5. Too Small Clothes
Too Small Clothes
Nora
Saturday evening at her parents’ house felt like wearing clothes she had grown out of.
Nora sat at the same dining room table where she’d done homework in high school, picking at her mom’s perfectly prepared salmon while her parents tried to navigate the careful dance of concerned questioning without seeming like they were prying.
The dining room hadn’t changed in ten years—same beige walls, same framed photos of family vacations, same sense that this house existed outside of time.
“The fish is amazing, Mom,” she said, because it was true and because she needed to fill the silence that kept threatening to expand into uncomfortable territory.
“Thank you, honey. I remembered it’s your favorite.
” Marjorie Carter’s smile was warm but worried, the expression she’d worn whenever Nora came home from school in tears.
She paused before asking—a habit that had irritated Nora as a child, that deliberate three-count of hers, like she was giving the question room to land before even uttering it. “How are you feeling? Really feeling?”
Nora’s chest tightened. Static crept under her skin, familiar and unwelcome.
“I’m okay,” she said automatically. “Just tired.”
Her father looked up from cutting his salmon. Paul Carter was the kind of man who had never missed a mortgage payment in his life, and in his two children, he had one who was exactly like him, and Nora who was his polar opposite.
“Your mom showed the footage,” he said carefully.
Nora’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. Of course they’d seen it. The panic attack on stage, her running off, the backstage video someone had leaked. Two thousand people watching her freeze, unable to breathe, unable to finish. And then the internet, turning her worst moment into entertainment.
“Dad—”
“I don’t understand the music industry,” he continued, “but I know those people don’t know you. They don’t know how hard you work.”
The kindness in his voice made her eyes burn.
Her parents had never fully understood her career choice—they’d wanted stability, a backup plan, something more reliable than chasing dreams with a guitar—but they’d tried to support her anyway.
They had probed gently when she dropped out of college after one year, and they’d expressed concern over her moving to LA with barely enough money for gas, but they’d never said she shouldn’t, or couldn’t.
“People online are nasty because they are safe behind a screen,” her mother said, voice ever gentle. She paused, one, two, three seconds. “They don’t see the real you. Those of us who do, we know that moment doesn’t define who you are.”
Nora nodded, not trusting her voice. Her breathing had gone mechanical, each inhale requiring conscious effort. She pressed her palm flat against her thigh under the table, grounding herself.
“I don’t really know what I’m doing right now,” she said finally, voice small.
Her parents exchanged one of those wordless conversations that came from thirty years of marriage.
“That’s okay,” her mother said. “You don’t have to know. You’re allowed to take time to figure things out.”
“I’m twenty-eight, Mom. I should have things figured out by now.”
“Says who?” her mother asked. “There’s no timeline for finding yourself, Nora. I didn’t figure out I wanted to teach until I was thirty. Your father changed careers twice before settling into IT.”
The reminder surprised her. She’d forgotten that her parents hadn’t always been the settled, stable people she knew them as.
“Besides,” her mother said, “you have options. You have the land now—”
“Maybe this isn’t the right time,” her father said, at the same time as Nora said, “I don’t want to talk about that,” in a sharper tone than she’d intended.
Marjorie glanced between them, and this time the concern wasn’t directed only at Nora. “Your grandfather would have loved to see you back on that property. Even just to visit.”
“Marjorie—”
“Oh, you know he would have,” her mother said, voice sharpening.
The tightness in Nora’s chest intensified.
Gramps’ land. The inheritance she’d been avoiding for four months, since the lawyer first called.
Twenty acres of forest and meadow, a barn big enough to run laps in, and most important, the house where she’d learned guitar on the porch, where he’d told her she had something special, don’t lose it.
The land he’d left specifically to her—and she’d never let herself think too hard about what that choice might have said to her father, between two men who never said anything plainly—trusting she’d know what to do with it.
She hadn’t even been able to visit.
“Your father thinks—” her mother started.
“I can tell her what I think myself,” Paul said, but his voice had gone chilly. “Selling is the best choice. The practical choice. The property value has gone up significantly, and with the market the way it is—”
“Dad.” Nora’s voice came out tight. “Can we not do this right now?”
