Homecoming

I found out that my mother died in the middle of my grocery run. Surrounded by canned fruit and juices and little packets of drink mix, the soothing voice of the nurse on the other side of the phone did nothing to ease the feeling of the floor being ripped out from underneath me. One of the employees found me a few minutes later, crumpled on the floor against the shelves and two breaths away from dipping into a panic attack.

It’s funny how the most world-shattering moments can occur at the most ordinary of times. I had known it was coming—why did it still hurt so much?

The employee who had been unfortunate enough to stumble upon my little scene was thankfully completely understanding, though it took a few minutes for me to stumble through the words with my still-shaking voice. She offered to call somebody for me to drive me home, which I figured stemmed from the fact that my hands were still trembling and I could barely let out a word. I said no, furiously wiping my eyes with the backs of my hands like I was a seven-year-old. Before she could protest, I turned and stumbled out of the store the same way I’d come in, forsaking the reason I had even gone there in the first place.

What did paper towels and chicken noodle soup matter to me then?

By some miracle, I was able to get outside without making another scene. My car was still in the shop due to a bad read-end the other week, so I was stuck walking home. It didn’t matter, though—the store was a few minutes away from my house, and it wasn’t as if I had any groceries to carry.

I don’t know how I made it home. Everything from that night is still blurred together in my brain. Somehow, I remember stepping through my familiar doorway around when the sun was fully below the horizon, but I was so debilitated that I could barely make my legs walk through the door. The achingly empty expanse of the beige living room walls rose up to greet me—a reminder of the similarly empty house beyond.

Half-stumbling, I collapsed onto the couch. My view of the ceiling above me was swimming, but I wasn’t sure if it was from exhaustion or tears. I grabbed the ring on its chain around my neck, desperate for its familiar grounding feel against my fingers as a sob rose in my throat.

The quiet was short-lived, however—the next moment, my brain reminded me of the fact that I had no car and thus no way to get to my mother’s funeral.

The following few seconds were a flurry of movement. I was up and on my feet, looking for where I had thrown my purse and then for where my phone was hiding inside it. My aunt would be the one who would arrange the service, given that she was the only one who still lived with my mother. If she had already decided on a date before my car was finished—

Finally, the phone was obtained. Turning it on, I could see the first notice was two missed calls from “Aunt Monnie”, timed from around when I had had my breakdown. Fumbling with my shaking fingers for a moment, I called her back, lifting the phone up to my ear. When my aunt’s warm voice hit my ears, I almost broke into sobs yet again.

“Oh Diana dearest, are you alright? I’ve tried to call you a few times now but you didn’t pick up.”

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “Yeah,” I replied, but my voice was so much more fragile than I expected. “Yeah, Monnie—I’m fine.”

“Did you get the news?” Monnie’s voice sounded frail now, too—as if she was also trying to not shatter all at once.

I bit my lip, attempting to stop it from trembling. “Yeah, I did,” I whispered. Two tears rolled down my cheeks, one on each side. “Monnie, I—”

“Shh—it’s okay, dearest. I know.” The sound of muted crying rang out from the other end of the line. “I know.”

Taking a deep breath, I asked: “Have you already planned out the funeral?”

“Yes—I had to do it soon because the relatives from out of the country are in town. Two days from now, Diana—I’ll host you if you need a place to stay after the service, of course, but—”

I stifled a cry. “I can’t,” I whispered. Monnie stopped mid-sentence. “I can’t, Monnie—my car got wrecked last week and it’s still in the shop and I—I don’t have money for a plane or bus ticket and I…I can’t—”

A sob rose up in my throat. I broke off, voice teetering into dangerously fragile waters.

“Oh,” Monnie said. “Oh dearest, don’t worry. Warren said he’s going to be driving in—if he’s as close as he told me, he should be able to pick you up tomorrow.”

I froze, unsure if I had heard her right.

“So now Mr. 'Singer Extraordinaire' decides to come home.” I tried to layer some anger into my voice to disguise how much emotion really lingered behind it. “I don’t want to talk to him, Monnie. Not now.” A telltale tremble echoed in my words.

“Diana, I understand, but this is your mother’s funeral we’re talking about. Can you not find common ground in that?”

“I’ll ride with him if he’s offering, but nothing else, Monnie.” My lip was trembling again. “I don’t want to relive the past ten years all over again.”

“Okay, I’ll let him know. But please, Diana—I know it still hurts, but he made an effort to come. Does that not mean anything to you?”

I was silent for a moment. What could I even say to that? “Good night, Monnie,” I finally replied before hanging up.

