Coming Home to You (26 page)

My signature became less and less legible with every stroke of the pen. I wondered what Sara was thinking as she gave me each page, explaining the documents as I signed them. Did she believe that Ray had done nothing more than character assassination, or did she suspect that I knew the full story? I reached the last page and signed with a relieved flourish, looking up to see her staring off into space, momentarily absent from the present.

“There,” I said finally, hoping the sound of my voice would catch her attention.

Sara sat suddenly bolt upright in her chair, fully focused on me. It was intimidating, to say the least. Kind of like having the laser beam of a rifle sight pointed at your forehead. Did this woman ever
relax
?

“Wonderful,” she said, sounding sharp rather than truly pleased. She held out a hand for the last of the pages, and I had the distinct impression that she would have snapped her fingers at me if my movements weren’t quite fast enough for her. The woman seemed to live according to a finely tuned clock, with no tolerance for anything that disrupted it or slowed it down.

As I handed her the paper, its feather-lightness seemed a stark contrast to the actual significance of the words on the page. I sat at the very edge of my seat, silently praying that this was the right decision, hoping that I would be happy in my new home.

Chapter 25

“Hi, honey, I’m home,” I called out.

The words echoed back at me in an empty way that was unsettling, and I sighed softly to myself as I gently placed my keys in the dish on the hallway table. Much as I’d been trying to get used to the new apartment, it still didn’t feel quite right. I knew it was going to take some time, but part of me was afraid I’d never get used to it. I still missed the lived-in feeling of Neil’s house.

Or maybe, strange as it sounded, I just missed
Neil
.

I shook my head at the absurdity of the thought and took off my coat, carefully hanging it on the coat stand I’d placed by the door.

The apartment had a few touches here and there to herald the coming of Christmas, but I still didn’t have a tree up. Not that I wasn’t planning to put one up, but there had been too much other chaos over the past week to be overly worried over my current lack of a Christmas tree.

I was determined that this year would be completely different than last year, since
I
was completely different. I was different even than the woman who’d been engaged to Paul, and sometimes I wondered if he would have loved this one the same way that he’d loved the woman he had known. It might have been a strange thought to have, since I would have never become this person if I hadn’t lost Paul. I felt, on good days, that I was stronger now, more self-assured and confident in ways that I hadn’t been before. It hadn’t come easily or through my own doing, though. I had so many people to thank for the strength they’d lent me and still continued to give without hesitation.

The light on my answering machine was blinking, and I smiled at how strange it seemed to me to have an answering machine. I’d gotten so used to not having a landline that having one now was almost a foreign concept. It was, for me, a representation of the home I was now trying to establish for myself, on my own.

My name was printed neatly on a label next to the buzzer in the vestibule, and a yellow change of address form rested on the hall table. It was filled out in pen, ready and waiting for me to take it to the post office, where I would close out my PO Box. All the steps that would firmly declare that this was my home.

Home.
My
home. I was in
my
home, and Neil was in his. I looked at the date on my watch, estimating that Neil had been home for about twenty hours now, just under a full day. It was odd, knowing he was so close and knowing so much about him, when he had no idea of my existence. Much less the fact that I had lived in his house for nearly nine months, coming and going as though I’d belonged there.

It was a fact I’d never considered, a small detail that slipped by without my notice, that none of his neighbors had ever seemed to question the oddity of my presence in his absence. I knew they had noticed, but had they all merely assumed that I might have been the new owner? Would the few neighbors with whom I’d grown friendly miss seeing me? Would they ask him about my disappearance, wondering where I’d gone?

I paced the floor, listening to the sound of my footsteps over the hardwood flooring. It resonated, hollow and lonely to my ears. I hated how empty it felt here, how impersonal it seemed, and I suddenly craved activity and distraction.

First, though, I needed to listen to the message on the answering machine.

