He couldn't help but think about Cecily's journey, about how she brushed off the rubble of the past and dared to live a new life. He tried to take comfort from that, from knowing someone who had been in his position and came out the other side better and stronger. Nate squeezed his eyes shut and tried, once again, to conjure up an image of his future. He saw himself and Bailey walking, swinging their arms in unison, smiling. Nate settled on this image, this snapshot of unity and wholeness, and let the warmth of it settle in his body and guide him to his first deep sleep in weeks.
*~*~*
Nate stood next to Cecily, Bailey hanging onto his back and Tommy hugging Cecily's leg, and looked into the deep abyss of the storage shed. Nate stared at the boxes housing the things that had made up his life for so long. The boxes were in rows and stacked carefully, which made the space look impersonal, showing no signs of the heartbreak and loss that they represented. Little images and memories flickered through Nate's brain like an old projector spinning through a family album. He remembered how much it had rained on the day that they had bought their bed and how Joshua had tried to cover him with his coat. For a second, Nate thought that he could smell Joshua's aftershave in the air and the unique smell that the vintage coat gave off when it got wet. It took all of his strength not to turn around in the desperate hope that Joshua would be standing there as if nothing had happened and it was just another ordinary day. Nate could remember little glimpses of history for almost every item that was being stored in the shed, and the weight of the history felt a little overwhelming. He thought about how strange it was that everything he ever owned could be folded up and stored away in the darkness of a storage space.
They stood there looking at the accoutrements of a life that no longer existed, that maybe hadn't even really existed. Nate felt Cecily grab his hand. He squeezed back encouragingly, making it clear that he was keeping it together. Bailey yawned, bored. He'd made sure that all of his favorite things were put in the car and was itching to do something fun.
"Okay, I'm ready... We can go now." Nate swallowed hard, suppressing the shiver of doubt that spiraled through his body. He couldn't stand looking at the boxes forever, imagining ways that things could have gone differently, could have gone better.
He put Bailey on the ground and shut the heavy door. It closed with a satisfying, defiant thud. The closing of a chapter resonated inside of him; the closing up of a wound and the opening of another. Nate picked Bailey back up and walked to his car, watching as tufts of dust drifted upwards underneath his boots. After he kissed Bailey on the cheek and secured him in his car seat, Nate stretched out. He raised his arms towards the sun, decompressing his spine.
Cecily stood behind him, shielding her eyes from the sun. "Do you know where you're going? Or what you're going to do once you get there?" she asked quietly.
Nate pulled his hands through his hair and then pushed them into his pockets. "I'm gonna stay with my friend Steven. He lives two hours north in a nice little town. Then I'm going to save up some money and rent a little place, somewhere with a writing nook. I'll find Bailey a new school and write my book, and later in the year, I'll do the interview circuit. And hopefully I'll be able to get enough money together at some point to come back to the city." Nate shrugged and gave a crooked, unconfident smile. "It's not that exciting, but it's a plan."
"It's a good plan, it's a solid plan." Tommy ran around Cecily, tugging at her dress, clearly impatient.
"I'm gonna go; I think the kids are getting antsy," Nate said, nodding towards Bailey and Tommy.
"Yep. I love you, Nate. You're going to be fine." She stepped forward and hugged Nate. "See you soon, Bailey," she said over his shoulder. Nate hugged harder for a second, taking a little bit of strength from an old friend, clinging to the last thing that would be familiar in a long time, the last bit of life in the city.
Nate got into the car and buckled his seatbelt. "Wave to Aunt Cecily... We're not going to see her for a little while." Bailey bounced up and down in his seat and started waving frantically as Nate turned the key in the ignition and drove away from the storage unit.
As he began to pick up speed, something that Cecily said played in his mind. He could hear Cecily's words clear and crisp, ringing with truth, buzzing with knowledge.
I moved back home. I moved back home. I moved back home
. Nate felt the words flow through him, as if the universe was commanding his attention, as if it had been whispering to him for a long time and had begun to shout.
