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My mother had always been a soft sort of pretty with her light blonde hair and delicate face. We looked a lot alike, bone structure-wise, though I'd gotten a softer jaw and higher cheekbones. I'd inherited the blonde hair from both my parents, my dad's blue eyes, and my mom's love of all things wild.
"Hey, honey," she called, looking up, beaming at me. "I lost track of time, huh?" she asked, as if that wasn't her natural state of being—lost in her own sense of time.
"I just got here."
"I wanted to get some fresh chamomile. I figured you might be a little stressed out about all the changes lately."
"I'm actually pretty peaceful about it. I don't think I realized how much I missed it here until I realized it was possible to come back."
"We would have always been happy to have you back," she assured me, climbing out of the garden. "But we're happy to have you now. Your father spent the whole morning scrubbing your old room and going out to get Nugget a new bed and toys. It was sweet. He's probably already unpacking your car. How are you feeling?" she asked, linking her arm through mine, guiding us around a kiddie pool where a mama duck and her four babies were swimming. "With everything," she clarified.
"I am disappointed in myself," I admitted. "I wanted that job so badly. I guess I just wasn't prepared for that one part. I should have been, of course. It was just hard. With a puppy, you know?"
"I haven't needed to put a puppy down, obviously. But I've lost puppies. No matter how much I tried, no matter how much the vet tried with me. And nothing is quite as bad as a new life being lost. I'm not saying you will ever be okay with it, but you might develop a better process of handling it, that doesn't involve crying on the break room floor. If, of course, that is the path you keep choosing."
Of course I had to keep choosing it. I had spent so many years of my life working toward it. And, not to mention, spending my parents' money while I did it.
No, I had to be a vet.
I just needed some time to prepare myself for the inevitable bad days.
"I think my old boss was right. I just needed a break between college and my career. I didn't even realize how drained I felt until she'd brought my attention to it."
"Well, you have all the time you need now," she told me, pulling me into the kitchen, putting the kettle on in a way that was so familiar—I'd spent a lifetime watching her do it for me—but also foreign, since it had been so long since I had been home. It had been ages since anyone other than myself had put the kettle on for me, pulled out a special mug, made me a cup of tea just the way I liked it. Sometimes it was the little things you missed most without even truly realizing it. "Your father and I are happy to have you here as long as you want to be. It is nice to have you all to ourselves again."
"All to yourselves? You didn't tell everyone?" I asked.
Navesink Bank, while not a small town per se, sure acted as one. At least in our little community inside of it. No one kept any secrets. Least of all one like this. News of someone's return from college spread like wildfire. You would barely be able to be home for an hour before the doorbell started ringing with your loved ones coming to welcome you back home.
"We decided to wait," she told me, turning to face me, leaning back against the counter. "In case you weren't in the right place for visitors. Of course, Niro probably told everyone already, though."
"You told Niro?" I asked, stomach tightening.
"You didn't?" she shot back, brows knitting. "Really? Your best friend doesn't know?"
I'd kind of kept our flagging friendship to myself, not wanting everyone else to get involved, to butt their noses in. It would only make things feel more awkward.
I never kept secrets from my family, not really, but I guess I did sometimes keep from telling them the whole truth.
"We, ah, we haven't really been close for a while now, Mom," I told her, trying to ignore the twisting feeling in my chest.
"What? For how long? You two were attached at the hip as babies. And ever since then."
"I guess adulthood kind of, you know, sent us in different directions. And after he became a patched member of the MC, I guess his life got busy. And my life was busy with school and work and trying to have some sort of social life. It just kind of... fell apart, I guess."
