Chapter 2 #2
After an hour-and-a-half train ride from the city, I stand in front of a two-story white colonial farmhouse backed by lush green woods, clutching a bottle of sauvignon blanc.
Everything about my childhood home is the same now as it was five years ago, ten years ago, fifteen, probably more.
The mailbox is a mini version of the house itself, down to the same charcoal gray shingles.
The flower beds are filled with shrubbery my father loathes yet doesn’t seem to possess the ability to kill off.
The well-worn tire swing still hangs from a branch of the old oak tree in the front yard, responsible for a multitude of sprained ankles and other miscellaneous injuries in the Miller family.
Fallen leaves crunch beneath my heels as I make my way up the red brick sidewalk and slip inside the glass-paneled front door, hoping to dissolve into the chaos with minimum visibility.
Surprising no one, my father and Mason (twin #1) show up half an hour late, blaming their tardiness on the ever-present mayhem that is life as emergency room physicians.
An excuse I’ve heard from my father all my life and have now come to expect from Mason ever since he decided to follow in our father’s footsteps—or maybe he spent so much time in the ER getting stitches and slings as a child that he felt at home there.
Either way, they’re now Hudson Springs’ dynamic doctor duo, both living for their jobs above all else. My father is so, so proud.
While my dad and Mason shovel lasagna in their mouths and play catch-up, Marcus (twin #2) tells us an engrossing story about his recent close encounter with a black bear—not entirely alarming since he’s a ranger in the nearby state park—while his three children, Jack, Eli, and Ava, run circles around the dinner table and everyone (but me) tunes them out.
I’m usually quiet at these family dinners, happy to hear about everyone else while keeping the mundane details of my own life private. Really, who wants to hear about biscuit festivals in comparison to saving lives or near misses with woodland creatures?
Despite the physical similarities I share with my brothers—our matching chestnut-colored hair and hazel eyes that shift between green and brown depending on our wardrobe choices, though at five foot five I got skipped in the height department compared to their six-foot frames—I’ve always been the outlier in the Miller family.
The quintessential “accident” born only eleven months after the twins (and my father’s failed vasectomy—an unfortunate fact overheard at one of my parents’ dinner parties that went a little too heavy on the alcohol).
My father and brothers are loud and boisterous and spend any free time they have hiking or fishing or cycling or skiing or anything else outdoor-related.
It’s as if none of them ever learned how to just be still.
Then there’s my mom, Mary Ellen. If I had to describe her in one word, I think it’d be tired.
Being a stay-at-home mom, especially to twin hellions, couldn’t have been easy, I get it.
Some might think I’d relate more to my mother since she’s nothing like my father and brothers, either, but there’s always been a distance there.
Maybe it’s because I was never supposed to be born and was just one more kid for her to raise.
Even as a small child, I had the vast understanding that I needed to be the exact opposite of my brothers.
I needed to be the easy one. The one who never got in trouble and didn’t demand attention.
The child who played quietly with her dolls and didn’t fall out of trees and need stitches every other week.
That was my role, and I was happy to fill it.
Though sometimes I felt like the piece of the puzzle with warped edges that never quite fit, so even with only one open spot left, it must be forced into the place it belongs.
Tonight though, I’m more than quiet. I’m withdrawn. And it has nothing to do with my loud, chattering family or my unwelcome birthday or even the fact that I’m leaving for Iceland in three days.
No, my mind is occupied by one thing and one thing only: Ben Carter.
More specifically, the way his green eyes locked on mine in Calvin’s office today. As much as I try, I can’t seem to interpret his expression. Apologetic, yes. Curious, certainly. But there was more in those eyes that couldn’t be entirely concealed. Ben looked almost…relieved.
Everyone finishes with dinner, and my mother carries in my cake with thirty-one lit candles while everyone sings “Happy Birthday” to me.
It’s awkward basking in the attention, feeling everyone’s focus on me while I try to act natural and keep my smile from turning to a grimace. Twenty seconds of pure discomfort.
“Mona.” Once slices have been distributed, my mother’s soft voice coaxes me back to the conversation as I take small bites of my birthday cake.
Red velvet. My favorite. Only my actual favorite is strawberry.
Red velvet is Marcus’s favorite, but I don’t have the heart to say anything.
Red velvet is good, too. “You seem a million miles away tonight. What has you so distracted?”
Ben Carter.
“Uh, work,” I sputter, spine lengthening as I straighten in my chair. “Iceland. I’m going to Iceland Monday.”
I do not mention I’ll be going with my brothers’ former best friend. My family never knew about the two of us and our…whatever we were…but mentioning Ben would lead to reminiscent conversations of memories past. And I don’t want to hear any of that.
“No. Fucking. Way,” Marcus declares, earning a swift look of disapproval from his wife, Carrie, for using the F-word in front of their children, while Jack and Eli—miniature hellions by way of genetics—light up at the use of such naughty language.
