My exit comes up and I take it, driving slowly, as though the whole town is a giant, coiled, sleeping snake, but at any moment it might wake and strike.
My house is in between Finn’s and Brady’s, nearly exactly at the mid-point, which is almost funny. It might as well be a metaphor for our whole relationship. Them on either side and me smack-dab in the middle.
I pull into my neighborhood with the nearly identical front yards, the manicured patches of grass surrounded by gray and tan rocks. My heart twists and I realize I miss Dallas and its big trees. Here, the trees are Palo Verdes, and they’re spindly and sparse. I can see through them and it depresses me.
The car rolls to a stop in the driveway. I peer out through the windshield, taking in the tan stucco, the big front door made of dried Saguaro ribs.Made from a cactus, my stepfather said,Like living off the fat of the land, and then he rapped on the front door with two knuckles. I was almost eight, and it was my first time at his house, which was to become my new house in only two weeks. I didn’t like him yet, and I liked his house even less, but I knew better than to say that to my mother. She had already told me how her new boyfriend was going to become her husband and save us, and there was no room for discussion.
Grabbing my purse, I hop out of the car and go to the back, pressing a button and watching the trunk open for me. I wrestle my heavy suitcase out of the back, then press the button and watch the trunk close. It’s amazing the conveniences money can buy.
At the front door, I search my purse for my house key. I’d had to dig through a box of old things in my closet just to find it and add it to my keyring, along with Laine’s key fob. Hopefully my mother didn’t have the locks changed the second I left. I wouldn’t put it past her.
She didn’t. The key turns and I let myself in. Stepping into the home is like stepping back in time. Like Agua Mesa, it doesn’t appear anything in this house has changed. To the left, the living room looks untouched, and there are still lines in the carpet from the last time it was vacuumed. An over-sized wedding photo in a gaudy gold frame sits on the fireplace mantle, and fake greenery runs the length of the remainder of the space.
I walk in farther, my suitcase noisy on the ivory floor tile, and try not to smell my mother. It’s a pointless endeavor; her scent is everywhere. It fills my nostrils, making them burn. It’s her hairspray. Her overpowering, choking hairspray. She used it when she was a trashy whore in the middle of nowhere, and she used it when she was a pious, God-fearing woman. That hairspray accompanied my mother through each iteration of her life. Maybe she should be buried with a can of it. It might be the only thing she truly loved.
I pass the stairs, my finger running the length of the banister until it grows too tall for me, and my hand drops off. Moving into the kitchen, I walk to the small butcher block island and look around. There is a half-empty bag of bread with the remaining plastic bag tucked under itself to keep the bread from going stale. The twist tie lies on the counter beside the bread.
I move on, opening the fridge, pushing aside the contents and reading labels. I’m learning who my mother was in the past eight years. Who she was without her husband, and without her daughter. Three months separated my stepfather’s death and when I left for Dallas, but I didn’t spend any time with her. And that was for a good reason, too.
Before I leave the kitchen, I pull open the door leading to the back yard and peek outside. I’m looking for her precious tomato plants. If she had been told to get rid of everything in her life except for three things, those stupid fucking tomato plants would’ve made the cut.
And there they are.
Sometime in the last eight years, she moved them from the ground into a raised bed. They have an awning now, their own personal shade. The soil is deep black, rich-looking, well-cared for.
I spot a drip system poking out from the soil, and it feels like a slap in the face. All the mornings I spent out here, watering those tomato plants by hand. It was on my list of chores, and my mother wanted it done before school, before the sun’s heat could reach down into the soil and dry it out. The watering was done by hand, with a hose that didn’t have a sprayer. My thumb, hooked over the mouth of the hose, turned it into a sprayer. It didn’t matter to her that it hurt my thumb, or that on cold mornings my thumb felt like an icicle.
She took better care of those tomatoes than she ever did me.
“Fuck you,” I murmur, both to her and the tomatoes. I step back inside and let the door close.
For a second I was feeling oddly nostalgic, but not anymore. Seeing those plants was a reminder of the daily lack of love and caring I experienced in this house. No wonder I hated her. No wonder I didn’t speak to her more than five times during my final summer here.
* * *
I don’t knowhow it happened. I opened a drawer and found a picture of me and my stepfather Ted, and the next second the plate was in my hand.
Now its shattered remains decorate the floor around me. The first plate felt so good, the explosion so soothing, that I reach for a second plate. I lift it high above my head and send it crashing to the floor. The crack, the sound of splintering china, brings me a moment of pleasure. So I do it again. And again, and again. My hands are reaching into the cabinet for a glass serving bowl when I hear my name.
I turn around, the serving bowl clutched in my grasp.
His hair is as dark as ever, but he’s pale now, not as tan as I remember him. His eyes look tired, the very beginning of fine lines settling in.
Brady’s eyes follow the lift of my arms, and then he lowers them to meet mine. Our gazes locked, I bring my arms back down with force, sending the large bowl crashing to the ground between us.
“Did that feel good?” he asks, one eyebrow raised.
I nod.
Brady takes a cautious step forward. “Lennon?”
I’ve always loved the way Brady says my name. His tongue caresses each letter, like each one is important to him. Every part of me matters.
Tears unexpectedly fill my eyes. Brady holds open his arms, and I go to him, carefully sidestepping the mess I’ve made.
He pulls me into a chest that is as unfamiliar as it is familiar. It’s Brady, but it’s not. This is Brady, the man. I’ve really only known Brady, the boy.
This version of him is bigger, stronger, broader. Still, my soul recognizes his. He is kind, right down to his core, and I can sense that this trait still dominates. The little boy who held my hand on my first day at school in a brand-new town still resides within this man.