The tears came back after that.

***

Warren Queen himself pulled up in my driveway a day later. When his Porsche rolled into my little suburban neighborhood, the scene looked so out of place that I wanted to laugh.

Numbly, I grabbed the handle of my suitcase and stepped out the door, making sure to lock it behind me.

When I caught sight of my brother as he stepped out from the driver’s side, a thousand different feelings flew through me. Eight years really did change a person—except for those same metal glasses, everything else about him was different from the twenty-two-year-old I remembered. He was taller, lankier, and had significantly more lines on his forehead. At some point, he had also dyed his coffee-brown curls black, which completely threw off my mental picture of him.

“Hi,” Warren said blankly.

“Hi,” I responded. Without so much as a smile, I rounded the side of his car and deposited my luggage in his trunk before slipping inside the passenger’s seat. He did the same on his side without a word.

We sat there in silence for a few moments. I got the feeling Warren wanted to say something, but I didn’t have the energy to deal with his half-hearted conversation. After a bit, Warren seemed to decide against it anyway—he hit the ignition and we were on our way.

For the first few hours, it was complete silence. I had no intention of speaking to Warren unless I had to, and he seemed content to comply with my unsaid declaration. The book in my lap provided plenty of distraction.

What was there to talk about, anyway?

That only lasted for so long, however. Two hours in, Warren apparently had had enough of the silence—he suddenly cleared his throat before testing the waters with a “Can we please talk?”

And that simple sentence broke the dam I had aimed to keep standing until the funeral was over.

“Oh now you want to talk,” I bit back. It started to rain outside—the sound began to override our conversation. “You didn’t want to talk for the last eight years, but now Mom dies and suddenly you’re a chatterbox again?”

“That’s not—“

“You just left, Warren,” I said, slamming my book shut. I pointedly didn’t look at him, since I knew that I wouldn’t be able to keep my calm if I did. “You left Mom and you left me and you left everything to go travel across the world and ‘start a band’ to ‘find yourself’.”

“Di, I—”

“No,” I cut in. “No, you don’t get to ‘Di’ me. When Mom got her diagnosis, Monnie and I were there. When mom started chemo, Monnie and I were there with her at every session. And when Elliot was stationed at a new base and we had to move, Monnie was there with Mom when I couldn’t be. And where were you, Warren? Off galavanting and writing songs with your new friends?”

Warren bit his lip. “Di, please just listen—”

“You didn’t even come to his funeral!”

Warren shut up at that. Through the lump in my throat that always came back when I talked about Elliot, I almost laughed at how quickly he stopped talking. 

If I would have bothered to look at him, I would have seen that it was because he was crying.

But I didn’t. All I was thinking about was how heavy the ring around my neck felt.

I turned back to the road, noticing that Warren was pulling into the parking lot of a rest area. The rain was getting worse—I figured that was the reason he wanted to stop. Not because of me.  

It didn't matter. I couldn't be in the car with him anymore.

“Stop the car,” I said as firmly as I could, wiping away a tear before Warren could see it.

“Di—”

“Stop the car!” I hadn’t meant to yell, but the words tumbled out of my throat with a kind of anger that wasn’t premeditated. It had come from somewhere deep in my chest, buried away just like the rest of my feelings toward Warren had been.

Warren hit the brakes. As soon as the car was out of motion, I threw the passenger’s side door open and stumbled outside. I could hear Warren utter the beginning of another sentence behind me, but it was quickly cut off by me slamming the door shut.

***

The rain was torrential. Biting cold water hit me on every inch of my body, easily seeping through my clothes and infecting me with a chill that I knew would remain in my bones for a long while. I broke into a run, speeding across the rest of the road and into the parking lot of the rest area.

I knew Warren wouldn’t follow me. Leaving me alone had always been his specialty, hadn’t it?

When I finally laid a hand on the door and swung it open, the cheery music emanating from the rundown rest stop seemed to taunt me. Wiping my eyes clean of a combination I knew was both rain and tears, I walked in, trying my very best to take in deep breath after deep breath.

The place looked like most other rest stops I’d seen throughout my days on the road—a combination fast food restaurant and general store. It was utterly decrepit, and it was the perfect place for me to clear my mind in peace.

Fiddling with the ring around my neck, I stepped into the closest aisle and started vaguely inspecting the little trinkets to try and calm down.

“Are you okay, Miss?”

I looked up from the shelf to see an employee—a lanky teen who couldn’t have been older than eighteen—standing at the start of the aisle. He was eyeing me with concern so visible it hurt.

