Coming Home (51 page)

Rob scowled at him.  “Speak for yourself,” he said.

“It looks to me,” Jesse said, “like what she wants to do is curl
up into a ball and die.”

“Too bad.  It’s not on my list of preferred activities for the
bereaved.”

Jesse took a sip of beer.  “You going back over there tonight?”

“Depends.”  Rob slowly rolled the beer bottle between his palms. 
Darkly, he said, “I don’t suppose you’d happen to know if she owns any
firearms?”

Jesse wasn’t quite successful at hiding a smile.  “I do believe,”
he said, “that she’s a pacifist.”

“Damn it,” Rob said.  “I wasn’t supposed to like you.  I had
myself all pumped up to hate your guts.”

“I suppose it would be an odd friendship,” Jesse said.  “You being
you, and me being me.”

“And your taste in beer,” Rob told him, “is beyond pathetic.”

“Really.”

“Friends,” he said pointedly, “don’t allow friends to drink
rotgut.  I happen to know that the local grocery store here in Dogpatch carries
Heineken.  And if we’re talking about doing any serious drinking to cement this
friendship, then we’re damn-well going into town and picking up a couple of
six-packs.”

Jesse drained his beer and set the bottle on the end table. 
Stretched out his legs and planted his feet on the floor.  “Well, then,” he
said, “what are we waiting for?”

***

He came hammering at her door the next morning.  Casey tied the
belt of her ratty old terrycloth robe tighter around her and went to answer the
door.  He had one shoulder propped against the frame and was wearing that
ingenuous little boy look that women of all ages found so irresistible.  “Still
speaking to me?” he said.

She opened the door farther and stepped back so he could come
inside.  “Ah, coffee,” he said, closing his eyes and inhaling.  “You knew I was
coming.”

“Let’s say I had a pretty good idea.”

“And I don’t imagine you have a meat cleaver hidden anywhere in
the folds of that robe.  Which, by the way, is a prime candidate for the rag
bin.”

“I wouldn’t talk if I were you,” she said.  “You look like you
slept in your clothes.”

“It wasn’t the first time, and it probably won’t be the last.”  He
followed his nose to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup.  Leaned against
the counter to drink it.  Eyeing her over the rim of the cup, he said, “How
much weight have you lost?”

“How should I know?  I threw out the bathroom scale months ago.”

“You look like shit.”

She crossed her arms.  “Thank you, Doctor MacKenzie, for that
learned diagnosis.”

“When was the last time you left the house?”

“Give me a minute,” she snapped, “and I’ll check my appointment
book.”

They glared at each other.  He uncrossed and recrossed those bony
ankles.  “You’re not half as tough as you think,” he said.

“Probably not,” she said.  “Where’d you spend the night?”

“On Jesse’s couch.”

They’d been friends for fourteen years, and still he could
surprise her.  “Really,” she said.

“I want you to take a shower and comb your hair,” he said, “and
try to find something to wear that won’t fall off and embarrass me.”

“Oh?  Are we going somewhere?”

“After I feed you, we are.  That is, if you have any food in this
joint.”

The shower was heavenly.  In its warmth, she felt as though she
were washing away the remnants of some stranger who had taken over her body. 
She vigorously toweled her hair, then brushed it back from her face.  It had
been some time since she’d looked in a mirror.  Her face was gaunt and drawn,
her cheekbones visibly prominent.  Her shirt hung off her shoulders, and her
jeans were so loose that she needed a belt to hold them up.

Like an obedient child, she sat demurely at the kitchen table. 
Rob plunked a bowl of oatmeal down in front of her.  “It was all I could find,”
he said.  “What in hell have you been living on?”

“Instant potato.  Minute Rice.  Canned beans.”  She spooned sugar
on the oatmeal and dug in, astonished by her appetite.  “Aren’t you eating?”

“I’ll pass.”

She held out a sticky spoonful of oatmeal.  He eyed it
suspiciously, then leaned over the table and opened his mouth.  Licked the
spoon clean.  “There,” he said, and swallowed.  “You eat the rest.  That’s an
order.”

