“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
to my exit, my emotions were all over the map. My anxiety about going back home and my grief about Leigh battled with my desire – no requirement – for coffee. How people go through life without coffee has always baffled me. I would never understand it. At minimum, a cup in the morning is a necessity. A large cup. Moments later, I was off the exit and pulling into a gas station. After filling my car at the pump, I went inside where the aroma of fresh coffee hit me as soon as I opened the door.
Grabbing the biggest cup on the counter, I filled it as full as possible while still leaving room for a little cream. Taking a tentative first sip to test the temperature, I walked the aisles, looking for something edible. There really isn’t a decent breakfast to be found in a gas station convenience store. “Hello, sugar.” I grabbed a box of chocolate donuts.
The chilly spring air hit me as soon as I left the store and goosebumps instantly formed on my arms. Quickly getting into my car, I cranked the engine and took a big gulp from my cup. As the car heated up, I enjoyed the warmth of the coffee going through me. As it got warmer, I put the car in reverse, took my foot off the brake and drifted backward out of the parking spot. I stopped and stared out at the road while my stomach did somersaults.
A loud, somewhat angry-sounding horn jerked me out of my reverie and back to the task at hand. In the rearview mirror, I saw a work truck waiting to get out and get on with the day. I took a deep breath, accepted the inevitable, and made a right out of the parking lot and headed for Crossroads.
Within a couple of miles, the houses began to get further apart, broken up by farms and fields with cows standing in the early morning light. Sites and houses that I had known in my past, spent time in, passed by in my periphery. Crossroads was one of many map dot small towns that were scattered all over Virginia. I drove through the tiny town square and made a left at the intersecting roads in the middle of town that gave Crossroads its name.
Despite driving slowly, it didn't take long before a familiar, and somewhat misplaced, weeping willow tree came into view just to the left up ahead. The tree did not fit in with its surroundings and no one knows how it got there but it was good way of telling people how to find my brother's house. I hung a left and listened to my tires crunch up the long gravel driveway while doing a quick search for Benny’s Jeep. It wasn’t here. My nerves calmed a little and I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding. He was at work. I put the car in park and stared at the house. It was a dark blue two-story A-frame with a freshly painted white front porch and matching white shutters framing the windows.
It was a stark contrast between now and my first view of the house years ago when Benny first brought me to it.
“I’m sorry we had to sell the farm Tess,” Benny had said quietly as he drove us to our new home eight years earlier. I stared out the passenger window and didn’t respond.
“The house may need some fixing up, but I’ll work on it,” he continued after he realized I wasn’t going to say anything. “Maybe we can fix it up together.”
I shrugged my shoulders and continued staring out the window. I didn’t care.
The rest of the drive was done in silence. Benny turned the car up a long driveway that was more dirt and weeds than gravel. Except for a bizarre weeping willow when we first turned in, the driveway wove through pine and oak trees until it ended in a clearing with a decrepit little house covered in chipped white paint. Crumbling concrete stairs led up to a sagging front porch. A rickety screen door that hung off the hinges completed the whole blissful picture. Home sweet home.
“It will get better,” Benny said.
I didn’t respond.
Turning off the ignition, I sat back in my car seat with a sigh as the memory washed over me, Sipping my coffee, I stared at the little house. I had to hand it to him, Benny brought life back to the house. Most people, myself included, would've bull dozed it.
Opening the creaking door of the Toyota, I walked up the smooth concrete stairs to the wooden porch and used my key to let myself in. The house wasn’t big and wouldn’t stand out to most people, but my brother was good on his word. He had fixed it up and maintained it well. The stairs to the second floor, and my bedroom, were right inside the entrance. With a little trepidation, I headed upstairs with my backpack that had a change of clothes and some toiletries. What if it wasn’t my room anymore? Why had that thought not occurred to me until now? And why did it matter? I wasn’t moving back in permanently.
Reaching the top of the stairs, I walked down the short hallway and into the bedroom… and back in time.
Everything was just as I had left it.
It was a small room with sloping ceilings so you could only stand up straight in the dead center. It was just big enough to fit a full-size bed, but there was a big closet. Closet may not be the right word. It was an attic like area that had never been finished. My brother had run some electricity to it, strung white Christmas lights throughout the rafters, and put up hooks and closet railings to hang my clothes on. My small desk and chair, plus some bookshelves, occupied one side and a dresser was on the other. A mirror hung on the back of the door. There was a fan for the summer when it was sweltering hot and a space heater for the winter when it was freezing cold.
Flipping the switch just inside the door, I smiled as everything was illuminated. He hadn’t changed a thing, though I hadn’t been back since college graduation, and that visit was just a pit stop on my way to Northern Virginia. I hadn’t even been back for the holidays.
Sitting my backpack down on the chair, I pulled out a change of clothes and set them on the desk. My old terry-cloth robe hung on a hook by the dresser. It was a little dusty maybe, but I could still smell the Downy fabric softener. Benny and I always washed our clothes in original Tide and April Fresh Downy. It was what mom had used. Even so, our clothes didn’t smell like they did when mom cleaned them.
