Chapter 10 Wren
Wren
Despite her protestations, I drop Edie off at her apartment just as the clouds gather again. I don’t like how thick and gray they are, full of that splattering Oregon drizzle that never stops at this time of year.
She kisses me, a hand on my cheek, her face shining in the lights from my dashboard.
“Text me when you’re home,” she says.
“I will.”
I watch her climb the stairs, her sweater bright against the wet concrete and one flickering outdoor light, before I pull away.
The roads are quiet. It’s that strange hour between afternoon and evening on Christmas when everything is suspended.
It’s too late to go to Grandma’s house and too early to head home.
Everyone else has never left their homes today.
The closer I get to the river, the heavier my chest feels.
Nick’s rental isn’t far. One of those short-term furnished places people use when they’re between jobs or waiting for escrow to close.
(Or, in his case, staying in town for a few days and wanting to play the big boy.) One story, wood siding, a tree of heaven bursting from the ground, and begging me to light it on fire for the homeowner.
The porch light is on, although it’s barely five. Nick appears behind the window, pacing.
He knows I’m coming.
I sit in the truck for a minute, letting the engine idle, the wipers brushing away a steady rhythm of drizzle.
Part of me wants to leave things as they are.
We’ve already had our battles. But the other part…
the one that’s tired of all the years between us filled with bullshit—knows this has to happen.
I kill the engine and step out. The air is damp enough that it sticks to my skin instantly, soaking through the shoulders of my jacket. The air is somehow saltier here than it was at the beach, and seagulls squawk above my head. A chill seeps into my bones before I reach the porch.
Nick opens the door before I can knock.
He looks… almost human. Not like the polished campaign version of himself that showed up at brunch in his perfect blazer.
His tie’s gone, shirt sleeves rolled up, hair damp like he’s been standing out on the back porch, watching the fast winter river water crash by.
I suddenly hope that this newer house is far enough away from the bank.
The river is known to flood if it rains long enough.
“Hey,” I say.
He steps aside, and that’s as close to an invitation as I’ll get.
Inside, the place is small but clean. One couch, one lamp, a table covered in folders. The smell of coffee lingers… burnt and too strong. Like he keeps ruining one pot and starting another. He’s been thinking in circles all afternoon.
I hang my jacket on the back of a chair. “You been hiding out here long?”
“A few days.” He leans against the counter, arms folded. “Came down as soon as our office closed for the rest of the year. Don’t know why. Guess I don’t have much of a life in Salem. God knows nobody else in my office went home so quickly.”
“What do they do? The ones without families, I assume.”
He shrugs. “Have parties with their friends. Get ready to host their guests coming into town. Go to the holiday bazaars and pick up girls at the college, I guess.”
“At Willamette?” I ask, referring to the university he attended.
“Yeah. Remember? You visited me there a couple of times.”
“Yeah. Drove up from Eugene.” He’s got me laughing, which I wasn’t expecting. “Had to fight off all your pervy friends in Boney. They thought I was fair game or something.”
“Doney.”
“Huh?”
He lowers his arms. “Doney Hall. That’s where I lived for three years.”
“Right! Stoney Doney! Hey, whatever happened to that roommate of yours who had the best weed? I think he and I talked about the meaning of life in the stairwell one night.”
“No idea. We never stayed in touch. Why? You still friends with your old roommates from UofO?”
“On social media, anyway. Not that I go on there much anymore.”
We’re quiet again. He starts a pot of coffee we may or may not drink. Either way, I hope he rinsed it out first.
Silence stretches. It’s not angry this time, just…
heavy. Full of things we’ve both been avoiding for years.
Like how we didn’t go to the same college, me heading to a state school while Nick knew he wanted to go to Willamette University’s law school, so he just went there for undergrad, too. Politics major. Go figure.
Meanwhile, I barely made it to sophomore year as a Duck before deciding I couldn’t take it anymore. Then the ravine between us widened. More. More. Every year, it became more difficult to see the other side.
Finally, Nick exhales. “You didn’t have to come.”
“I know,” I say, “but I needed to.”
He understands more than he wants to admit. “You here to rub it in?”
“No.” I meet his eyes. “I’m here because we can’t keep doing this. I’m tired, Nick. Tired of being angry. Of you looking at me like I’m a failure. One you’ll do anything to not be too.”
Although he doesn’t look away, he squares his jaw. “You think that’s what this is about?”
“Isn’t it?”
He doesn’t answer right away. He walks to the window, watching the rain slide down the glass. His reflection looks older than it should. “You ever think maybe I just wanted more?”
“More than what?”
“More than this.” He gestures toward the river, the wooded hillside with tiny, stilted houses beyond it. “More than being stuck in the same place our whole lives, taking over Dad’s rinky-dink law office to have more of the same.”
It’s too uncomfortable to sit down. Besides, he hasn’t invited me. So I grab my jacket draped over the back of a chair, pressing my fingers into the damp material, wringing rainwater onto the kitchen floor. “We didn’t exactly grow up hard, Nick.”
“I know,” he says quickly, “but that’s the point.
Everything we had was fine. Dad’s law practice, Mom at home, Sunday dinners, the same house since we were born.
Fine.” He turns to face me. “But I wanted better. Not for me… for my own kids, my family someday. I didn’t want to spend my life arguing about car payments or worrying if we’d save enough for retirement.
Do you know how much college tuition has gone up since we went there?
” He doesn’t say it, but I hear it: “Even if you don’t get your degree, Wren, you still have to pay. ” Like I don’t know!
“You call what we had worrying?” I ask, not unkindly.
“You know what I mean. I wanted to build something bigger. A name people respected. A legacy.” He laughs, hollow. “Guess I’ve done a great job with that.”
