Liesel Schmidt - Coming Home To You

Oh, make that two things, I thought as I opened the freezer door to find a bottle of vodka.

Was there a drink you can make with ketchup and vodka?

I almost laughed out loud at the thought.

Maybe some sort of Bloody Mary-type concoction, if he had some Tabasco sauce in one of the cabinets.

Kate, in her encyclopedic knowledge of all things mixed, would know. I would have to have her come over later to help me get settled. Or at least to help diffuse some of the strangeness. Maybe she could stay with me for this first night here, I thought.

My cell phone began to ring, and I pulled it quickly from my back pocket, hoping it was her.

“Are you there yet?”

She hadn’t even waited for me to say hello before launching into her excited inquiry. I rolled my eyes, smiling at her complete lack of ceremony.

“Yup, I’m here. I haven’t gotten anything into the house yet, I’m sort of just doing a walk-through to get a little more acquainted with the place.” I trailed off as I moved my focus to the cabinets over the counters, opening them one by one. So far nothing strange.

“That bad, huh?” I could picture Kate on the other end of the phone, her nose wrinkled in distaste. She was probably already thinking the place must be vile.

“No, no, not at all. It’s,” I paused as I searched for an appropriate word, “cozy? Kind of small, a little dated, and you can definitely tell a guy lives here.” My eyes fell on a very ample supply of beans and canned tuna. “But it’s still nice. It’s going to need a cleaning job, but nothing major.”

There was a silence on the other end, and I knew she must be trying to decode my words. I raised an eyebrow.

“Really. You can come over later and see for yourself, Kate.”

“Oh, I’m definitely coming over later. Ray’s coming with me, if that’s okay. I think he wants to make sure you feel settled, and he promised Neil he’d check in on things periodically, anyway. We’ll bring dinner, okay?”

Great. I would have a little time to get my stuff in and at least a few things cleaned to my satisfaction.

“Sounds fine to me,” I replied, opening another cabinet to find stacked boxes of Gu energy gel. Mocha, berry, and chocolate flavored.

Mmmm.

“Could you do me a favor and bring something to drink when you come?” I asked. “Otherwise, the options will be limited to water, vodka, and Gu. Or maybe a combo of all three?”

She laughed. “Done. However interesting that might taste, I don’t think any of us would really want to try that one. I’m thinking more along the lines of wine, beer, and maybe some soda.”

I knit my eyebrows together. “How long are you planning on staying, a month?”

“No. But I’ll stay as long as you need me to,” she replied.

It was one thing I so loved about our relationship; I hadn’t even had to ask, and she knew.

Chapter 7

I was hot. I was sticky. And I was nearly suicidal by the time I unlocked the front door to the house. Florida summers, even early on in the season, are not the time to be without air conditioning. Especially not in the car. Sure, you’ve got the air coming in from any open windows, but there’s only so much that can do. The heat of the pavement reflected back up into the already boiling air, when combined with the small convection oven created by the interior of a car, pretty much negates the entire theory of “fresh air.”

The air-conditioned interior of the house felt so good I almost cried. I really, really needed to get the car fixed. Before I turned into an overheated, hysterical mess.

I threw my purse onto the chair in the living room, kicked off my sandals, and squished down the hall toward the bathroom. I was desperate to wash my face and get some of the grime off, just so I could feel human again. My shirt was stuck to my back and my jeans felt heavy enough to slide right off my hips.

“Hi, honey, I’m home,” I called out into the empty house. It had become almost ritual. Some people kissed the door frame when they walked through the door, I called out greetings to the imaginary man who lived in the house with me. Not that I really thought he was there, mind you. But the overall presence of guy was undeniable, even though said guy wasn’t physically there.

Somehow, it made the whole idea of living in someone else’s house a little less strange. I imagined all sorts of scenarios: maybe he was just up at the corner store, or at work, or off doing manly man things with his buddies…wherever he was, and I allowed myself to imagine that he was going to be back soon. And that we were, in fact, quite close, instead of complete strangers. I wasn’t even sure what he looked like, because even after two months of living in his house, I still had yet to run across a photo of Major Neil Epstein.

I pictured someone tall, handsome, rugged. And athletic, judging by all the running medals looped over the corner of the mirror on his bedroom dresser. He was sensitive, caring, educated without ever being aloof, but still a total man’s man.

He was The Perfect Guy.

At least, in my head he was.

I had plenty of time to imagine what Neil was like as I lay in his bed at night, as I sat at his dinner table eating my cereal every morning, as I brushed my teeth in his bathroom.

It was how I dealt.

That, and I’d begun to write him letters that I never sent. Not that I could have sent them, even if I wanted to. I had no address for him, not even an e-mail address.

Every night, before I went to sleep, I wrote him a letter in a notebook that I kept by the bed. Call it journaling, Anne Frank style. Her journal was written to an imaginary person she called Kitty, mine was written to a real person named Neil.

It helped me feel more connected to another person, to this man whose home I was living in.

I wrote to Neil about my day, about what I was feeling, about anything going on with the house.

I thought of it as a kind of therapy, because while I was telling Neil about myself, I was also learning things about myself. Things that I hadn’t ever really taken time to think about. Things that I was sometimes surprised to realize. Most importantly, though, I had stopped focusing so much energy on all the things Paul and I would never have the chance to do.

I was becoming my own person again, and I was moving past that place where I’d been the sad woman whose fiancé was dead.

I was more than that.

And I was determined to be more than that.

I’d even started running every morning again.

How could I not, with all those medals mocking me whenever I looked in the bedroom mirror? Fortunately for me, Neil’s house was in an area that was conducive to running.

I planned on hitting one of the local races soon, but I wanted to get a little faster before I ventured that far. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself or besmirch my good name in the running community. Not that I was sure they would even remember me, so long had it been since I’d actually been to a race.

A harsh, unflattering glow flooded the bathroom when I flicked the light switch, granting me the most ungracious welcome as I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I turned away quickly, deciding that merely washing the sweat off my face wouldn’t cut it.

I peeled off my clothes, throwing them into a damp heap in the corner. That was something else that had taken some getting used to—using someone else’s shower. Hotel showers are strange enough, simply because they aren’t yours. Someone else’s shower is strange because not only is it not yours, it’s someone else’s. It’s a very odd thing to pull back the curtain and see a half-empty bottle of men’s body wash and various shampoos that have been left behind.