“You’re going to Iceland? As in waterfalls, volcanoes, and glaciers Iceland? You?”
“Yes, me,” I say defensively, pushing the rest of my not-favorite cake away. “I work for a travel magazine, what’s so hard to believe about that?”
“I think he’s just trying to say that Iceland isn’t your typical scope,” Mason interjects. “Don’t you cover knitting conventions?”
“There was one knitting convention. One!”
“Ignore them, Mona,” Carrie cuts in from across the table, dabbing at her mouth with one of the cloth napkins my mother breaks out only on special occasions. “They’re just jealous. You’ll do a great job.”
“Thank you,” I tell her, grateful Marcus married up.
Truth be told, I admire Carrie and wish we could be closer.
It’d be nice to have a friend and confidant within the Miller family, but with three kids, a full-time job, and heading up the Hudson Springs Elementary PTA, I don’t know how she has time to eat or sleep, much less slip away to the city to hang out with me.
Marcus and Mason naturally take over the conversation in the name of filling me in on all things Iceland, and my chest tightens with each tick of their fingers as they list off all the top sites to explore. Explore as in lots of walking, hiking, and climbing. In the elements.
I’m in decently average shape, I suppose.
I’ve been known to accompany Jacklyn to a yoga class from time to time.
Yet, as my brothers drone on and on about what all I’ll need for this trip—hiking boots, waterproof pants, thermal base layers, wool socks, a hiking backpack, collapsible trekking poles (what even are those?)—my worries compound with each addition to their lists.
Polishing off my glass of wine, I immediately pour another.
Across the table, Carrie must register my alarm because she leans forward on her elbows and says in the calm, motherly tone one inherits the instant they become a parent, “Relax. You’ve got this.
We can go shopping tomorrow for everything you’ll need. ”
“Thanks, Carrie,” I say, a tiny glimmer of light twinkling at the end of the dark tunnel of panic. “That’d be great.”
“I’ll come, too,” Mason chimes in. “I have the day off from the hospital tomorrow and I could use a new pair of hiking boots.”
“So, uh, how much is all of this stuff going to cost me?” I ask, trying to get an approximation of how much I’ll have to spend to make this trip happen.
“Doesn’t your company cover expenses?” Marcus questions, cutting a second slice of his favorite cake.
“They cover my expenses on the trip,” I reply.
“They aren’t going to cover my expenses to add to my wardrobe.
” At least that’s the answer I anticipate, not that I’d ever ask Calvin in the first place.
I’d rather take on the credit card debt than put myself in the awkward situation of having him shoot me down when I present a receipt for items Suki and Devon probably own in multitudes.
“I’ll pick up the tab,” Mason says then, catching me off guard. “Whatever you need.”
“No, you don’t have to do that,” I protest.
He waves me off. “It’s fine. Harry at the outdoor store gives me a steep discount ever since I patched up his wife when she slipped on some ice in their parking lot last winter. Consider it your birthday present.”
“Thanks, Mase.” Guilt fills me again over dreading this dinner. My brothers are good humans, they’re just…a lot sometimes.
“You’ll stay here tonight then?”
I shift my attention to the head of the table. My father’s bespectacled face is austere yet youthful at age sixty, despite the salt waging a solid battle against the pepper in his thick black hair.
“No need to take the train back this late.”
My heart warms to think this may be his inadvertent way of getting me to stick around a little longer on my birthday. Then again, he’s always been a pragmatist. “Sure. I’ll stay.”
Later, after exchanging goodbye hugs and kisses with my nephews and niece and helping my mother with the dishes, I climb the creaky wooden stairs up to my old bedroom.
Everything about my room is still the same as when I left it.
Cool blue walls. Overstuffed bookshelf. Metal-framed bed.
Rustic wooden dresser that still contains some old T-shirts.
Well past eleven now, I change into an old V-neck tee and a pair of loose plaid pajama pants that belonged to one of the twins. Then I kneel to flip on the trusty night-light plug-in near the door.
A soft ping strikes the window behind me.
I freeze in place, arm extended.
Because it’s not any random noise, it’s a specific ping against my windowpane that I haven’t heard in fourteen years. A flutter stirs in my stomach. It couldn’t be…Could it?
Another ping.
My breath catches.
I rise from my crouched position and close the distance separating me from what surely couldn’t be.
Shaky fingers unlatch the casement window, and I press the panel outward, following it with my upper body, only to quickly reel backward when I spot another pebble flying directly toward my face.
It misses and skitters across my bedroom floor.
I pause to make sure there are no more flying objects being hurled my way before I lean back into the tepid night air and search below for any explanation other than the one my brain is unwilling to accept, the one that hasn’t made sense since high school.
As if this day could get any more unpredictable, Ben Carter stands in the grass below, face awash in the glow of a floodlight, hand full of pebbles from the nearby flower bed.
“Sorry about that,” he whisper-shouts with a wince. “Guess I’m a bit out of practice.”