Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
WREN
I thought I would be okay when this day came. I truly always thought that I’d get a bit misty-eyed but would be able to give my son a brisk hug, a pat on the back, and smile as he went. I’d be happy for him and proud of the job we did.
I was sorely underprepared for the emotions that have only built over the last nine hours.
I’ve been to our old house only a handful of times over the years, so when I coasted up Ellis’s driveway just after sunrise—with its fresh gravel and the same old honeysuckle vines growing across the pergola over the garage—I wasn’t fortified enough to stop the longing that tore through me, imagining coming home again. I snuffed it out as quickly as I could and finished loading Sam’s things. I could feel Ellis’s eyes boring into me, but I was too fraught to give him more than a brief, tight nod-and-smile back.
The room Sam’s subletting in California is a glorified dorm, but he couldn’t care less, and at least it cut back on everything he needed to bring, which made the loading-up process fairly quick. The misty spray from the summer storm hovering over Spunes helped to keep everyone else on track, I think.
Micah was there already, since he’s been staying with Ellis. I caught him trying to slip Sam one of his old driver’s licenses to use as a fake ID and swiped it from him. When Silas and Sage showed up together with no one else in their car, Sam’s expression fell a fraction.
“Sorry, Sam,” Sage had said. “Indy’s not great at goodbyes, still.”
“It’s okay,” he said too quickly. He shook his head and sent water droplets scattering. “She sent me a nice message and stuff. I get it.”
Silas kept his sunglasses on despite the rain and the limited daylight, jaw working and mouth quivering as he sniffled. “In the words of the great Dolly Parton,” he’d said ominously, voice choked with emotion, “treat every day like it’s raining, and always wear your rubbers.”
The rest of us groaned, but Sam laughed before wrapping him into a hug. “Thanks, Uncle.”
Silas then openly sobbed, and we all said our goodbyes. I had the bleak, terrifying thought that it could be a goodbye in more ways than one. Maybe Ellis and I will come back and be worse off. Maybe I won’t be able to be near any of these people without feeling him and I won’t be strong enough to stand it ever the same.
But maybe we’ll be something new and better. Friends? More?
Hope, hope, hope. Hope is my Tell-Tale Heart, thumping away no matter how hard I try to silence her.
As we reached the town border, my first set of tears fell. A small crowd had gathered around our infamous welcome sign—the one that Sage petitioned when she was barely older than Sam to include the “Not to be confused with Forks” phrase. Beneath their ponchos and umbrellas and behind waterlogged posters decorated in various farewells, I recognized Walter and Martha, Venus and Athena, even Bea Marshall, plus some kids from Sam’s class. Fisher must’ve taken a break from Starhopper because I saw him raising a hand, too. Someone at the very back of the crowd didn’t wave at all, which was the only reason she caught my eye, despite trying to be discreet. She was suspiciously Indy-shaped, but I couldn’t tell who it was for certain through the rain and glaring sun.
Bright and rainy, like Spunes itself was crying happy tears to watch our boy go.
Since then, Sam spent half the drive with me, answering the full battery of questions I could not stop myself from firing at him, before I started repeating myself and his patience began to slip around the four-hour mark, which is when he transferred over to Ellis’s truck to “split time evenly” between the two of us.
I couldn’t help it, though. It’s as if time sped up on us somewhere, and it’s all happening too quickly. Time does that, I suppose. When you spend so much of it looking forward to the next thing, it can easily slip out from under you.
I want to ask Sam if he ever felt that from us. Did he start crawling, and did I immediately say something about him walking? Did I wish away all his phases? Does he want to turn around and come back home and wait a few years before starting an entire adult life in another state? I—oh god, when did this happen? I’m tempted to make a fourth pit stop just to stall again.
I recognize all these feelings and, more importantly, the lack of rationality behind them, so I keep them suppressed as much as I can to spare Sam (and myself) the embarrassment. I wish I could look to Ellis and see how he’s feeling, but as soon as I spot him emerging from his truck when we both park in the apartment lot, I’m… I’m actually so much worse. He’s got sunglasses on, and I can see his jaw working from a distance. He’s struggling, too.
We’ve spent more than half our lives being Sam’s Mom and Sam’s Dad. Who the hell are we meant to be beyond this? Are we going to find out side by side, the way we came into these roles? The only thing I know for sure is that we can’t be expected to keep it together and that I’m deeply grateful he’s fraying at the seams, too.
We slip into a rhythm, carrying Sam’s things back and forth from the truck into his too-small room. All three of us are quiet and pensive as we work, until it’s just me clutching a singular desk lamp so tight my nails dig half-moons into my palm. My brain is genuinely looking for an excuse to take Sam right back out of here.
“Sam, do you even fit in that bunk bed?!” I ask. My voice sounds like a slow-leaking balloon.
“Don’t have much of a choice, do I?” he says cheerfully. “Who knows if I’ll even sleep here most nights.”
The balloon fills back up just as Ellis’s chin falls to his chest with a sigh. “Not the time for jokes, son.”
The first pealing cry breaks free from me, and both men look like they don’t know what to do with their hands.
“I’m—sorry!” I sob. There’s no reeling it back now, I let the tears flow freely.