Hastily, I swiped at my eyes again—as if that would improve my appearance. “Yeah,” I replied, but my voice felt thin and strained. “I—where’s the bathroom?”

The teen pointed farther down the aisle we were already in. “All the way down to the wall and then to the right.” He gave me another concerned look. “Are you sure you’re okay, Miss?”

No. “I’m fine, thank you,” I said quietly, smiling slightly in thanks before turning and stumbling down the aisles and into the dingy women’s restroom. I was the farthest thing from okay as I dried myself off with rough paper towels and only succeeded in further smearing my mascara across my face. I was the farthest thing from okay as I stared at myself in the mirror.  

“Be strong,” I whispered to myself. “Be strong for Mom.”

And with that, I turned and walked back out of the bathroom.  

On my way out, however, something on a nearby shelf caught my eye: a small stuffed animal cat, perching unsuspectingly behind a group of medicine bottles. Hand shaking, I reached up and grabbed it. It was nearly identical to the one Mother had given me as a child, right down to the brown coat and black spot over the left eye.

My vision blurred, tears spilling over and dropping onto the cat with soundless plinks.  

“Thank you for forgiving Warren for spilling juice on this little guy.” I could hear the words my mom had said as she held the newly-cleaned cat next to my sullen ten-year-old form. “You two need to be there for each other, Di—even after things like this. Can you promise me that?”

Something cracked inside me then.  

Can you promise me that?

“Oh Mom, what have I done?” I whispered. I whipped around to stare out the far-off window near the entrance and saw Warren’s car now parked in the lot, its owner running toward the building. The rain had since stopped, and the sun seemed to be returning.

Placing the cat back on its shelf and swiping at my eyes again, I ran through the aisle and out into the lot, letting the door slam behind me.

When Warren caught sight of me running towards him, his face melted into what looked like pure relief. As I approached, however, I saw his expression more clearly.

He was crying.

I slowed to a stop.  

“Listen,” Warren said firmly. “And actually listen, please, because I’ve been trying to tell you this ever since you got in my car.” He let out a deep breath, and then: “I quit the band.”

Four words—four words I had been aching to hear for the past eight years, and yet they now hurt more than I ever could have expected. “You…but—but that was your dream—”

Warren shrugged, swiping an arm across his eyes. “I quit as soon as Monnie called me. I—” He broke off, tears rising in his eyes again. “I will never be able to make up for not being here for you when Elliot died. No excuses of performances or being out of the country will ever fix it. I chased my passion, but I missed out on eight years of family in the process. And now—and now Mom—”

Warren broke at that, but I was there to throw my arms around his neck and hold him like an older sister should do. It hit me that this was the first time I had hugged my brother in more than eight years, and that made the first of the sobs I had tried so hard to keep back break loose.

“Mom would be so mad at us,” I whispered, burying my face into Warren’s shoulder. “She would never have wanted this.”

Warren sniffed and pulled away from me. He chuckled slightly as he drew his arm over his eyes again. “It’s like that time I spilled juice on your cat all over again,” he said, and I smiled sadly at the resurgence of that memory.

It was silent for a few moments after that. Both of us seemed to need a second to process everything that had just happened. And then, Warren spoke.

“Di, can we start over?”

His words hung in the air between us for a moment. He looked scared—scared that I would refuse. 

Eight years apart—could I put that behind me? Could I put that behind me for Mom?

I smiled, I cried, and I pulled my little brother into another crushing hug.

“All you had to do was ask.”

***

The funeral itself was as painful as Elliot’s had been. Seeing Mom again, face so pallid compared to what I remembered, was the hardest part. That, and the realization that I was again left standing over the casket of someone I loved.

I didn’t know what I would have done if Warren hadn’t been there. He had an arm around my shoulders as we both looked at the body of our dear mother, which proved to be the only reason I didn’t collapse at the casket. Even after that, he barely left my side during and after the service, always no more than a foot away at all times. I felt as if he was trying his very best to make up for lost time, which made me sad, considering I was trying to do the same.

Monnie gave both of us the warmest hugs once she saw us. I had the suspicion that the smile on her face and the tears on her cheeks were as much for seeing us together again as they were for Mom.

Once we arrived at the cemetery itself, it started to rain. In the midst of the gentle storm, I remembered that I had once heard that rain during a burial symbolized God’s tears of both sorrow and joy—sorrow in sharing in the grief of the bereaved, and joy at welcoming the deceased home.

Standing there beside the then-filled grave, hand clutching Warren’s, the thought brought a smile to my face even amidst the tears that were blending with the rain. Mom was finally home, and in a way, Warren and I were too.