Brennan and I emerge from the woods mid-morning and skirt another town whose residents have been paid to vacate. From what I can see, this area is run-down and has been for a long time; we pass a decaying barn and a years-abandoned gas station with the pumps removed. The kind of place in desperate need of television money, the kind of place easily dressed for the show’s needs. As we walk, Brennan yammers about evacuations and bioterrorism, fast-acting transmittable cancer and other inanities, until I shush him.
I’m still days from home, but there are only so many ways to cross the river and we’re nearing the bridge my husband and I most often use, a crossing surrounded by woodland and small towns. The Army’s premier training ground for kids Brennan’s age is just north of here. I wonder briefly what would happen if I continued in that direction instead of crossing the bridge. Brennan would probably find a way to stop me, or there would be another bus blocking the path, this one with no way around. Or maybe they’d finally have to break scene—a producer stepping out from behind a tree, nodding his head east.
I could test them, but I’d rather just go home. I’m beginning to believe that’s my true destination, not just a direction, that they’ve actually done it: cleared a path for me all the way home.
“Let’s start looking for a place to spend the night,” I say to Brennan. “We’ll cross the river in the morning.” My announcement energizes him, and he jogs ahead.
Alone, I think about my impending homecoming. I imagine standing in front of the two-story, three-bedroom house we bought last summer. The half-acre plot has a gentle upward slope; the house will be above me. I’ll follow the steps cut into the lawn, which will be overgrown because I was always the one who mowed it—only fair, considering the length of my husband’s daily commute, an hour each way. A sacrifice he made for me so I could be close to a much-lower-paying job, the best I could find in my field. But also so we could live somewhere more conducive to raising a family. His commute wasn’t meant to be permanent. Kids would be the dividing line, we said. He’d pull in as much money as possible until I got pregnant, then start looking for work closer to home. I agreed to this. I said later, because never was too hard.
After I cross the overgrown lawn, I will stand on the woven welcome mat—a gift from my mother-in-law. Home Sweet Home is the Clue leading me home, but our mat has my husband’s surname stitched on it. Not mine. My mother-in-law never accepted that I didn’t change my name. We made a joke of it and Sharpied my name on there too—under his, but bigger. She’s come to visit only once since then, and she laughed unpleasantly. “I forgot,” she told me, “you’re modern.”
The front door will be closed, of course. It wouldn’t be the same if I weren’t allowed to open it. I blink, imagining the feel of the cold steel knob in my palm. The knob was our very first purchase as homeowners—or one of our first purchases. We got a cartful of knickknacks and cleaning supplies at Home Depot that day, including a window screen repair kit. That was our first official home repair, covering up a hole in what the realtor referred to as a sunroom but we simply call the porch. It overlooks the backyard, and that’s where I sit with my coffee every morning, watching deer and rodents nibble at my failed vegetable garden. Next year I’ll fence in the plot.
The front door of the house opens into a small niche, almost a hallway, with the living room to the right and a stairwell to the left. There’s a collage from our wedding on the wall. A stack of mail on the table under it. I’ll enter, step past those, turn right, and that’s where he’ll be, in the living room. Waiting. Smiling. The rest of my family will probably be there too, though I’d rather they weren’t. They might even drag in my coworkers, or some of the college friends I listed as character references.
There will be a banner strewn across the far wall, my husband centered beneath it. His black hair will be shaggy, needing a cut, because he always waits too long between haircuts—or maybe he’ll have just gotten one to greet me. Either way, he’ll have run a trimmer through his scruff, so his facial hair will be short, save for the spot on the underside of his jaw that he always misses. Will his penguin coloring be more pronounced, the white thicker? Maybe. His gray always seems to appear in batches. He’ll look tired, because he’ll have barely slept the night before, knowing I was coming home.
Standing beside him, my parents. My mom looking cranky because she’s not allowed to smoke inside the house and who are we to tell her what she cannot do? But once I enter, her frown will flip because she knows she has a role to fill: the Mother, the one who birthed me, raised me, guided me, made me who I am. My father will be maintaining a few inches more distance from her than one would expect a happy husband to. He’ll be smiling, though—if not a happy husband, a happy father at least—and I’ll be able to smell his maple scent from the doorway, if only in my mind.
For a moment, I’ll just stand there, looking. Taking in the sight of so many familiar faces, the face of the man I love. The person who taught me what it was to be honestly generous, to give without expectation or resentment. Whose steady demeanor and realism helped me to learn that attempting to achieve perfection with every decision is a sure path to unhappiness; that when it comes to choosing a house or a car or a television or a loaf of bread, good enough really is good enough. Whose cereal-slurping helped me learn that being irritated at someone isn’t the same as ceasing to love him, a distinction that I know should be obvious but which has always troubled me. Who taught me that together is better than alone, even if it’s sometimes harder, even if I sometimes forget.
I don’t know if they’ll have him in a suit, or if he’ll be wearing casual clothes, maybe jeans and the navy half-zip sweater I got him last Christmas. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he’ll be there. That he’ll step forward, and then I’ll step forward. We’ll meet in the center of the room and then I won’t be able to see him anymore because my face will be pressed into its remembered niche between his collarbone and chin. Everyone around us will cheer and clap. It’ll be like our wedding kiss, ringing support all around. A celebration of a connection both actual and symbolic. I’ll whisper some joking apology about how I must smell, but he won’t understand because—who am I kidding?—I’ll be crying too hard to make sense.
And then there will be some sort of announcement—I won! Or maybe I came in second, or third, or third-to-last. I don’t even care, I just want to be home. I just want to be able to say I didn’t quit.
We’ll celebrate, all of us, whoever is in the house. And then I’ll sign any last-minute paperwork, and the cameramen will leave—Brennan will leave, if he came in at all. When evening falls, it’ll be just the two of us, alone, together.