Sam wraps his coltish limbs around me and pats me gingerly on the back. Oh god, he’s a grown man. What if he never even lives with us again? I wasn’t adequately prepared for this at all. I probably missed so much. There are so many things we still need to teach him.
I don’t realize I’ve said this out loud until I’m being passed into Ellis’s arms. “He’ll learn them. We did good. You did so good, baby,” he murmurs into my temple. My sobs settle into a sniveling whimper, but no less embarrassing for any of us. “He’s got all the right tools to make the right choices. He’s got everything he needs. He knows he can ask us for anything. Talk to us about anything. Right?” Ellis asks him over my head.
“Yeah,” says Sam. The catch in his voice turns the knot in my throat to cement. I wrestle with my hysterics and step out of Ellis’s warm arms, wiping at tears.
I pull out my phone-wallet and try to read cards through watery eyes, slipping a few from their pockets and passing them Sam’s way.
“Here,” I say, clearing my throat. “Here are your insurance cards. You have four months to find a dentist and get your biannual cleaning done. I—” Oh, Jesus , the crying is starting anew. “Don’t let your perfect teeth rot!” I wail. “We spent a lot of money on braces, and… and… dental care is m-more important than anyone realizes. I love you and I’m proud of you.” And with that, I give him one more squeeze before I stomp down the hall, tearing myself away.
To my deep disappointment, it is nothing like the first time I dropped him off at preschool, when I had to peel his small body off mine and pass him to his teacher. When I heard him crying out for me all the way to my car, silent tears running in rivulets down my cheeks. It’s not like the time Ellis and I dropped him off for his first day of middle school, either, back when Sam had been at his most awkward and Ellis and I had been at our very worst. Sam clearly found our lingering mortifying, but when he tried to shoo us away with an urgent “GO!” his voice had broken like sneakers on a gym floor. Ellis and I couldn’t help but laugh when he walked away. It’d been one of the last times we’d laughed together when we were married, I think.
Instead, I clap a palm over my own mouth to cry into when I exit the building and power walk to Ellis’s truck. I’m stupidly grateful when I get to it and see that he’s had the forethought to leave it unlocked.
I hope Ellis is keeping it together better than I am, hope he’s having a refresher conversation with him about staying safe. About drinking and sex and coming home anytime he needs to. How we will love him no matter what and welcome him home with open arms even if he wants to change course. God, what if Sam’s actually nervous or scared and I just tore off in a storm of my own feelings and left him stranded? Did I just make this all about me? Shit.
Ellis emerges from the apartment building, pausing outside the glass doors for a moment with his big hands bracketing his hips before he brings them back up, drags both palms down his face, and marches for the truck.
The closer he gets, the more aware I become, too. I realize I haven’t been inside this truck… ever. He bought it a year and a half ago or so, when Silas told me his old one bit the dust. Still, it smells like him in an overwhelming way. Something that kicks up an old, full-body response. I’m a Heinz 57 bottle of emotion, upside down and shaken, waiting for the inevitable plop.
A fresh wave of his scent hits me tenfold when Ellis opens his door and slides into the driver’s side. He gives me a wavering look from behind his sunglasses, and my chin wobbles anew.
“I’m not doing great at all,” he says, his voice a husk of itself.
The admission is so plain, so unlike his normal, solid-to-the-point-of-reticence demeanor, that I immediately devolve into a fit of cry-cackling.
His laugh joins mine, and through my tears, I see him wipe at his own.
“Fuck, how is this happening already?” he asks with an airy laugh. “I just watched them cut him out of you. He just learned to walk.”
“I just taught him to pee in a toilet using Cheerios for target practice,” I say.
“I just had a talk with him about long showers and body odor.”
“You taught him to drive yesterday!”
His expression turns apologetic. “I just ran into him buying condoms over in Yoos Bay because he was too scared to get caught around Spunes.”
I gasp. “You’re kidding! When?”
He shakes his head. “Like two years ago.”
I groan and wince. I knew it was probably happening, but this revelation only confirms that everything has gone by in a blink without me noticing it.
Ellis and I fall quiet after that. Like we tossed all those memories up in the air, bending and twisting time between us until it’s left us dizzy and disoriented.
“You up for another two-and-a-half-hour stretch?” he gently asks. “Unless you want me to find us somewhere here to stay?”
The gravity of what we’re about to embark on settles over me. “If you’re up for driving, I’m fine. I worry that staying too close will make me want to come snatch him back,” I say with a tired laugh. “But… can we just drive? I’m not ready to talk. Yet.” No matter how long it’s been, the foolish chemicals in my body are predisposed to feel safe with this man, and all I’d like to do now is sleep.
He looks relieved. “Yeah. Of course,” he says. His smile flickers shyly, and I remind myself that even though this trip was his idea, he’s likely nervous, too. “You want to sync your music to the speaker?” he asks.
“Sure.”
I put on one of my favorite calm café stations full of acoustic covers and deconstructed beats. The music and the summer sunset shine through my window and work their magic over me quickly. I relax into the leather seat, eyelids heavy.
“Where we headed first, again?” I ask, the words coming out in a slow drawl as I rock closer to sleep.
“I thought we’d go to the beach.”