“Just want to enjoy the weather.”
“Retta. You know you never been able to lie to me.”
She swallows. Of course she hasn’t. She’s never had reason to lie to them, so she never got practice. Sighing, she rests her head on her father’s shoulder.
“How do I make things better with Mama?” she asks quietly, and Matthew lets out a soft laugh that holds no humor.
“Honey, this is somethin’ that’s gonna take time. You… You really hurt us when you refuse to come home again.”
“I just couldn’t be around Calum.”
“We understand that, but—”
“Then why is she so mad?” Rett blurts out. “If she understands, she shouldn’t be so angry with me.”
“Loretta Jean. Listen to me. You’re our only baby. You coming home was the one thing your mama looked forward to every year. We accepted that you’d stay in Ohio for Thanksgivings, that we wouldn’t see you for your birthdays. But Christmas was the one time of the year that your mama was certain you’d be able to put your issues with Calum aside and come back. Christmas was all she ever asked for of you.”
“I never…”
“We know, sweetie.”
Silence descends upon the pair, and she closes her eyes against the sting of tears. Matthew has a point. Rett knows she hurts her parents when she stays in Columbus, she’s known it all the while, but she knows that being around Calum would have been a disaster. Her visits would be ruined for everybody. She would either hate him for the mistake, or she would love him still. She doesn’t know which is worse.
Matthew heads inside after another few minutes and a long grumble as he stands, but Rett remains on the porch. His cologne lingers in the air, the same woodsy scent she’s known since childhood. She breathes in once more and squeezes her eyes shut when a hot tear slips down her cheek.
No wonder her parents are upset with her. As much as she’s missed them, they’ve missed her more. Their first and only child, the daughter they raised and love so fiercely. Eliza was right: Rett did what she thought was good for her. She was protecting herself from her past. Her parents got caught in the crossfire, and they’re the ones who suffer most.
The moon is high in the sky by the time Rett drags herself to bed. She stares blankly at the ceiling overhead with her hands tucked behind her head. Her eyes burn from exhaustion and the crying she’s done. She’d listened to her parents watching TV before they went to their room. She desperately wished they would talk—that she could overhear anything they might have said about her—but they’d said nothing. Not even a ‘goodnight’ to her.
She falls asleep as the sun is beginning to peek over the horizon.
Rett wakes to her mother and father singing quietly in the other room. A rich baritone, a soft alto, blending to form a harmony no musician could compete with. Or maybe it is the sentimentality that makes her love their voices so. She lies in bed and listens to their song. Bacon sizzles in a frying pan, and footsteps on the creaking floor tell her that Matthew is moving around. She inhales the aroma of coffee and rubs a hand over her eyes.
Shoving her glasses onto her face, she sits up and yawns widely. The only clean outfit that remains in her suitcase is a pair of denim shorts and a lace-edged top. She hurriedly changes and drops the dirty laundry on the floor by the door. She’ll have to wash the pile tonight.
“You never could resist coffee,” her father comments with a smile as she shuffles into the kitchen.
“I could not, and how dare anyone make me try.”
He laughs and kisses the top of her head as he passes. Rett grabs the plate on the counter and holds it out for Eliza to flip bacon strips onto. It’s an old routine. Rett’s always hated frying up bacon—she’s never once done it without burning herself. And she only helps her mother in order to eat it as the plate fills.
The women finish cooking breakfast, and Matthew sets the table. Rett exhales sharply as she glances at her parents.
It’s a home she forgot existed, one she had left buried in her past.
The trees ring with birdsong, the familiar rush of water off to her right. Roots try to trip her up, like they always did before, but muscle memory carries her over the uneven ground. Too many days, too many nights, were spent walking this same path, and Rett knows it like the back of her hand, even after years of being away. Sunlight pours through the canopies overhead to dapple on the ground.
She comes to a stop at the edge of the river and stares at the surface. The water swirls and gushes with the currents, manipulates itself around the rocks in the middle. Shimmering outlines lurk just beneath the surface as fish make their way through the water.
She remembers sitting on this very shore with a line in the water and Calum at her side.
The tree is the same—the same fork in the branches and the same leafy overhead. The same four letters carved into the trunk. CW+RC. Such a childish notion, forever love, especially as a teenager. She should have known then that it would never last. They were too young to make such a monumental decision, but a choice they’d made.
Rett runs her index finger over the initials carved into the tree and closes her eyes at the rough bark beneath her touch. Her breath shudders out of her, and she forces herself to continue on. She sat by the tree yesterday, but she hadn’t explored. Hadn’t reminded herself of what she and Calum had done—not that she would ever forget it.
How can she?
Her feet carry her through the woods, though her mind remains firmly on the riverbank. In the tree that stretches toward the sky and the thick, sturdy branch that hangs over the water. Calum and she had sat on that branch so often asteenagers. She shivers as she feels the ghost of his arms around her and smells the remnants of cigarette smoke and subtle, earthy vanilla. Too many memories linger in these woods.