She cleaned out her bowl, then looked hopefully around the
kitchen.  “No toast?” she said.

“I had to throw out the bread.  It was green.  Where the hell are
your shoes?”

“In the shed.  You’re a really obnoxious human being when you’re
bossy like this.  Have I ever told you that?”

“Once or twice over the years.”  He went into the shed and
rummaged around, came back and tossed her shoes with a thud on the floor at her
feet.  “Dress your feet.”

It was the first week of June, and the world wore the rich,
breathtaking green of early summer.  Beside the back steps, her lupines pledged
allegiance to the sun, and in the velvet pastures that lined the river road,
dandelions grew in wild profusion.

They were there before she realized where he was taking her.  He
drove through the open cemetery gate and up the hill, stopping beneath the
giant elm at the top.  When he turned off the car, the whine of a distant
lawnmower cut the silence.  She inhaled the pungent scent of fresh-mown grass. 
“What in hell are we doing here?” she asked.

“Don’t you think it’s time?”

Wild daisies grew between the gravestones, and from somewhere, on
the breeze, came a wispy scent of roses.  Rob held out his hand.  She gripped
it hard, and together they stood over a simple granite headstone that read
Daniel
Fiore 1951-1987
.   Softly, he said, “I never realized how big a part of my
life he was.  Not until he was gone.”

“This is the first time I’ve been here,” she said.  “I couldn’t
make myself do it.”

“I brought something.  Be right back.”  He released her hand and
walked off across the grass.  She knelt by the headstone, touched the polished
granite with a fingertip.  He returned carrying a gardening trowel and a flat
of yellow and purple pansies.  Kneeling beside her, he said, “I thought the
place could use a little jazzing up.”

She bit her lip as her eyes filled and overflowed.  He dropped the
trowel and took her hand.  “I made you cry,” he said.  “I’m sorry.”

“I hate to have to admit this, Flash, but you’re a very nice man.”

“Yeah?  You think so?”  He cocked his head and smiled crookedly
from behind wispy blond curls, showing her a glimpse of the man who’d stolen so
many feminine hearts over the years.  He reached out his thumb and wiped a tear
from her cheek.  “You’re not so bad yourself, pudding.  Are you with me on
this?”

“I’m with you, hot stuff.  You dig, I’ll plant.”

She took out each plant separately, carefully untangled the roots,
tucked them into the holes he made and then filled in around them with rich,
black potting soil.  When they were done, she tamped down the soil and he
watered the tender young plants from a plastic container he took from the
trunk.  They stood back to survey their handiwork and he draped an arm loosely
around her shoulder.  “Feel better?” he said.

“Yes,” she said, surprised to discover that it was the truth. 
“Thank you.”

“So where would you like to go, pudding?”

“I can’t go anywhere,” she said.  “I’m not ready.”

“You’re going.  It’s not optional.  But it’s your call,
sweetcakes.  Anyplace at all.  London, Paris, Newark—”

“The beach,” she said with sudden and absolute certainty.  “I want
to go to the beach.”  And experienced an exhilaration she hadn’t felt in half a
year.

School wouldn’t be out of session for another week, so the summer
hordes hadn’t yet hit the North Atlantic beaches.  They shared the mile-long
strip of sand with a bevy of gulls and a handful of young mothers with pre-schoolers. 
The sand seared the bare soles of her feet, and when they reached the water’s
edge, he made her close her eyes.  “This is silly,” she said.

“Shut up and do what I say.  Take a deep breath.  Good.  Now let
it out and take another one.  And tell me what you smell.”

Eyes still closed, she breathed in again, deeply.  “Salt water,”
she said.  “Seaweed.”  She sifted and categorized the sensations that accosted
her from every angle.  “Roses,” she said in surprise.  “I smell roses.”

“We passed them coming in.”

“And you,” she said.  “I smell you.”

“Me?” he said.

She opened her eyes and smiled.  “You just smell like...you.”

He chucked her under the chin.  “Okay, kiddo,” he said, “close
those eyes again.  This time I want you to tell me what you hear.”