“You wanted to make sure no one could look down on us.”
He doesn’t deny it.
The rain hits harder, pinging against the metal roof before splashing on the deck out back.
I came inside right on time… and I can’t help but envy Edie, who must be in her PJs, cuddled up on her couch watching TV.
Somewhere outside, a car splashes down the road, its tires hissing.
I think of our parents’ house. The warmth, the scent of cinnamon rolls Mom baked every Christmas morning.
I think of us as kids, racing through the hallways, always trying to beat each other to be the first one to open a present under the tree.
“You know,” I say, “I used to think you were the brave one. You had this plan, this picture-perfect idea of how life was supposed to go. You made it happen. Law school, the job, the five-year, ten-year plans. Meanwhile, I dropped out and started fixing bikes in a garage.”
Nick looks at me. Like, really looks at me, as if he’s just noticed I’ve been female this whole time. “You think that’s not brave?”
I shrug. “Didn’t at the time. But now I do.”
He considers that.
“You remember when I told Dad I was dropping out?” I ask.
“How could I forget?” His lips twitch. “You two almost broke the dining table.”
I smile at the memory, though it still stings a little. “You stood there and told me I was wasting my potential. I think that hurt worse than Dad’s lecture.”
“I know.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”
“Yeah, you did. You believed it. And that’s fine. But you were wrong.”
“I know that now.”
The sound of rain fills the silence again, like we’re not allowed to just be quiet around here.
Yet I don’t know how to live without it.
One reason I could never leave this area is that stupid rain is as much a part of me as it is the atmosphere, the soil…
if I don’t have wind making the house settle and rain turning my driveway into a lake, who even am I?
Someone who wears rubber boots for fashion?
“I didn’t get it back then,” Nick says, cutting into my thoughts. “How you could be happy working with your hands. I thought happiness had to come from control. White collar success.”
“Yeah, well. Look where that got you.”
He laughs, the heavy kind, the way he used to back in high school. “Yeah.”
I walk to the counter, picking up the mug he abandoned earlier and rinsing it in the sink. That pot is finally finished. “You really thought dating someone like Edie would fix all that?”
He flinches at her name, but nods. “She was familiar. The kind of person people like to see standing next to you. She made me look grounded.”
“But?”
He leans on the counter beside me, staring into the sink. “But you were right. I didn’t see her. Not really. I saw what she could be. What she could make me.” He doesn’t say anything as I finish up the coffee. “You saw her before I did.”
“Yeah,” I admit. “And I hated you for it.”
“I know.” He pauses, then says, quietly, “You love her.”
“I do.”
He nods, eyes dropping. “Does she love you?”
“She does.”
Something in him breaks a little. Not in a dramatic way, but a soft, quiet crumbling of the ego. “Then I’m glad it’s you,” he admits. “At least it’s someone who won’t hurt her.”
We stand there, the weight of it all settling between us like the rain has finally collected on the roof and is about to cave it in.
After a while, he says, “You think Mom and Dad will ever forgive me?”
“They already have,” I say. “They just want you to stop acting crazy. You don’t have to prove anything anymore, Nick. Not to them, not to me.”
He nods, eyes on the window again. The rain has slowed to a drizzle, faint ripples forming on the surface of the river beyond.
“You’re never leaving this place, huh?” he asks. “You and Edie.”
“Yeah. Me and Edie. We’re staying for as long as this place is standing.”
“Good.” He beams. “This place needs you.”
“Maybe it needs you too,” I offer. “You ever think about moving back?”
“Maybe,” he says. “After the new year. Take a break from the capital. Do something that actually matters for once. Do you know that there are even more family law cases in Coos County than before? I could make a killing.”
“Uh… not sure that’s something to celebrate, dude.”
“Right. It actually doesn’t pay well compared to other types of law. But I could stay here and find something that strikes a balance between pay and being interesting.”
“You’d hate it,” I tease. “There aren’t enough people here who like being impressed.”
“Maybe that’s exactly what I need.” Nick goes to the coat rack and pulls down his jacket. “You want real coffee? There’s a decent café open by the bridge.”
“Sure,” I say, giving up on the scorched coffee this pot has produced once again. “You’re not sick of me yet?”
“Not today.” He grins like a kid. “It’s Christmas, right? New traditions.”
We step outside together. The air is cool and wet, but the rain has stopped for now. The river flows beside the road, carrying debris that it’s picked up farther upstream. Those two branches kinda remind me of my brother and me. You know, flowing side by side, but doing our own things.
As we walk toward my truck, Nick glances sideways at me. “You know,” he says, “when we were kids, I used to think you were born first for the longest time. And it annoyed me.”
“It’s my job to annoy you.”
“Maybe. But I let things get to me too much. Ugh. Is this maturation, or whatever?”
I don’t answer. I just start the truck and let the heater fill the cabin between us before shifting into reverse gear.
When we reach the coffee shop, Nick says, “Tell Edie I’m sorry.”
“You can tell her yourself.”
“Maybe I will.” Another sigh. “Yeah. Next time I see her. It would be weird to call.”
We sit there a moment longer, rain starting up again in fine tinkles that bead against the windshield. The heat dissipates in the cabin, and I’m about to open my door and take off my seatbelt when my brother speaks.
“Hey, Wren.” He looks out the window.
“Yeah?”
“I’m proud of you.”
I can’t answer for a beat. “You should say that more often.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
When I drive away after dropping him off at his rental an hour later, I watch his reflection in the rearview mirror until it disappears. The rain has never left, but it’s the softest it’s been since it let up at the beach.
I wonder if Edie likes rainy night walks on the beach.
Well… only one way to find out!
I change gears and whip a U-turn at the next light. Mingus Park… here comes Santa Claus.