21. Homecoming
TWENTY-ONE
Homecoming
CALEB
“We have to get out of here right now,” Luke said.
Caleb groaned as they walked down the steps of the police station. “I’m not on the run, idiot. I just have to answer to this summons in thirty days.”
“No, I mean we really have to go.”
“I appreciate you all sticking around this long. I really do.” Caleb yawned. “You guys get on the road. I need to sleep.” He held out his hand for his keys.
Luke shoved him in the passenger side and waved over the roof at Isaac and Eli, signaling them to follow. “I’ll give you ten minutes at your dorm to pack a bag, then you’ve got about five hours to snooze. Bring your school stuff. We’re going home, and we might be there a while.”
“I have class on Monday. Spring break doesn’t start until Wednesday.”
“Spring break starts now.”
“She wanted me to do something for her, though.” Caleb yawned so wide his jaw popped on both sides. “Look for something. What was I looking for?” He laughed at the irony of wondering what he was meant to be hunting for Shannon, then fell asleep before Luke reached the dorm.
They stopped at a gas station ten miles outside of their hometown. Eli wordlessly shuffled between backseats and duffel bags and emerged with four collared shirts, bound to please their mother since they were all in some shade of blue and still in their dry-cleaning plastic. He gave his underarms a cautious sniff before grabbing a toiletry bag. They passed the antiperspirant around like a bottle of whiskey, then rotated through the tiny bathroom to splash water on their faces and tame their hair before they changed.
Caleb watched Luke’s neck tense as they drove north on Route 13. Mile by mile, the strain in his muscles became evident, and he closed his eyes at every stoplight until Caleb jabbed his shoulder.
Sauganac, Michigan, never changed. As far as Caleb was concerned, it had risen fully formed from the ground a hundred years before, and never evolved its people, its morals, or its dreams. From The End Zone Diner, named in honor of the defense he and his brothers captained in high school, to the churches, the bandstand on the square, and the blue-painted mailboxes in Old Town, Sauganac paused when they left and breathed when they came home.
“Game face,” Caleb said, noting Luke’s panicked expression.
“It’s not the look I’m going for, but thanks.” Luke took a few deep breaths and tried to release the stress in his jaw as he turned onto their street and headed for Lake Michigan .
“Are you really doing the tests?” Caleb asked. “No one would blame you if you didn’t.”
Luke relaxed into a grin. “Are you kidding me? I’m first in line. I’m the organ donation hype man. One perfectly healthy kidney, coming right up.”
“Won’t you and Eli have the same results?”
“Mostly, but they consider more than blood type. I’ve got dibs if it’s more than one of us, though.” Luke barked a short laugh. “I’m already enjoying the irony of the old man taking anti-rejection meds for the privilege of having me stuck with him forever.”
Caleb stared. “You’re sick, you know that?”
“Did I hesitate coming out here with you?”
“Did you have a choice?”
Luke paused. “Eli is my ride back to school. I will concede that point. But I’m in it with you as much as I’m in it for Dad.”
“And Eli can keep his extra kidney in case you need one later.”
“I’m a big-picture thinker.”
“I guess that’s how we’ll take care of each other when we’re old and crabby,” Caleb said. “Swapping organs until one of us runs into the ground.”
“Stay away from Eli’s liver. Courtney is driving him to drink.”
Their childhood home, a rambling white house with several additions tacked on by four generations of their family, backed up to the shoreline on a one-mile stretch of private beach shared with three similar houses. None were extravagant, but all belonged to the direct descendants of the town’s founders, four families raised on the shore in the insular community that prided itself on its traditions: cerulean blue mailboxes, football dominance, and an unsubstantiated hero-worship of its oldest names. The children who grew up among the dunes returned to claim their family homes and their parents’ businesses, to live as they’d been raised—under the weight of their customs and hubris in a small-town bubble, where linebackers did not assault cheerleaders, and the princes of Sauganac didn’t rise in rebellion against the king.
Courtney 2:37 p.m.
It can wait a week, right? I want you to meet my mom and dad.
I don’t want to go without you.
Eli, answer me.
You could fly out on Wednesday. I can switch your ticket. Will you be done on Wednesday?
Are you there? Wednesday would be good.
Eli 2:46 p.m.
Not if I match
Courtney 2:47 p.m.
But you don’t even like your dad.
There’s a flight on Wednesday at 4:37 p.m. so you’d get to SF at 5:37 there.
No 6:37.
No wait.
It doesn’t matter then we can still do the dinner party on Thursday.
My friend’s grandpa didn’t have a donor for months, so there’s no need to panic
Really, don’t stress too much
I just love you so much and can’t wait to see you.
Eli? Babe?
Eli 2:57 p.m.
I love you, too.
The white house would one day belong to Isaac, but it would always be home. The gentle shush of the waves that morning soothed Caleb’s pounding heart as they approached and saw their parents on the steps, and the cool breeze off the gray water calmed the flush in his cheeks. Belinda Fields smiled, her eyes welling at the amusing sight of her handsome sons together, bedraggled but still in their matching shirts.
She nudged her husband forward.