After a shower, I went out to the car and started unloading everything. I’m not sure when I decided to move back in with my brother. Not that I had many options at this point. After at least fifteen trips down the stairs to my car and then back up again - the whole time telling myself that this was only temporary - my room, that was nice and neat less than an hour ago, was now crammed full of my stuff.
“When did I get so much crap?”
The crunch of a vehicle driving over the gravel driveway came through the open window mixed with the lyrics of an old Pearl Jam song. My stomach did a somersault again.
Why is Benny home now?
Benny is a mechanic in our uncle’s auto shop. He started working there in high school and continued after graduation. College never appealed to him. He’d always loved fixing things and would often help our dad around our small farm when he was younger. In his spare time, he bought old cars, trucks, and motorcycles and restored them. But he didn’t just restore. He improved and turned something that was dying a slow death from rust and decay into something beautiful.
I heard the front door open and Benny’s deep voice calling up the stairs. “Tess?”
“Yes, it’s just me,” I said as I came down to meet him.
His face lit up into a big smile when he saw me, and he grabbed me into a hug. Any nerves or apprehension I had fled, replaced by an overwhelming sense of guilt.
“I didn’t know if you would want to come back for the funeral,” he said.
I ran my hand through my long hair, scooping my few wispy bangs out of my eyes. Looking at my brother, it hit me how long I had stayed away. He looked pretty much the same, but there were subtle signs that he was getting older. At 27, his face had the start of a few lines around the eyes and mouth. No doubt, I contributed to some of those lines. But it wasn’t just his physical appearance. Benny always had a maturity that went beyond his years and that only got stronger with age. Quiet by nature, he was never Mr. Popular in high school, but he had a few close friends that stuck by both of us through a lot of dark days. We both had the same blue eyes and dark brown hair, though Benny always kept his military short just like our dad. He had a strong build from long hours doing manual labor for most of his life. Neither one of us was short nor tall. We weren’t winning any beauty contests, but we didn’t look like we’d been beaten with an ugly stick either.
“Well, I kind of moved back in. Temporarily,” I added hastily. I looked at the floor, the walls, anything but my brother, who has always seen straight through me. He was quiet and when I finally looked at him, I saw him staring at me in thought. Then he just shrugged his shoulders.
“Need any help with your stuff?” He walked past me into the small kitchen at the back of the house.
Thinking he was going to want some sort of explanation; it took me a minute to regroup and respond to his question. “No, I didn’t have much, and I’ve already put it up in my room,” I said, following him to the kitchen.
I sat down at the small kitchen table while Benny made some coffee. The kitchen cabinets were still the same white color Benny and a couple of his friends had painted them when we first moved in. Some of mom’s colorful pottery that she had made were scattered along the countertops. The kitchen was small and could use some updating, but it was clean and cozy.
“What are you doing home so early?” I asked.
“I took today off to take care of some things.”
Well, that was vague.
I watched as Benny went into one of the cabinets and pulled down two coffee mugs and then to the refrigerator for the cream. And for some reason, watching him do this normal activity of making coffee, it occurred to me that my brother has his own life. After devoting a significant portion of his twenties to taking care of me, making sure I graduated high school and then college, he could think of himself. Until now, when I came back home and moved back in without so much as a heads up to him. I mentally smacked myself on the forehead.
“Have you had breakfast yet?” Benny asked.
His question snapped me out of my train of thought. “Does gas station coffee and chocolate donuts count?”
He rolled his eyes. “Do you want me to fix you some eggs?”
And now, he’s going to start taking care of me again. Not this time. If I was staying, temporarily, I could help him. That would be the silver lining to getting canned from my job.
“No thanks, I’m not that hungry. Do you need any help with anything? You said you took today off to take care of some things.”
He was quiet for a second. “I’m working on something. It’s still in the early stages, so I haven’t been talking about it a lot yet.”
“You never talk about anything a lot,” I joked.
He smiled. “Haha,” he said dryly. “Maybe I talk, and you just never listen.”
We could bicker like this all day and often did when we were growing up. To put an end to it, I closed my mouth and waited for him to spill the beans.
“Uncle Rob is retiring. He asked me if I wanted to take over the shop,” Benny said.
My heart broke a little at the mention of Uncle Rob. I was scared to death to run into him. Because I didn’t know how he would react. If he would forgive me. I had broken his heart.
“Wow, you’ve been working there forever," I said as Benny put a cup of coffee in front of me and sat down with his own. "That’s great if it’s what you want. Is it what you want?” I asked.
Benny nodded. “Yes, but I’ve got ideas for changing it a bit. Kind of making it my own. I will need to take out a business loan and probably do a much better job of networking and marketing to get my name out there. Not exactly a strength of mine.”
He ran his hand over his head and looked a little panicked and overwhelmed by the whole thing. This was unfamiliar territory for me. My brother had been my rock for many years. He always seemed to know what to do. Before our parents died, we were close. Then, after their deaths, he became my guardian and raised me. He was only nineteen years old. His life was just getting started, and he got stuck with raising his emotionally traumatized sixteen-year-old sister who had turned her back on the world. He didn’t complain. At least, not where I could hear it. He handled everything from our parent’s funeral arrangements to making sure we had a place to live when our small farm was foreclosed on. Maybe it was time for me to step up and be there for him.