settling on butter pecan, they sat at their old table. Laura was still a bit sullen, so Andy and Jessie attempted to put a positive spin on the end of a glorious day. They reviewed the various events and activities at the fair, and eventually Laura began giggling again.

Andy’s cell phone rang and he intended to let it go, until he checked the ID. It was his dad, who rarely called Andy’s cell number. Smiling apologetically, he headed outside where the reception was clearer.

“Andy, where are you?” His father sounded worried.

Where am I?
“What is it, Dad?”

“Is Jessica still with you?”

Andy looked in through the shop window. Jessie noticed him looking and gave a gentle wave. “I’m not following you… .”

“Have you talked about anything?”

“Dad, just say it.”

His dad paused. Andy turned toward Elephant Rock, which was visible above the building across the street. Long shadows were already descending upon the mountain-enclosed village, matching the growing shadows of his own mind. His father was obviously troubled about something.

“What is it?” Andy repeated.

When his father finally continued, his tone was grave and his words were measured. “Andy, there’s something you need to know… .”

Jessie smiled as Andy entered the shop. He smiled back, almost too brightly. Laura had been chattering about her friends at school, describing their hair colors and styles.
“I want to be a hair stylist when I grow up,”
she had told Jessie.
“They get to wear purple whenever they want.”

Something was troubling Andy. She remembered the way he’d always overcompensated when he was a kid, especially when he was trying to hide something, and he was the worst fibber on the planet.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

Andy didn’t respond. “So … get enough ice cream?” he asked Laura, who shook her head and took another bite.

“That’ll never happen!”

He laughed and Laura giggled. Jessie watched him, wondering what had changed so quickly. Laura took another long, slow bite. Jessie finally caught Andy’s eye, and he winked at her.

An hour later, they dropped Laura off, and she trudged mournfully to her house. They heard Molly’s muffled barking, and then Laura suddenly appeared in the window, waving. It had an almost desperate quality.

“You okay?” Andy asked, looking over at her.

“Her mother is a witch,” Jessie replied.

Andy looked at the house again, pondering the situation. He straightened in his seat and stared through the windshield, lost in thought. “I hope I didn’t offend you earlier, Jess.”

She leaned back in the leather seat, taking a deep breath, unwilling to belabor the obvious. “I get too worked up sometimes.”

Andy put the car into gear.

“Do you remember when we used to ride to the top of the hill?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Jessie whispered.

They drove up in nostalgic silence, his headlights blazing a trail. Reaching the top, Andy parked on the gravel road in front of an apartment complex, facing Elephant Rock to the east. To their right was the majestic southward corridor to Colorado Springs.

Andy cut the engine and they settled into a comfortable stillness. From this vantage point they could see their old haunts: the lake, the gazebo, the town hall, the school and flagpole, and the gift shop.

“Shouldn’t even be called a town,” Jessie suggested. “It’s so tiny.”

“It was our whole world.”

“A village, and barely that.”

They talked some more, nothing controversial, and the minutes passed effortlessly. The town lights grew in proportion to the dimming of the evening. Before long, the dash lights were illuminating a misty green into the interior of his car. Andy turned in his seat, facing her. “Why
did
you come back, Jess?”

She frowned thoughtfully and considered telling him the truth:
I was zipping along on my way to Oregon when a giant hook descended from the sky …
but then realized this was the perfect opening. She dug into her purse and pulled out a white box, handing it to him. “This is why—my sum total reason for coming home.”

Andy raised his eyebrows but accepted the gift. He brought it to his nose and sniffed.

Jessie laughed. “What were you expecting?”

“Cologne maybe?” Andy chuckled.

“Just open it, silly.”

He pried the lid off and removed the Toto key chain, holding it as if it were pure gold. “Hey … I
do
remember this.”

“I forgot your twelfth birthday, remember?” She opened her purse again and pulled out her own key chain, comparing the two. “I stopped by Finders Keepers a couple days ago. Happened to see it.”

He was still examining the key chain. “Doesn’t
this
take me back.” He whistled. “Do you remember Mrs. Peterson?”

“How could I forget?” Jessie answered. “I honestly think she hated kids.”

