“Don’t you wish you were here?” he whispered, but she wouldn’t have heard him. By the time he finished speaking, she was away, sand kicking up from the tires.
* * *
He stared at the orange phone on the platform while he waited for the train, thinking how easy it would be if he picked it up and made a call. To tell whoever answered he wanted to come back home.
* * *
“Just you, then?” the attendant asked cheerily as he stepped off the train. “Don’t usually see people leaving this late in the season.”
“Going home,” Linus muttered as he handed over his ticket.
“Ah,” the attendant said. “No place like home, or so I’m told. Me, I like riding the rails. All the wondrous things I see, you know?” He glanced down at the ticket. “Back to the city! I hear there’s quite the storm there. Hasn’t stopped raining in a dog’s age!” He grinned as he handed back the ticket. “Help you with your luggage, sir?”
Linus blinked against the burn. “Yes. Fine. Thank you. I’ll take the crate. She doesn’t like most other people.”
The attendant peered down. “Ah, I see. Yes. I’ll take your luggage. The car you’re in is right this way, sir. And luckily for you, it’s empty. Not another soul in sight. Could get some sleep, if you need it.”
He whistled as he lifted the suitcase and carried it onto the train.
Linus looked down at the crate. “Ready to go home?”
Calliope turned around and presented him with her backside.
Linus sighed.
* * *
Two hours later, the first drops of rain began to fall.
EIGHTEEN
It was raining heavily back in the city when he stepped off the train.
He pulled his coat tightly around him, squinting up at the metal-gray sky.
Calliope hissed as water began to drip through the slats on the top of her crate.
He picked up his suitcase and walked toward the bus stop.
* * *
The bus was late.
Of course it was.
He took off his coat and put it on top of Calliope’s crate.
It did the job. For now.
He sneezed.
He hoped he wasn’t getting sick. That would be just his luck, wouldn’t it?
* * *
Twenty minutes later, the bus came, tires sluicing water.
The doors slid open.
Linus was soaked as he stepped onto the bus.
“Hello,” he said to the driver.
The driver grunted in response as Linus struggled to swipe his pass.
The bus was mostly empty. There was a man in the back, head pressed against the window, and a woman who eyed Linus suspiciously.
He took a seat away from them.
“Almost home,” he whispered to Calliope.
She didn’t respond.
He looked out the window as the bus pulled away from the train station.
A sign next to the train station caught his eye.
On it, a family was at a picnic in the park. The sun was shining. They sat on a checkered blanket, and the wicker basket sitting between them was open and overflowing with cheeses and grapes and sandwiches with the crusts cut off. The mother was laughing. The father was smiling. The boy and the girl were staring adoringly up at their parents.
Above them, the sign read: KEEP YOUR FAMILY SAFE! SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING!
Linus looked away.
* * *
He had to change buses once, and by the time he stepped off the second bus it was almost five in the afternoon. The wind had picked up, and it was cold and miserable. He was three blocks from home. He expected to feel relief at this moment.
He didn’t. Not really.
He huffed as he lifted the crate and suitcase.
He was almost there.
* * *
His street was quiet as he turned onto it.
The streetlights were lit, beads of water clinging against the panes of glass.
86 Hermes Way was dark. Oh, the brick pathway to the house was the same, and the lawn was the same, but it still felt … dark. It took him a moment to realize what little splash of color there’d once been—his sunflowers—was gone.
He stared at the front of his house for a moment.
He shook his head.
He’d worry about it tomorrow.
He walked up the path and reached the porch. He set down his suitcase as he fumbled for his keys. They fell to the floor, and he grumbled as he bent over to pick them up.
Through the rain, he heard, “That you, Mr. Baker?”
He sighed as he stood upright. “It is, Mrs. Klapper. I have returned. How are you?”
“Your flowers died. Drowned, if you can believe that. I had a boy come pull them. They were rotting. Hurts the resale value of a neighborhood when a house looks so rundown. I have the receipt for what I paid the boy. I expect to be reimbursed.”
“Of course, Mrs. Klapper. Thank you.”
She wore the same terry cloth robe and was smoking out of the same pipe. Her hair was in the same bouffant. It was all the same. Every little piece of it.
He started to put the key in the lock when she spoke again. “You back for good?”
Linus felt like screaming. “Yes, Mrs. Klapper.”
She squinted at him from across the way. “You look as if you’ve gotten some sun. You don’t seem as pale as you once did. Lost some weight too. Quite a vacation you had.”
His clothes were a little looser on him than they’d once been, but for the first time in a long time, he found himself not caring about that at all. “It wasn’t a vacation. I told you I left for work.”
“Uh-huh. So you said. Though, I suppose there’s nothing wrong with snapping at the office, threatening to murder everyone, and then getting sent away to a rehab facility.”
“That’s not what happened!”
She waved a hand at him. “None of my business if it was. Though, you should know it’s already the talk of the neighborhood.” She frowned at him. “Hurts the resale value.”
He gripped the doorknob tightly. “Are you planning on selling your home?”
She blinked at him as smoke curled around her craggy face. “No. Of course not. Where would I go?”
“Then why on God’s green earth do you care about the damn resale value?”
She stared at him.
He glared back at her.
She took a puff on her pipe. “I got your mail. Most of it was ads. You don’t seem to get much personal mail. I used the coupons. I was sure you wouldn’t mind.”
“I’ll get it tomorrow.”
He was sure that was the end of it, but of course she continued on. “You should know you missed your opportunity! My grandson met a nice man while you were gone. He’s a pediatrician. I expect there to be a spring wedding. It will be in a church, of course, because they are both godly men.”
“Good for them.”
She nodded as she stuck the stem of her pipe back between her teeth. “Welcome home, Mr. Baker. Keep that filthy animal out of my yard. The squirrels have known a month of peace. I’d like to keep it that way.”
He didn’t bother saying goodbye. It was rude, but he was tired. He went inside the house and slammed the door behind him for good measure.