He turned the steering wheel so that the car slipped off the road and pulled onto the shoulder. He kicked down sharply on the brakes and felt the car shudder. The tires slid slightly on the newly wet ground. He held tightly to the steering wheel, trying to steady himself and push aside some of the adrenaline that coursed through his body in the momentary skid. He looked to the back seat to make sure that Bailey hadn't woken. Nate tried to make sense of the thoughts that were drumming through his brain. Nate tried to reconcile the conflicting feelings doing battle inside of him; he really didn't want to listen to what his intuition was telling him, but he knew what had happened the last time he ignored his gut. He looked at the front of his phone and scrolled through the contacts. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Heavy streams of rain began to hammer down on the windscreen, the hollow sound reverberating through the car and sending thin vibrations through his chest.
"Shit," Nate whispered, pulling his hair back with his right hand. Nate rested his hands together and put them to his ribcage. "God, listen to me. I know I don't ever pray to you and I don't exactly do all the things that the bible tells me to… But I try to be a Good Samaritan and I always help charities and I've never killed anyone. Anyway, I'm sorry I don't pray all that much and that I don't think you exist… But I'm a little bit lost and I need to be found. I need to be found, not only for myself, but also for my son. In fact, mainly for my son—so send me a sign. I'll follow it, if you send me it. I won't even question it. Shit, shit, shit, shit."
"Daddy… That's not a nice word and I don't like it," Bailey said, yawning and stretching out. He rubbed his eyes with his balled-up fists and smiled. "Why have we stopped? It woke me up."
"I was just trying to make my mind up about something," Nate said softly, trying hard to hide the uncertainty that he was feeling, trying to be the kind of parent he read about in kid's books.
"Can I help? I'm a good helper," Bailey said brightly. Nate knew how much Bailey liked acting like a grown up and how he would seize any opportunity to give advice and tell adults how they should behave. Nate liked that Bailey felt excitement and at least a momentary bit of happiness when so many terrible things were on their way.
"I don't think so, Bay, it's a big-person problem," Nate said, stretching his arm behind his seat so that he could hold Bailey's little, fragile hand.
"Please, Daddy, Papa is not here to help you, and I am a good helper," Bailey exclaimed, clearly annoyed at having his access to the world of adult decision-making cut short.
The word 'papa' seemed to haunt the car, hanging in the air stagnant and sad. Nate gathered himself for a beat before he began. "You're right, big guy. You are so smart that I know you can help. So I guess what I want to know is… If you were lost and you didn't know what to do, and you were a little bit sad about something, where would you go?"
"I would come and talk to you, because you're the parent and I would go home. That's important. If I was lost, I would go home." He looked at Nate cautiously, trying to gauge his reaction, to see whether he had done well.
Nate smiled widely and clapped his hands together. "That is exactly what I needed to hear… That's very good advice! You don't know what advice is? Well... it's what you just gave. It means that you tell someone the right thing to do." Nate let his voice grow buoyant and light.
Bailey looked impressed with himself and then suddenly tired again, like his energy had been zapped in his pursuit of premature adulthood. He yawned a big yawn and snuggled his face against the seat. "I'm tired, so I am going to go to sleep… But there better not be any bad language from you, or I will hear it! You know I always hear it," he mumbled, putting his thumb in his mouth.
"Okay," Nate whispered as he watched Bailey drift back to sleep. After a short time, he turned to face the windshield and noticed that the rain had stopped pouring and the black clouds up ahead were moving away, like they were being swept off so that the sky could illuminate the way. "I actually got a sign…" Nate mumbled as he typed a new address into the GPS—an address that he had never imagined he would ever type into any GPS—and turned the key in the ignition.
You Can't Go Home
"Hey, Mom," Nate said into his cell as he messed around with the gas pump. There was silence on the other side of the phone, the only sound a slight crackle of bad reception. He looked around at the quiet gas station and inhaled the metallic smell of the fuel. He allowed himself to take a moment's solace in the isolation. Nobody would tell him what to do, or look at him sympathetically, or have opinions on how he should be thinking and feeling. Still rainwater rested in deep bumps and grooves in the ground, their surfaces slick and still—a strange mix of grim and serene, of raggedness and beauty.