“It’s like we had a time limit or something.”

Jessie nodded. “I remember telling her once that I would never steal anything and that she could frisk me if she needed to, but I was going to take my time looking around. Or she could call the cops!”

“You were gutsy,” Andy said, grinning. “You actually
said

that?”

“I had a lip.”

“Still do.”

“Thank you.”

Andy was still staring at the key chain. “Well, let’s do this right now.” He removed his keys from the ignition and, one by one, put each of his keys on the new ring, like an important ritual or ceremony. Then he caught her by surprise. He spoke softly, carefully, as if he were walking on broken glass. “What happened at the fair today?” His gaze was clear and unwavering, and she knew instantly what he meant.

You mean, why am I so messed up?
she almost said, tempted to brush it off with another joke.

“I told you about the dreams, remember?” she began. He nodded, encouraging her to continue. “This is going to sound strange.” She was staring out the window, emboldened by the top-of-theworld perspective.

“The dreams come almost every night… .” She described them, how they had evolved over the years yet in many ways stayed the same. A few varieties on the same theme, with little difference between them. And in the dreams her mother always wore a yellow sundress.

“I freaked out today,” she admitted. “I saw a woman in a yellow dress, and everything went crazy.” She closed her eyes, feeling ridiculous. Now that she was actually
saying it,
she questioned her own sanity. “I had this counselor once,” she continued. “Actually he was a therapist with a bunch of fancy letters behind his name, and all he ever wanted to discuss were the dreams.” She chuckled at the memory. “‘Dreams are the key to your subconscious,’ he once said.” She stopped and looked sheepishly over at Andy. “You don’t want to hear this… .”

“Tell me,” Andy replied simply.

Jessie reached up and rubbed her shoulders. “In spite of his stuffy background, he was a neat guy, just a little stuck in the world of Freud.” She peered out the window again, down the glorious corridor. The view had a trancelike effect on her, like an inkblot test that reaches into your mind and pulls out the truth. She glanced at Andy again, and he seemed concerned. “You look worried. Am I scaring you?”

He shook his head, but she sensed something else. She let her head drop back against the seat.

“He said I was a repressed soul, that I needed
closure,
and I remember laughing at him. ‘Do psychiatrists actually use that word?’ And he said, ‘Call it what you will, but the story isn’t finished for you yet, not if you want to be emotionally healthy.”’

“The story?” Andy said.

“Yeah. I think he’d keyed in to how much I liked to read. I’d told him I’d started
War and Peace
and really hated it but was determined to finish it anyway.”

“So … what did you think about what he said?”

“I didn’t
want
to be emotionally healthy,” she replied. “Not if that meant the dreams would stop. I actually cherished them … and yet they …” She stopped.
And yet they tormented me… .

Andy continued his probing. “So the shrink thought the dreams meant you needed closure?”

Jessie nodded. “He said my subconscious was trying to communicate with me.”

“Oh,” Andy said with a tone of wonder. “Like a secret message in the back of your mind… .”

“Weird, huh?”

“No. Makes sense.”

“He said my mother was like a phantom limb.”

Andy frowned. “Phantom limb? That’s seems a little weird.”

“Well … he knew the circumstances of how they took my mother away, how I never saw her again.” Jessie shivered at how easy it had become to talk about her past with Andy—
things can change in a moment
. In spite of their earlier disagreement, she also marveled at the ease with which they had dropped into their former roles again, like fitting the pieces into a puzzle. But she also remembered the childhood arguments. Things weren’t so different after all. Even as youngsters, they’d had a way of challenging each other.

Andy’s expression was too serious, and she was struck again with the notion that he knew something he wasn’t sharing. He finished for her. “So … do you sometimes think your mom didn’t actually die?”

She looked him in the eye and pondered his statement. “I sometimes
feel
as if she didn’t die, but I never really
think
it.”

Andy nodded once and began rubbing the steering wheel with his palm, obviously formulating his next words.

“What?”

He turned in his seat. “It makes perfect sense. You and your mother were very close.”

Is that what you really want to say?
she wanted to ask but couldn’t.