Chapter 38 - Rae
RAE
My father greeted me as I exited the airport. I didn’t bother checking any bags, just abandoning anything that wouldn’t fit on my carry on. I didn’t want to waste a single minute getting back home. This time, I had no issues asking for a ride, knowing my parents wanted me back as soon as possible.
“Dad!” I called, running into his arms.
He clutched me to his chest tight before releasing me and helping me with my backpack.
“Mom’s at home?” I crawled into the passenger seat and buckled.
I knew I looked like I had been camping for the past two weeks, but I didn’t care.
I hadn’t given a single glance to anyone who turned their nose up at me on the flight.
Ellis had not only booked my flight, but she had paid for it, and made sure I was in first class, so at least I wasn’t shoulder to shoulder with anyone during the flight.
I had to call her and tell her I was safely with my dad. A text would have to do, though, because I was going to grill my dad for details.
As he pulled away from the lane and exited the airport, I tried to breathe through my nose and calm my racing heart.
“What happened? How come no one told me?”
I had begun piecing things together, from what Nora had vaguely texted about something happening but it not being a big deal. She had to be talking about this, which made me furious. She had to know that I would want to know…
Although, I had never shared with her Davis’s devastating past. Still, she had to know that this would have been something I needed to be made aware of.
Dad let out a heavy sigh. “His brother passed some time ago, but we just found out.” I was trying to sort through what that meant when he spoke up again. “Shortly after your breakup, Davis came to the house.”
I hadn’t thought he would even try…but I guess he did have his own relationship with them.
“But I—I refused him, and I know what you said, but your mother and I—we were furious with what he’d said to you on the grass that night, so I told him not to come back around.”
The crack in his voice told me he was beating himself up pretty horribly for what he said.
I watched the blackness outside the window and tried to keep the tears at bay, needing in this moment to be strong, if not for me then for the people who loved Davis.
“After that, he found out from Nora that you hadn’t returned, and I think something in him snapped.
He was around town more often than normal, checking in with businesses, following up on things you had set up with them.
He started doing projects where he replaced the local shop signs, and adding little rustic fixtures here and there.
No one from city hall had signed off on anything; it was all in the works, as far as we knew. ”
Shaking my head, I confirmed his thoughts. “I hadn’t met with them yet; I was waiting until I had a chance to chat with all of the business owners, or at least until I had a proposal to show them.”
“Davis must have found it. He was carrying around one of your notebooks and started barking orders at people. He found out Nora’s parents were moving, so he bought their shop.
They weren’t ready to sell, but he didn’t want to risk competition moving in.
I think he was trying to do anything he could to keep your dream alive, and then… ”
My throat was tight, my vision blurred with tears as I continued watching the city lights along the interstate.
Dad’s voice shuddered as he continued. “Then he just disappeared…gone. He wasn’t coming into town for anything, not parts, not food, not gas…and that worried both your mother and I, so we drove up to his house and found him drunk, staring at a black-and-white photo of his brother.”
My heart lurched, remembering that photo of his family that he had finally pulled out.
“Millie started cleaning, and we had brought him a meal, but we realized he wasn’t doing well. For a few days, we thought he’d come out of it, but it just seemed to get worse. When we’d ask what we could do, or get for him, he’d just repeat your name.”
There were so many feelings happening inside me, it all felt combustible, like any second a fuse would ignite and all of me would explode into a thousand pieces.
What did it mean that he said my name? Had he forgiven me, did he want me?
“What happened after that?”
Dad let out another heavy sigh, bringing his hand to his forehead.
“Then he started trashing his house, saying he didn’t deserve any of it. Not after what he said to you, not after what he did to his brother… Honey, your mom and I were taking shifts with him, but he got into his pickup truck and took off while your mother was dozing. We still haven’t found him.”
Oh my God.
A gasp caught in my throat. “What do you mean, you haven’t found him?”
I couldn’t lose him.
With shaking fingers, I brought my phone out and stared at our message thread from before I had blocked him.
I reactivated him while on the plane, and now that I was off, a part of me hoped it would ping with a notification from him.
I hoped that somehow, he would just know that I was here, ready to talk.
Unable to hear anymore, I curled into a ball against the door and shut my eyes, hoping I wasn’t too late.
We arrived in Macon as dawn broke. The town slept, but I could see what my dad had talked about regarding the signs and the shops. Most of them were half finished. I watched as we passed store after store, but Dad kept going up, until we were on Mount Macon and pulling into Davis’s driveway.
Our driveway, I had to start saying that in my head because I was moving back, and we were going to get through this.