“We’re just saying, you have options,” Marjorie said. “So maybe go out there and look—”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
Silence fell over the table, heavy and awkward. Nora focused on her breathing, on not letting the static under her skin turn into something worse. Not here. Not in front of her parents. They couldn’t see her crack, couldn’t know how close to the edge she was.
Needing people is how you get hurt, she reminded herself. Even people who love you. Especially people who love you, because they see too much.
Her mother reached across the table, squeezing Nora’s hand briefly. “We don’t have to talk about anything you’re not ready for. We’re just glad you’re home.”
Home.
This wasn’t home—hadn’t been for years. Home was supposed to be LA, and the life she’d built with her music and her touring and Cam. Except that was gone now, and she had no idea what home meant anymore.
She wasn’t going to stay.
Because staying meant facing herself. Facing Gramps’ land and what it meant that he’d left it to her rather than his son, even though she hadn’t even been there when he died.
They finished dinner talking about safer topics—her father’s latest work project, her mother’s new students, the Hendersons down the street getting a puppy.
“A puppy in that yard,” Marjorie said, almost to herself. “Their roses won’t last the month,” and then refilled her water glass like she hadn’t said anything at all.
Normal family conversation that felt both comforting and suffocating.
When dinner ended, her father offered to drive her back to the Redwood Inn—or to stay in her old childhood bedroom—but Nora declined. The walk would do her good. Give her time to breathe without anyone watching.
“Thank you for dinner,” she said at the door, hugging them both. “I’m sorry I’m—”
“Don’t apologize,” her mother said firmly. “We’re always here for you.”
The walk back to the hotel took her through quiet residential streets.
The August evening hadn’t cooled the way it should have—the day’s heat still hung in the air, thick and close, radiating up from sidewalks that had baked all afternoon.
Streetlights flickered on against a sky going slowly violet, drawing clouds of moths, and the warmth that should have felt gentle just felt heavy.
Nora kept her hands shoved in her pockets anyway, phone deliberately silenced.
Somewhere a sprinkler ticked across a lawn.
Two houses over, someone had music on, the sound of a guitar drifting out through a screen door, and Nora scurried past before it could do whatever it was going to do to her.
Through lit windows she passed, families moved around their kitchens.
The shame sat heavy in her chest. The whole town probably knew why she was really here.
The hotel room felt even more depressing after the warmth of her parents’ house. Nora sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her guitar case propped against the wall.
She should practice. Should write. Should do something productive with the nervous energy thrumming under her skin.
Instead, she pulled out her phone and scrolled through notifications she’d been ignoring. Instagram, Twitter, emails from her manager Adrian she hadn’t opened in three days.
One notification stopped her: a text from Daniel sent an hour ago.
Mom said you seemed down. You doing okay?
Nora stared at the message. Was she doing okay? She was hiding in a hotel room, avoiding her grandfather’s land, unable to play her guitar without feeling like a fraud.
She thought of Morgan Livingston, the mechanic. The woman had had such a quiet strength in her movements, her hands always knowing where they were going without looking.
Nora should be more like that. Cool. Confident.
I’m fine. Just tired.
The lie came easily. She’d been lying about being fine for so long it felt like truth.
At least her car was ready.
Except she didn’t want to go anywhere. Didn’t want to face the apartment she’d shared with Cam, the venues that had canceled her, the manager who was losing patience.
But staying meant admitting she’d failed. That she’d come home not as a visiting success, but as someone who’d run out of options.
And staying here meant facing Gramps’ land. Meant making a decision about the inheritance, about what kind of person she was. Would keeping it mean she wanted to stay in the past? Would selling it mean she wanted to forget?
She spent the rest of the evening trying to write.
The guitar came out of its case for the first time since she’d arrived, and she sat cross-legged on the questionable bedspread, fingers finding familiar chord progressions—the physical memory still intact, at least—while her mind searched for words.
Nothing came.
Or rather, everything that came felt forced, artificial. The melodies were fine, technically competent, but they lacked the spark that had made her early songs feel urgent and necessary. The songs Gramps had loved, before she’d learned to write for streams and algorithms instead of feeling.