“Hi, Zoë, it’s your mother. I just wanted to call and be the first person to christen your new machine. Am I? Well, if I’m not, that’s okay. Anyway, I know you’re probably still getting situated and used to your new place, but give me a ring when you have a minute.” She paused, and I knew she was choosing her next words carefully. “Your life is changing in a lot of ways again, and I know you feel like you’ve lost a friend. There are still possibilities, here, Zoë, so don’t close the door too early. I love you,” she said finally.

“I love you, too, Mom,” I said, smiling down at the answering machine. “Very much.”

My mother, a woman of so much wisdom and so much faith. She knew all about Ray’s manufactured correspondence, yet she still seemed to maintain a sense of optimism I found inspiring. I had a feeling that most people, looking at the entire situation with any amount of detachment, would have told me that I needed to just throw in the towel and distance myself from all the drama. That was one thing that my life certainly never seemed to be lacking: drama.

I’d never cared much for emotionally-charged, high-intensity situations, but the past two years had held so many that it was pretty exhausting just to recount them all. I wondered if life would ever really be normal again, or if this
was
my new normal. It’s amazing to realize what human beings can adapt to.

I grabbed my coat and keys and went out the door, unsure of where I was headed but feeling the need for some kind of social interaction. Maybe I would give Ray a call later and see how Neil was settling in, or maybe I would just walk around a bit and watch the people passing by.

Nothing prepared me for what was just around the corner.

I decided I’d walk downtown, take a stroll along the sidewalks on Palafox and Government. People bustled in and out of the restaurants and quaint little bars lining the streets, the sounds of Christmas parties tumbling from open doorways as I passed. The shops that threaded the streets were closed up tight for the evening, their windows dressed in holiday finery, and I found myself smiling in childish anticipation as I walked.

It was Christmas.

I stopped in front of a jewelry store, elegantly fronted in dark slate tiles with small windows warmly lit to display exquisite necklaces and earrings. One in particular caught my eye, a simple platinum disk pendant with a dusting of small diamonds hanging from a black velvet cord. It was beautiful, something I knew I’d never be able to afford—one I’d never want to buy for myself. It was the kind of thing given as a gift, by a lover or a husband.

I looked away from the window, not wanting to allow my thoughts to take the turn that seemed inevitable and felt my breath catch.

In the streetlights that washed the sidewalks in their yellow glow, I saw a silhouette I’d memorized as well as my own. Even though I’d never seen him in person, I knew without a doubt that the man I was looking at was Neil.

He stood facing me, his attention directed to a small cluster of people, deeply involved in a lively discussion. Someone said something, and he threw his head back in hearty laughter. It was a nice sound, deep and rich and genuine. I wondered what had been said to make him laugh, wishing I could walk over and become part of the group that was so happily interacting with one another. Most of all, I wished I could welcome him home.

I felt somehow voyeuristic, standing there on the street, watching a man about whom I knew so much, while he was so unaware of me. Would he ever know
me
?

The small group shifted and began to walk toward me, and I realized I was now openly staring. I tried to turn quickly to face the jewelry store window again, but not before I caught Neil’s eye. It was a strange sensation, having my eyes lock with his. I knew him so deeply, yet to him, I was a stranger on a street corner. He smiled then, lengthening his gaze as he passed, a split second that lasted an eternity.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion for that instant, and then it was over. As suddenly as I’d seen him, he was gone, leaving me standing on the street in a daze. I hadn’t been prepared for such a chance meeting, though I doubted fair warning would have changed the odd complexity of the entire situation. Nothing would change that until he knew everything.

Until then, I would just remain another random face on the street.

I realized as I stood there that the man I had known in the abstract, the illusory man I had created, was close enough to touch—but still so far away he might as well have still been in another country. I would never be able to reconcile the real with the imagined until Ray did what he should have done so long ago and trusted his friend with the truth. He owed Neil that much. He owed us all that much.

“I saw him,” I said, still feeling a little numb.

“Saw who?” Ray asked with a confused look as he closed the door behind me.