A thin layer of snow covered a few patches on the ground and the pitch of the roofline, but otherwise the forest floor was just cold. I looked up to see the tendril of smoke that was always curling out of the chimney this time of morning, but it wasn’t there.
The absence felt as cold as knowing Davis wasn’t here.
As soon as we parked, I was out the door and running up the steps.
My mother opened the front door, holding a blanket around her shoulders, her face tight with worry.
“Oh honey.” She threw her arms around me, letting the blanket drop, revealing that she’d slept in her clothes. I wondered how many nights she’d done that.
“It’s okay, Mom. We’ll find him.”
I knew we would. I could feel it.
Now that I was home, I felt more at peace. Everything still smelled like him, and that alone was enough to encourage me to prepare, and more than anything, be calm.
I took my things upstairs, and went into our room, where the bed was still mussed from when Davis had slept in it. None of my things were moved from the dresser. I hadn’t moved everything in yet, but I had left a few outfits here over time. So, I showered, and then I dressed.
I cooked my parent’s breakfast, and then I started to clean.
“Rae, honey, now that you’re here, we should come up with a plan. Dad was thinking of calling in the town to help look for him.”
With the sleeves on the flannel I had stolen from Davis’s closet rolled to my elbows, I gathered the few plates and started rinsing them.
“Rae?”
Smiling up at my parents, I shut off the faucet. “No, we don’t need to do that. In fact, I actually need you both to head back home. If you want to come up here, you’re more than welcome to, but please be sure to bring all the boxes I had packed up that are in my room.”
“Surely, you’re not serious about not going out there?” my dad asked with an incredulous tone.
“I know him, and I know he’ll come back. What’s important is that I’m here when it happens. If a bunch of people go looking for him, he won’t come down. Clear out. He’ll know I’m home.”
My parents gave each other long looks, but it was my mother who folded the blanket she was clutching, laying it over the back of the couch. “Let’s go, honey. I could use a good night’s sleep.”
My dad was reluctant. He rubbed at the back of his neck, scrunching his eyebrows together, but with a soft hand on his arm from my mother, he relented with a sigh.
Once they were gone, I went to start a fire, but realized there was no wood.
That was okay. I had watched Davis do it enough times that I knew what to do.
I walked out back and off to the side, where the wood pile sat, and saw that there was still plenty chopped, it just needed to be brought inside.
So, I gathered as many logs with my arms as I could and started a fire in the hearth.
Then, I cooked.
I tossed chicken into the crock pot, and started low music on Alexa, turning on small lamps as the day waned. I made our bed, cleaned our bathroom, and took a bath.
I watched the stars come out, while sipping tea on the back porch.
Then I slept alone in our bed, hugging the pillow that smelled like him to my chest.
The next morning, I heard gravel crunching under tires, and threw off the covers, running downstairs.
Flinging the door open, it was my parents’ SUV that rolled to a stop, not the big truck I was hoping for. Alongside their Rover was my small Toyota, being driven by my mom.
My father had brought up my belongings, just like I asked. Not a single time did he or my mom question me or what I wanted as they helped carry my extra suitcases upstairs. When they were ready to leave, Dad placed a kiss on my forehead and then left.
I carried on, like I did the day prior, checking to ensure the goats and hens were fed and cared for, and made a fresh fire. I made a new meal in the slow cooker, chuck roast this time. I figured we’d freeze whatever didn’t get eaten, which would help keep us stocked through the winter.
Then, I went upstairs and began unpacking my boxes. Clothes went into the closet; shoes were unpacked, and all my little effects were dispersed throughout the room. Next to my bed, I plugged in the chargers for my e-reader and cell, and brought up the book Davis had read to me by the fire.
That night, I took another bath, and this time, a few worried tears slipped free.
I believed with all my heart that Davis would come back for me. I knew he would, deep down, but my bravado began to slip with each day that passed.
It was the fifth day of going through the motions when I realized I might be wrong.
Then, like an avalanche, guilt smothered me as I thought of him out there, likely dead and lost, not rescued, and all because of me. There wasn’t heavy snow on the mountain yet; there wouldn’t be any real reason to worry. Still, it gnawed at my gut.
Opening the front door, wearing just one of his long shirts, I watched rain pelt my car as hard as bullets.
I considered, not for the first time, hiking around locally, maybe seeing if I could use my recent introductory hiking skills I had learned in Colorado to try and find him, but it would have to be once the rain stopped.
I left the door open as I curled up under a blanket on the porch swing and watched the tall trees sway under the heavy downpour and small rivulets fall from the workshop roof.
I watched, willing Davis to show up, praying his truck would come into view any second.
Hoping the rain would drive him away from the mountain and into my arms. I watched as the rain drowned my world, until my eyelids grew heavy, and I finally let them close.