She bit her lip in concentration.  “The roaring of the surf,” she
said.  “I hear it breaking, behind me, before it hits the shore.”  Still
concentrating, she added, “and I hear the hiss it makes as it rolls back into
the sea.”

“Good,” he said.  “What else?”

“Gulls.  And children, laughing.”

“And what do you feel?”

“Hot sand.  Hot sun.  Sticky ocean spray.  And your hands on my
shoulders.”

He was silent for a single heartbeat.  And then he removed his
hands.  “You can open your eyes now,” he said.

She blinked at the sun’s brightness.  “Do you understand why we
just did this little exercise?” he said.

Her throat tightened, and she swallowed.  “Yes,” she said.

“I meant every word I said yesterday, Fiore.  You’re thirty-one
years old.  You’re not ready for the boneyard yet.  And I’m not ready to let go
of you.  I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d do what you always do,” she said.  “You’re like a red
rubber ball.  You just bounce back, no matter what.”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t been doing such a great job of bouncing
these last six months.”

Side by side, they walked barefoot along the narrow strip of wet
sand at the water’s edge.  Rob shoved his hands into his pockets.  “Why didn’t
you tell me?” he said.  “You promised you’d tell me if you got into trouble.”

Casey folded her arms across her chest.  “I couldn’t,” she said.

He gave her a look that spoke volumes.  “All right,” she conceded,
“I chose not to.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t think you’d understand.  If you haven’t experienced it,
you can’t begin to comprehend.”

“What about the music? I saw you flinch when I turned on the car
radio.”

“I couldn’t do it any more.”  Ahead of them, a pair of laughing
children ran into the surf.  It rushed in and caught them, and they squealed in
delight.  “My whole life with Danny was set to a soundtrack,” she said.  “I
can’t untangle the music and the memories.  Everything that happened to us for thirteen
years has a song attached.”  They passed the two kids, who were rolling in the
sand like overgrown pups.  “I can tell you exactly what was playing on the
radio the first time we made love.  And the last time.”  She stopped abruptly,
bit her lip.  “I couldn’t deal with it any longer.  When Danny died, so did the
music.”

“It’s not over,” he said.  “You have years and years ahead of
you.  Good ones.”

“I’m not sure I care any more.”

“Too damn bad.  I care.”

She slipped her hands into the pockets of her jeans.  “What do I
have to look forward to, anyway?”

“Jesus, Casey, it’s not like you’re some dried-up old prune. 
You’re young and gorgeous and sexy—”

She snorted, loudly and inelegantly.  “You can cut the bull,
MacKenzie.  I looked in the mirror this morning.  I could be a poster child for
Auschwitz.”

“You just need to put a little weight back on.  You’ll get it all
back.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because if you don’t start eating, I’ll put my foot up your ass.”

“How touching.”

“I’m telling you, Fiore, you’ll have men swarming around you
thicker than a flock of gulls circling a tuna sandwich.”

In her pockets, she clenched her fists.  “Clever analogy,” she
said, “but I don’t want men swarming around me.”

“I’m just warning you what’s going to happen.”

Suddenly furious, she wheeled around to confront him.  “Listen to
me,” she said, “and listen good.  There will be no men.  There’s only been one
man, ever. 
Only one
.  As far as I’m concerned, there
are
no
other men.  And there aren’t going to be.  That part of my life is over. 
Kaput. 
Finis
.  Do you understand?”

He opened his mouth to speak, then clamped it abruptly shut. 
Squared his jaw.  “I get it,” he said.

“Good.  See that you don’t forget it.”

chapter thirty

Three days after Rob left, she called Jesse and he came over with
Dad’s old John Deere and plowed her garden.  The next day, she started
planting.  She knew she was getting a late start, but the garden was more
symbolism than practicality anyway, and even if nothing grew, working in the
rich, moist soil was good for her soul.  She started running again, slowly at
first as she built up her endurance, and then she couldn’t be stopped.  She ran
eight miles a day, began eating like a lumberjack, making up for lost time, and
watched as the pounds reappeared and she grew strong and lean and muscular
again.  She joined the garden club, renewed her library card, began
volunteering at the hospital.