It was March, and Caleb thought his father had aged a decade since he was home for his winter break. Abraham Fields’ face was lined with discomfort, and his blue plaid button-down shirt hung slightly looser on the broad shoulders his sons inherited. His auburn hair—another gift to all of his boys—had gone whiter at the temples.
It had been more than three years since Abraham last hugged his children together. Isaac didn’t say a word as he slung an arm around his father and pulled Caleb to his other side. Eli did the same, dragging Luke into their huddle.
“Boys,” Abraham choked, “I can’t tell you how sorry?— ”
“Don’t apologize just because you need something, Dad,” Luke said. “We’re here whether you’re sorry or not.”
“Hit us with the big question,” Isaac said at lunch. He inclined his head to his parents. “You’re dying to know how we all ended up here caravan-style.”
“You planned the blue shirts, so it wasn’t an accident that you all showed up together,” Belinda said.
Abraham shook his head. “I figured you boys just met up outside of town somewhere so we could do our emotional reunion scene.”
“Negative.” Eli folded his arms and sat back, smirking.
“Are you all on spring break?” Belinda asked. “I thought Caleb and Isaac had that next week, and you two had it the week after.”
Mouth full of club sandwich, Luke shook his head and murmured a sing-song “Nuh-uh.”
Their parents glanced back and forth between their oldest and youngest, and noticed Caleb slouching with embarrassment and Isaac’s cheeks pink with restrained laughter. Abraham pointed at Caleb and opened his mouth to speak, then shut it, smiling.
“We were in Columbus, bailing Caleb out of jail,” Isaac announced.
Their parents’ jaws dropped.
“That’s not why we were there,” Eli said. “We went to provide a little fraternal aid for his stupidity.”
“And a blank check,” Isaac added.
Caleb smiled weakly. “Thanks for that. I’ll pay you back.”
“I paid his girlfriend’s bail, too.” Isaac slapped his brother’ s shoulder. “Since I am a gentleman and my mother raised me right.”
Belinda buried her face in her hands. “Please don’t tell me why.” She peered at her sons through her fingers. “Do I want to know why?”
Eli raised his hand. “I think he was the good guy here. They’ll drop the charges.”
“Oh, no.”
“It’s just one little assault charge,” Caleb said. He held up his finger and thumb smashed together. “One minor charge. Tiny crumb.”
“The guy had it coming,” Luke agreed. “I mean, not like he’s just a dick, but he is. Sorry Mom. Legally, he has it coming. He’s in big trouble. Baby brother just made sure he stayed put to get it.”
Caleb glared.
“He tried to drug a girl at a party, and Caleb dropped him with a couple of punches,” Isaac said. “See? One hundred percent the right thing to do.”
“In a case like that, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear the four of you trussed him like a pig and stuck an apple in his mouth,” Belinda said.
Frowning, Isaac tapped his chin. “Damn. Missed opportunity. They had a grill going and everything.”
“Is she all right? The girl?”
“She’s fine, Mom,” Luke said. “Didn’t drink it and went home with a friend.”
Abraham sliced his hands through the air to silence everyone. “Wait. Caleb has a girlfriend?”
“We’re all adults,” Luke said as Isaac wrenched open the egress window in the rec room. “We seriously can’t just wake up mom and ask for the new alarm code? It’s only ten p.m.”
Before Luke finished grousing, Isaac was up the ladder and leaning back to beckon them on.
“For old times’ sake.”
Half of the house was cut into a steep dune to protect it from the wind and snow off Lake Michigan, so only the uppermost balconies faced west. The western walls of the other floors were dug into the hill and the doors exited onto sandy, stony terraces north and south. The recreation room on the first floor sat against the hill and had an egress window to the hillside behind one of the bedroom additions—a perfect place for high school boys to sneak out and avoid alarms, motion sensor lights, and squeaky stairs.
They clambered up the dune and stood in a line across the ridge, eyes on the horizon as their hair whipped in the chilly wind and their feet sank into the sand. Eli twirled a football in the air and caught it, then pointed to Isaac.
Luke grabbed Caleb with an arm around his neck. “You and me, then, little brother. I won’t tell the athletic trainers if you don’t.”
“I don’t know,” Caleb said, poking the shifting sand with his air cast. “I can’t balance in the sand right now. I started PT, but I have another week or two in this.”
“You were born balancing in this sand,” Isaac shouted. “Come at me, forty-seven! Game day!”
They carried him down to the beach.
Caleb grabbed Isaac’s arm after a sandy tackle. “Hey. I meant to thank you for grabbing that check. It made this morning a lot easier to have it with me and ready to go. ”
“That’s what the best big brothers are for. I’m glad they let you use a blank one with someone else’s name on it. I showed the cop my ID before I signed it.”
“Good thinking.”
“That was really thoughtful of you to pay hers,” Isaac said cautiously. “I hope she appreciates it.”
“I’m sure she does, but I told them to give me a head start so we didn’t have to talk about it.”
“You make no sense.”
“I’m in love with her.”
Isaac shook his brother’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. “And you thought we wouldn’t figure anything out this weekend. Now you just have to tell her and not get your head kicked in.”