"This is Ava… Who is this?" Nate's mom's voice boomed through the earpiece. Nate was taken aback by the intensity of her voice even though he had spent his whole childhood listening to her boisterous phone manner. He suddenly remembered all of the times that he had been embarrassed by the animated way that his mother had spoken to her friends on the phone.
"It's Nate. You know, the only person in the whole world who would call you mom." The sarcasm in his voice was partly at such a ridiculous question and partly because it was a bit of armor, a defense against something he hadn't faced in years. He could feel his resolve failing a little, and he could hear the frightened young teenager who had fled town in the dead of night.
"Oh, Nathaniel! How did you get this number?"
"Well, you've had the same one my whole life, so I thought I would take a risk." He smoothed a non-existent wrinkle on his sweater, reminding himself to be calm and collected. Surely he could get through the first conversation with his mother in ten years without biting her head off.
"Of course, that's us, never changing. I guess I was just surprised to hear your voice. You sound so different, like you've grown—like you're a grown up man now," she said, suspicion now easing into something that sounded like quiet heartache. Nate was listening to her voice as closely as possible, trying to grasp how his mother was thinking and feeling.
"That's me, I'm all grown up—well, that's what I like to think. I can drive now and I have a bank account and everything..." Nate laughed a little. He looked through the passenger window and saw Bailey making his usual bored face, his little cheeks blown up so that they looked fat and round. Bailey rolled his eyes at Nate, trying to signal that it was time to go, that he couldn't stand sitting in the idle car any longer.
"I can't even imagine you driving! Oh, Nathaniel... My book club is reading one of your books next month. I still can't even believe that you have books… And all of the ladies have already read it! And they love it so much that they want to read it all over again. That
never
happens. Well, except with
The Da Vinci Code
… But I hated that one. You know, all that luminati stuff, it's too hard for me to get my head around. I told them when we were reading it. I like a good romantic comedy, plain and simple. Is your book a romantic comedy? Not that I wouldn't read it if it weren't." Her voice had turned excited, her words whirling with energy.
"Mom. I know it's been a while. But can I...?" Nate stopped for a second, trying to keep the butterflies in his stomach from launching up his throat and onto the asphalt. "Can Bailey and I come and stay at yours for a while? It's just that I—" He stopped again, trying to formulate the words to explain how somewhere he hadn't been in ten years suddenly felt like home. How he was drowning. He breathed in slowly. "It's just that I have this feeling, this draw. I think Bailey and I need to come and be with you. I know it's been ten years, but I think I'm right. I think this is right."
"Is Bailey your, you know, your new Joshua?" Ava whispered. She sounded unstable and distant again. Nate felt like the floor had been pulled from under him and he was freefalling.
"Ummm. No, Bailey's my son. You know, the one I sent you the letters about, and photos. The one I sent you plane tickets to come and see for his birthday," Nate said.
"Oh, yes, Bailey. Your father said something about you having a son. I've seen the photos, but Bernard thought that it would be better for me to not get attached. Because of, you know... you just leaving like that… and then not coming back for any Christmases. I've always wanted to be more involved, but Bernard knows what he's talking about." Her voice trailed off. She seemed like she wanted to say more, to offer up a part of herself that was broken and bruised, something that was truly honest, but couldn't quite bring herself to.
Nate couldn't speak. He wanted to curl into a ball and make himself small. He wanted Bailey to be somewhere else so that he could get into the car and sit still for weeks, molding into the seat, just staring through the window, watching the world rush past him. He held the phone tightly in his hand, hoping that the force would travel through the line and say something for him. The silence on the other end was filled with accusations and apologies, with a history that had never been resolved.
Nate looked through his reflection in the window and saw Bailey playing with his toy Actionman. He knew that being a dad meant feeling like this and doing the right thing anyway, of wanting the ground to swallow you up but forging ahead regardless. He tapped on the glass and plastered his face with the biggest, fakest smile he could muster. Bailey waved and stuck his tongue out, making Nate's smile turn wide and genuine. Nate pulled his hand through his hair and began to speak again. "You know what, Mom? Forget what I said. Maybe I didn't have a feeling; maybe it was just one of those crazy things. I think that I haven't been back for a reason."