“You’ve changed me.”
Her smile is small. “Glad to have made an impression.”
I want to tell her just how much of an impression she’s made, but that would take much too long and bare my soul way too wide for someone who is about to drive away, so I only nod and say, “You definitely have.” Then I glance at the time on my watch and realize we must have been standing huddled together for longer than I thought. WIth a wince I tell her, “I better get on the road.”
“Right,” she says, stepping out of the way.
I load my suitcase into the Jeep and set my coffee in the cup holder before turning back to her. She’s backlit by the porch light, the only thing illuminating her face is the faint light from my open car door.
Still, she looks beautiful. A part of the land around her, like she grew up out of it, a piece of mountain and stone.
I reach for her once more, this time letting my hand slide up her jaw. Her skin is cold, and I can feel the hot puff of her breath on the inside of my wrist. It sends goosebumps trailing up my arm, disappearing beneath my layers of clothes. Her cheek is soft and oh, so delicate beneath my fingertips. She trembles when I press them there, and I don’t move for a moment, just reveling in the feel of it, waiting to see if either of us will move, allow ourselves to finally have what we’ve been wanting for months.
But we don’t, and the moment ends as I pull back, searching for her eyes in the darkness.
“Goodbye, Stevie Lynch.”
“Goodbye, Jack Sullivan.”
I don’t pull out of the driveway until she’s safely in her car and headed down the mountain road, her headlights illuminating the way ahead of us. At the stop sign, she rolls down her window and waves before turning left. I watch until her tail lights disappear, throat thick and chest tight, before turning right.
Away from Fontana Ridge. Away from Stevie.
It’s late Wednesday night when I finally make it to Larkspur, Montana, passing the old, rusted metal sign on the highway as I turn off on the exit. My heart is beating in my chest, fast, but I think I’m too tired to muster any more anxiety about being back. The entire two days of travel, I thought I would panic when I pulled off the highway toward home, but I don’t.
The town looks just like it always has, except for a few new updates—a restaurant here, a shop there. I pass the road that leads out toward the ranch I worked on in high school and just past it, the hospital where Mom used to work as a CNA. I expect to feel an overwhelming rush of heartbreak as I drive past it, but I mostly just feel sad that Mom isn’t here to comment on the new paint job it’s undergone sometime in the past decade. She would hate the color.
Evan lives in a house over the bridge, on the other side of town from where we grew up. The homes are more spread out here, although everything in Montana is spread out compared to Fontana Ridge. I follow the road until I get to his driveway and turn in, smiling up at it. It’s the kind of house he always wanted to live in growing up, with a wide front porch and a big yard. It’sdark, but I know that when the sun is out I’ll be able to see neatly gardened beds and well-pruned trees.
The front door opens as I step out of the car, and I see my brother coming down the porch steps toward me. The air smells like Montana, like no other place I’ve ever been, like Ponderosa pine and sagebrush, and the sky is wide above me, the stars more visible here than anywhere else.
Evan’s hands are stuffed in the pockets of his sweatpants. His hair has grown out longer than mine, and he’s got a full beard where I just have stubble, but we still look remarkably similar. Same blue eyes and deep Cupid’s bow. Matching cowlicks that give us grief. Tall, lean bodies, although his has filled out more than mine from time spent at the gym instead of running.
For a moment, I’m worried he’s going to be upset. That he will chew me out for how long I’ve been gone. But when he gets close, I see that he’s smiling a wide, toothy smile. The same one he always had on Christmas morning. His arms come around me before I can clock anything else.
“Welcome home, brother.”
Thanksgivingfeastwiththeentire extended family is loud and chaotic in the best kind of way. My cousins come in from Nashville and we all spend the day cooking at the farmhouse, listening to music and telling stories about childhood. Uncle Silas and my dad deep fry a turkey, shuffling through the first snow of the season. I hold my cousin Hazel’s new baby and let my cousin Cam’s daughter show me how she recently learned to braid hair. It’s the kind of day that makes me feel lucky to have grown up here in this town with these people.
Hazel and I stay up late talking at her parent’s house after her husband, Alex, puts their son to bed, but when her eyes start drooping, I decide to call it a night. I think about going back to my parents’ house and crawling in my childhood bed, but decide to make the drive home.
My phone rings as I let myself back into the Airstream, and my heart picks up its pace in my chest when I see Jack’s face on the screen, a photo I shot of him at the Harvest Festival, powdered sugar from my funnel cake coating his face.
I slide open the call, closing the door behind me, shutting out the cold. “Hey.”
“Happy Thanksgiving.” I can hear the smile in his voice, and it makes me ache a little, the pain of missing him that I’ve been trying to ignore all day finally catching up with me. It would have felt good to have him there today with all my family. I know he would have gotten along with Cam, and that Hazel would have made him laugh. He would have fit there, I think, the way he seamlessly slotted himself into my life.
My back hits the door, resting against it, the chill seeping through my jacket and sweater. “Happy Thanksgiving. How was the trip? How is it being home?”
I’ve thought about texting or calling, but I figured he wanted some time with his family and to adjust to being back in Montana, working through all the feelings that come with it. I know it was the right choice, but now that I’ve heard his voice, I’m greedy for it.
There’s rustling on the other end, and I wonder if he’s in bed, turning over. I look at the clock on my stove, the red letters reading 2:03, meaning it’s just after midnight there.
“The trip was good,” he says. “Long, but I don’t mind that. Things here…” he trails off for a minute, and I think I can hear my heart beating in my chest as I wait for him to continue. “They’ve been really good.”
A relieved sigh rushes out of me, and my pulse returns to its normal rate. I don’t realize I’m clutching the collar of my sweater, hand pressed to my chest. “I’m really, really glad, Jack.”
“I should have come back sooner. I thought it would be harder, being here without her, like it was way back then. And it is,” he says. “But it’s not like I thought it would be. It feels like she should be here with us, but it doesn’t feel like there’s this ghost either, I guess. Does that make sense?”
