2. Zach
2
ZACH
I never thought I’d see this place again.
Vernford, Indiana was a typical small town in the smack middle of nowhere. It was a far cry from the hot climates of the Middle East and the more brutal terrains of wherever my troop was sent to for the last almost twenty years. After two decades of being on the move and never considering coming “home”, I stood in the airport terminal and people watched, wondering if these travelers were coming or going.
My trip back to Vernford couldn’t be it. I was too much of a nomad now to seriously consider staying put in that little destination. But three months after surgeries on my shoulder and routines of physical rehab, it would be my next stop. Medical discharge from the military did that to a man. I never counted on being kicked out of the only career I’d ever wanted. I certainly hadn’t anticipated that a helicopter crash during standard, non-combat training would be the event.
“Hey, stranger.”
I smiled, hearing Amanda coming from the distance. My younger sister wasn’t a stranger. She couldn’t be. She was blood, and part of the very small family I actually had left. But with the twenty-year age difference between us, it was our inside joke.
I spun to face her, amazed by how much different she looked from the last time we’d FaceTimed. It had to have been a mere six months ago, before that crash and the shoulder injuries that ensured I’d never be in active duty again. Her hair was longer. Her eyes were sharper. “Hi, Amanda.” Holding my good arm out, I welcomed her for a hug. “Happy belated birthday.” She’d turned eighteen just last week. “How are you liking adulthood so far?”
“Eh.” She eased out of my hug, which surprised me. Even though we weren’t close and many long spells separated me from her, she was always touchy feely and wanting hugs. “It’s the same shit, different days.”
I cracked up, stepping back. “Where’d you learn to talk like that?” I joked.
“You,” she teased right back, smiling and patting my back in an urge to move.
We didn’t call or FaceTime often enough for me to have that much of an influence on her. “No, really.”
“Grandma Jenny.”
I nodded as I followed her. Our grandmother was a frank, blunt, and eccentric woman prone to profanity here and there.
“That’s all you have?” she asked as she hurried a route back to her car that she’d pulled up to the curb. “One bag?”
“Yeah. What’d you expect?” I opened the back door and tossed my large duffel in. When the slight twist and use of my upper-back muscles didn’t cause a twinge of discomfort or pain to pull through my movement, I marked it as a small but hopeful sign of recovery.
“I wasn’t expecting you , that’s for sure.” She grinned as she slid into the driver’s seat, watching me cram my tall frame into the passenger side. “Did you make it a goal to be home for Christmas?”
I sighed, letting out a long breath of equal parts frustration and annoyance. “My goal was to retire from the military.”
“Like Dad,” she finished for me. “Sorry that didn’t pan out.”
Sorry wouldn’t erase the fact that my shoulder was torn. “It is what it is.”
“Grandma Jenny was surprised that you called this morning. And to say you needed a ride home from the airport tonight?” She huffed and pulled away from the curb. “You’re shocking us left and right. Next thing I know, you’re going to say you’re moving back home for good.”
I shot her a side-eye, almost amused. “I’ll be home for Christmas.”
“Not after?”
I shrugged my good shoulder. I wasn’t forty yet and I had a “good” side. That was bullshit. “I haven’t thought about after. Honestly, I’ve barely been thinking about the now.”
I called Grandma Jenny about the crash. Then during the hospital stays, relocations to VA facilities, the surgeries and rehab, I texted them both. Even though they were aware that I had been discharged from the military, I never offered up information about where I’d go. Only today did I tell them I was coming home.
Except, nothing about this felt like home.
Amanda sped along the highway, and while the landmarks and signs denoted familiar places, I felt like an outsider looking in. Like I’d been away for too long and displaced too far away to fit in here again.
Stereotypically, she sped. Pedal to the metal, she was more than cruising once we exited the airport traffic, where she muttered and nagged other drivers even though they couldn’t hear.
“Grandma Jenny teaches you to talk like that all the time?” I teased.
Our grandma had raised my sister all her life. She’d been born as a very last-minute oops. According to how she worded it, my mother had been convinced she was starting menopause, and then a whoops of a pregnancy. I had already left, signing up to serve in the military since the ripe young age of eighteen. Of course, I knew of and about my sister, but I wasn’t there when she was little.
“Oh, come on. People just don’t know how to drive anymore.”
I chuckled, entertained by the irony that an eighteen-year-old could talk like she’d been dealing with this for a lifetime. Around a big yawn, I nodded. “I appreciate your picking me up.”
“No worries, stranger.” She glanced at me, not letting up on her lead-foot driving. “Tired?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed between my neck and shoulder. “Long day of travel.”
“Then you’ll be happy to know Grandma Jenny and I aired out the apartment over the garage for ya and made the bed.”
I grunted a laugh. That wasn’t filling me with hope. Sleep had been hit or miss for months now, but especially since I’d left my troop. I wasn’t sure I’d ever fit back in to the civilian life, and I wasn’t giving it much patience so far.
