Page 11 of Coming Home

He extended his hand. Wide palm. Calloused fingers. Perfectly steady.

Our eyes held.

Quietly, I reached out and took it. He guided me down the porch steps to the passenger side, opened the door, and stood in the downpour while I climbed in.

He climbed into the driver's seat, water dripping from his hair onto the center console between us. The interior smelled like leather and clean laundry and a faint, familiar warmth from a hundred car rides after swim meets, from late nights in Theo's driveway with the engine running and the radio low. The familiarity of it hit me so hard I had to turn toward the window and press my forehead against the cold glass to keep from breaking apart.

"What happened, Em?"

I kept my eyes fixed on the blurred streetlights outside. "I'm done with James. I came to get the rest of my things. He won't open the door."

His side of the car went still.

"Your things are still inside?"

I nodded once, a tear finally escaping and cutting a warm track through the cold rainwater on my cheek.

He popped his door open and stepped back into the storm.

"Ralph, wait." I leaned across the console, my voice climbing. "You don't have to do this. Please."

He turned back, the rain pooling in the collar of his hoodie, and gave me a look that shut down every objection in my throat.

"Don't move," he said. "I'll be right back."

I sank back into the seat and watched through the windshield as he walked up the path to the blue door. He didn't ring the bell. He knocked once. I heard it from inside the car.

Then I heard his voice through the roar of the rain.

The door opened. A wedge of warm, yellow light spilled across the wet porch, illuminating James's silhouette. The rain was hammering too hard for me to catch a word. I leaned toward the glass, trying to read the shapes their mouths made, but the water sheeting down the windshield blurred them into smears of shadow. James tried to close the door. Ralph's hand caught it. He stepped over the threshold, his broad shoulders cutting off the light, and vanished inside.

The minutes stretched. Long enough for my brain to construct a dozen horrific scenarios. Shouting. A physical fight. Neighbors calling the police. I was reaching for the door handle when the front door finally opened.

Ralph walked out carrying my battered suitcase in his left hand and my purse in his right. Tucked under his arm was an oversized navy swim hoodie I hadn't seen in years.

My hoodie.

The one James had told me made me look like a hippo. He'd said it laughing, his arm wrapped tightly around my waist, squeezing me close so it felt like we were sharing a private joke. "Babe, I'm just kidding. But maybe something a little more fitted? You have such a pretty face, why would you hide it?"

He'd had a genius for wrapping venom inside laughter, delivering each barb with a grin so that recoiling made me look crazy. Oversensitive. Dramatic. Piece by piece, he had picked apart every garment that allowed me to take up physical space, until my closet was full of things designed to make me disappear.

Ralph opened the rear door and set the suitcase and purse on the back seat. Then he leaned into the cabin and placed the hoodie gently across my lap.

I ran my thumb across the faded logo on the front. USA Swimming. The fabric was pilled from a hundred washes and it smelled like James's apartment, like stale air and a cologne I never wanted to smell again. But underneath that, if I pressed my nose into the collar, I could still find the ghost of chlorine and sunscreen. The ghost of the girl who wore it first.

Ralph climbed into the driver's seat and pulled the door shut, sealing out the roar of the storm.

"What did you say to him?" I whispered.

He turned his head to look at me. Rain on his face. Blue eyes clear.

"I told him I was taking you home."

CHAPTER 5

Ralph

She didn't say a word for the first eleven minutes of the drive.