I’d wandered my way back home and gotten into my car, not really thinking about where I was going or what I was doing, and found myself at Ray’s tiny apartment. I’d been there a scant few times, since we’d both preferred the spaciousness and comfort of Neil’s house, so I was startled at the reminder of just how cramped this place was.

“Neil. I was walking downtown, and he was in this group of people standing outside one of the bars. I’m not even sure which one it was, I wasn’t really paying attention. I looked up, and he was just…there.” I sank down onto the arm of the couch that swallowed most of the space in the living room. “It was very strange,” I said, remembering the look that had passed between us.

“Well, he
is
home now, so I guess you have to prepare yourself for the eventuality that you’ll run into each other sometimes. Hazards of living in a small town, you know,” he said, sounding a little too flippant for my taste. I was still feeling upended, so for him to dismiss the whole thing so casually seemed unfair.

I studied Ray as he wound his way through the small room toward the kitchen.

“Ray,” I said finally. “You
will
tell him about me, won’t you?” I asked, somewhat afraid of what his answer might be.

“Don’t worry, Zoë,” he said, leveling his gaze at me from where he stood behind the counter. “I’m going to tell him everything, when the time is right. He
just
got home, so he needs a little time to get settled back in.”

Ray nodded toward one of the barstools lined up in front of the counter-topped dividing wall that separated the living room from the kitchen.

“Sit. Stay a while. I’ll make you a drink, and we can talk a little more about how all of this should happen.”

I nodded, shrugging out of my coat and tossing it in a heap onto the couch with my purse. I plodded heavily over to a stool and slumped onto it, feeling oddly deflated. Maybe it was the idea of having to wait that was bothering me.

Ray moved around the kitchen, gathering glasses and bottles and pouring various things that he mixed with exaggerated care. I watched silently from my stool, aware that he was trying to put off the conversation as long as possible while he framed his words. I knew that he was dreading having to tell Neil what had happened during those months that he’d been away, all the well-intentioned deceit and mischief that had played out while he’d been unaware.

What would Neil say? How would he respond to the information that his home had been occupied, without his permission or knowledge, by someone he’d never met?

How would I have felt, if the situation had been reversed? Really, wouldn’t anyone naturally feel betrayed, exploited, and violated? I had been in his home without his invitation, so didn’t that make me, in essence, an intruder?

How would this affect his relationship with Ray?

“There you are,” Ray said, breaking my deep thought process as he set a highball filled with something pink and cloudy in front of me.

I pulled a face. “What
is
that?” I asked.

I wasn’t about to drink anything without knowing exactly what was in it, even if it was Ray who’d made it. I wanted to be able to keep a clear head, not self-medicate with something that would knock me for a loop.

“Pink grapefruit juice, grenadine, orange juice, and vodka. Lots of vodka.
Yum
,” he said, smiling as he nudged the glass closer to me with an index finger.

“Uh huh. Sounds interesting,” I said with my nose wrinkled. “Does it have a name?”

Ray shrugged, picking up his own glass and looking at it thoughtfully. “Probably, but I don’t know what.” He took a large swallow. “Mmmm. Try it.”

I stared at my glass but made no move to pick it up. “Yuh. Ray, you have to tell him soon. The longer you let it go, the worse it will seem when you finally do tell him,” I said quietly.

Ray set his glass down carefully, nodding. “I know. I’m just not sure how to word it.” He let out a low, humorless chuckle, looking up at me hopefully. “You want to come with me when I tell him?” he asked.

I cocked my head.

“You know as well as I do that you have to tell him by yourself. You need some alone time with your best friend to be able to explain the whole thing, and having me there to run interference would just come back to bite you in the ass.”

I traced the rim of my glass with my finger, picturing Neil’s face when he found out.

“This is a mess,” Ray sighed. “This is definitely not the way I’d planned everything to work out. I was going to tell him in an e-mail, lay everything out so that he would have time to digest it all before he came home.” He snorted. “Guess that worked out real well, huh?”