I weigh my words carefully. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether or not I’m welcome.”
I look down. I’ve been gone too long, I know. Seven years with nothing but an occasional phone call so he knows I’m not dead or in jail. I feel like a stranger, I’ve missed so much of his and Brit’s lives.
And they know nothing about mine.
“Of course you’re welcome.” Emerson says it gruffly. He stares out at the shore. “We’re family. Nothing changes that.”
I exhale a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. I sit back, kicking my feet up on the porch railing. “It looks like things worked out for you,” I say, nodding to the beach.
Now it’s Emerson’s turn to look self-conscious. “I can’t complain. The restaurant’s doing well, and Juliet… Well, I’m a lucky son of a bitch, and I know it.” His face creases into a proud grin.
Damn, he’s got it bad.
I laugh. “Emerson Ray, pillar of the community. Who would have guessed?”
“Aww, give me a break.” Emerson kicks my feet down from the porch railing. I shove his chair, and for a moment, it’s like we’re kids again.
Then his smile fades. “Are you going to tell me where you’ve been?”
I pause. “Around. It’s not important,” I add quietly. “I’m back now.”
Emerson looks like he wants to say something, but instead, he just nods. “You’re welcome to stay with us in the city, if you want. We’re just here for a weekend visit. Juliet’s sister, Carina, is living here with her fiancé while they renovate their place above the bar.”
“Thanks, but I’m good.” I stop. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
I reach into my pocket and pull out a folded, dog-eared piece of paper. I put it on the table between us. The title deed to our old home, the property where we grew up.
Emerson picks it up and lets out a low whistle. “I’ll be damned. I thought for sure she’d have sold it on by now. Where’d you get this?”
Another pause. This time I meet his eyes. “Mom gave it to me.”Emerson’s face changes. A shadow darkens his whole expression. “You saw her?”
I nod. “About a year ago.”
Emerson exhales a hissed breath. There’s a long silence. I can see him moving the pieces around in his mind, filing them away, in the dark place we keep everything to do with our mother. I expect more questions, but instead, he looks at the paper again. “You been by there yet?”
I shake my head. “I wanted to talk to you first. You and Brit. I thought maybe…I could fix the place up, see about living there again.”
It’s a dream, but it’s the only thing that kept me going this past year. The thought of something that belongs to me, a place to call home again.
“I wouldn’t get your hopes up.” Emerson slides it back across to me. “I went by a couple of years back. It was falling apart even then, and we’ve had a couple of bad storms since.”
“That’s OK, I can do the work,” I insist, “as long as it’s alright with you guys.”
“It’s fine with me.” Emerson nods. “I can’t think Brit will have a problem. She’s busy now, with her fashion label and husband.”
“Husband…” I can’t help but smile. “Last time I saw her, she was dying pink streaks in her hair, spitting mad because you wouldn’t let her stay out past ten p.m.”
Emerson fixes me with that look again. “That was a long time ago, Ryland. A lot of things have changed.”
I feel a stab of regret for the years I’ve lost and thrown away. “I know. But I’m back now.”
He nods, like he doesn’t yet trust me not to turn around and disappear again. But that’s OK. I’ve got nothing but time now—time to rebuild the broken relationships, to get to know what’s left of my family again.
To make a home again here in Beachwood Bay.
I finish up my coffee and then head out to take a look at the house. Driving down the old back roads again, under the shade of bowed cedar branches, I feel the rattle of bitter memories and anger in my veins. I push it back. Nothing but old ghosts, I tell myself, long since buried. I’m not the boy I used to be, I haven’t been that messed-up kid for a long time.
After I left here, I bounced around the coast for a few years, working whatever jobs I could, making mistakes and trying to set them right. I thought about coming home a hundred times, but something always stopped me. Emerson was right, you see. I needed to become a man. I just knew it wasn’t going to happen there, in the same town where everyone knew my fucked-up past, where my big brother was waiting to bail me out every time I got in trouble.
I needed to stand on my own two feet, and I guess I learned, in time. I always planned to make it back, but I didn’t think it would take this long.
Further out of town, the yards grow wild, and the old houses are hidden, buried back under weeds and ivy, miles apart. I thought I would know the way by heart, but the driveway is so overgrown, I’m driving past before I realize that this is the place.
I wrench the wheel in a U-turn and pull into the drive. I turn the engine off and sit there a moment with the sound of crickets and the breeze, looking out at the place where so many bad memories were made.
Seven years, and I’m home again.