“What are you in such a rush for?” Returning to Vernford for the holidays for the first time in twenty years just made the most sense right now, but not if we were going to crash on the way. “Trust me, I’m not in the mood for another accident or collision.” More like never. I could waste away the rest of my life without the gut-wrenching hurtle of a vehicle crashing to a stop.
“Gotta get home before eight.” She checked the clock on the dash.
I raised my brows, curious. The closer we came to town, though, I waited with bated breath for this to look familiar. To feel like home. It looked the same. Buildings and roads had been updated, but they were fundamentally identical to what the map in my mind presented from memory. While it appeared like the outskirts of Vernford I recalled from many winters ago, snow blanketing the flat lands of the Midwest, I felt… lost.
It wasn’t home. Mom and Dad were gone. Kevin Myer was dead. I’d left this place after high school graduation with my best friend, and only I was returning now.
This restlessness seeped into my soul, but it seemed my much younger sister didn’t share that mood. She sped like she couldn’t get back fast enough. “Got a hot date or something?”
“Ha. No. Just work.”
I furrowed my brow, so curious that I ignored the fatigue pulling on me. “Work?” She just turned eighteen and was an honors student. What the heck was she doing working? “You’ve never mentioned a job before.”
“It didn’t feel like a job when I started.” She smiled at me. “Babysitting. As soon as I dump you off at home, I’ve got to pick him up from a birthday party that ends at eight.”
I nodded. “Sorry to be an inconvenience.”
“You did call out of the blue…” she teased, swatting my arm. “You’re not an inconvenience. Grandma Jenny was upset she couldn’t pick you up herself. She’s catering a party.”
Of course she was. Grandma Jenny converted the old family restaurant into solely a catering headquarters, and she loved her job.
What the hell am I going to do? Even if I didn’t commit to staying here after the holidays, I’d need something to do. I couldn’t be idle at home on the big West property with Amanda and Grandma Jenny being so busy. Somehow, that would worsen this lost mood of listlessness.
If I even know where to go after this. Vernford seemed like the wisest pit stop after I was cleared from surgeries and rehab, but I still had no clue where to go afterward.
“A job would help,” I muttered.
“I agree. You’ve seemed… blah in our video calls since the crash.” She kept glancing at me as she drove, like needing to see that I was closer to “okay” than she’d imagined. “It’s the holiday season, but there’s always people wanting a helping hand.”
“Like what?” I asked, eager to shed this funk of not being needed or wanted in the career I thought I’d retire from. Almost twenty years in the service left me a significant piece of change to walk away with, but it wasn’t enough to live on for the rest of my life.
“I don’t know.” She furrowed her brow and tapped her finger on the steering wheel, pensive. “I’m guessing your shoulder wouldn’t work with helping Grandma Jenny with catering.”
I shook my head. “Depending on the weight to carry, no.”
“What about delivering things for the bakery? They’re slammed.”
I cringed. “Too many people to deal with.” This antisocial habit was really kicking in deep.
“Okay. What about walking dogs for the breeder and the humane society on Main Street?”
“My shoulder.” I winced at the image of a huge Great Dane pulling me along on a leash.
“How about… putting books away at the library? I think Mrs. Homeson just retired and they’re busy with programs.”
I raised my brows. “Putting books away?”
She sighed, pulling up at the huge home she shared with Grandma Jenny. It looked like where I grew up, but I didn’t experience a sensation of fitting back in.
“We’ll think of something,” she said a few minutes later as she walked me inside. “But I gotta go!” She leaned in for a hasty side-hug and bolted off.
Alone again, I scanned the large foyer and waited for an idea of what to do. Heading up to the apartment over the attached garage would make sense, but I wondered if being solo would be smart.
I picked up my duffel bag and pulled my phone out. Scrolling on the social media apps I lurked on without ever posting anything, I tried to see if anything was happening in town. My mood was too shitty to stay in and mope all night.
A party was going on for Coach Parker’s retirement from coaching football for what seemed like the last hundred years. Eh.
A karaoke night would be held at the bar on Main Street, The Grinch edition. I feel like a grinch, but I am not singing about it.
I slumped into an armchair and sighed. Rubbing my head, I knew I couldn’t stay in all night and let this mood fester and rot within me.
As far as homecomings went, this one sucked. I hadn’t told anyone I was coming back, not even my sister and grandma until this morning, but I had to assume there wasn’t a soul in Vernford who’d give a damn that I was here now.
The smart radio in the kitchen kicked on to another Christmas song. Grandma Jenny always left it on, enjoying the ease of asking Alexa for the weather, a measurement conversion, or, more frequently, having music in the background.
I didn’t know who else would plan to be home for Christmas like the old classic crooned. I hadn’t counted on being here, but I’d have to figure it out now.
“Oh, shut up,” I grumbled to the voice of Frank Sinatra singing away like all was right in the world.
Nothing was right in mine anymore.