Welcome Home

Kessa Barns hadn't seen her family in person for nearly ten years. Other than the yearly holiday FaceTimes at Thanksgiving and Christmas, she kept as little contact as was polite. The choice was her own. She'd simply decided, save for her brother there wasn't a single one of her siblings, or parents for that matter, she desired to remain close with. They'd all made it perfectly clear to her, on that last Thanksgiving holiday she'd spent with them, that they could've lived their entire lives better had she never been born. 

Kessa had known, at the time, her mother had meant the knowledge to hurt and manipulate her, but still she'd fallen straight into the trap. She always known she'd been a later-in-life baby. Her father had dubbed her the miracle child because by the time her mother, Sindy Barns, had become pregnant with her, they'd believed they couldn't have anymore children. She'd become the youngest of the four Barns children, two older girls, Rowan and Mollie, and one older boy, Jules. Her brother was nearly ten years older than she and the only one she could remember growing up in the house with her. He'd been her best friend, her closest confidante, her biggest hero. She knew all those reasons and more were why Jules was on the other end of her phone begging her to come to the Barns' family reunion they'd planned for Thanksgiving this year.

"Kessa," Jules asked, his tone laced with an edge of impatience. "You there?"

"Yea, sorry," Kessa said, distantly. "I'm here."

"Well," Jules prodded, struggling to keep his temper calm. Kessa snapped out of her daze of memories and realized she hadn't heard a single word he'd been saying for the last few minutes.

"I'm sorry, Jules. What did you say?"

Kessa could hear Jules sigh irritably on his end and realized for the first time since she picked up his call that he sounded strange. It was unlike Jules to be so impatient or irritated or anything negative at all. He'd always been the laid back, glass-half-full kind of guy. Kessa had always assumed it'd been because he'd had to deal with so much estrogen and hormones growing up. Now he sounded more tense than she'd ever heard him and it turned her stomach into knots.

"Jules, I'm sorry, I'm listening. What is it?"

"It's mom she's sick and you need to come home," Jules said flatly, but hurried as though if he didn't get it out fast, he wouldn't be able to say it again. Kessa's breath caught in her throat and the knots in her stomach turned harder. Memories she'd managed to lock away, deep in her psyche, sprung free and rushed through her mind. Night upon night of crying herself to sleep when she realized mommy wasn't coming to say good night. Days upon days of walking on eggshell because she never knew which mommy she would be facing that day. 

"Oh, Jules, I don't know," Kessa admitted softly.

"What don't you know, Kessa? Mom's dying. Do I need to say it any clearer? You need to come home, dammit." Jules had finally lost the battle with his temper, he'd all but screamed into the phone so that Kessa had to hold it away from her ear. Yet, still, she remained calm. The days in which her family, or anyone else for that matter, could pull her out of her character were long gone. Not ever again.

Kessa had spent her childhood in constant competition for the affection and approval of her mother. She'd discovered very early on that to earn the love of Sindy Barns was an absolute impossibility. Sindy was a deeply unsatisfied woman and Kessa knew her mother instigated the resentment she'd felt from each of her siblings; she'd been a forced responsibility on them since she'd been in diapers. Her older sisters especially, had grown to hate their obligations to their baby sister because neither was able to go away to school or experience a pilgrimage of self-discovery. It had taken Kessa years of working with her therapist to realize it was not her fault. She'd been blamed for her mother's decisions because her siblings couldn't take their anger out on the source. In a way, her therapist had surmised, all the Barns children had become their mother's collateral damage.

"I understand the stress you're under," Kessa started carefully. "But I don't think mom even wants to see me. She made that pretty clear the last Thanksgiving we were altogether."

"That was almost ten years ago, Kessa," Jules said, having regained control of his temper. "Look, I know what you've built yourself a life now, I know you're happy-"

"Then you sure know why I don't want to come," Kessa interrupted sharply. "I haven't asked for anything since the day I ran away. I don't owe that woman a damn thing."

"It's not about owing, Kessa. She's our mother. Despite everything, she's the one who lived. The very least we owe her is to make sure she doesn't die alone, feeling unloved."

Kessa sighed heavily, and cursed with feeling. "I hate it when you're right," she said.

"Really? I kinda love it," Jules said, and Kessa could hear the smile in his voice. It made her smile in spite of herself. Somehow, Jules had always managed to make her smile no matter what was happening around her. Only he could be the one to convince her to finally come home.

"Will you come?" The question in Jules' voice made him sound younger and lost. He'd ask her to return with him to the lion's den, she couldn't very well let her hero fight this battle alone.

"Yes," Kessa said finally. "I'll be there."

A week and a plane ride later, Kessa sat in front of the dainty bathroom vanity of a single-room at the Holiday Inn, only five miles down the road from her childhood home. It was Thanksgiving Day and she had already been living with regret at agreeing to dinner since her plane had landed. She fluffed her artful curls and wiped at her already-perfect lipstick for the third time. Dinner was in less than twenty minutes and Jules would be along to pick her up any minute. She knew she couldn't procrastinate for much longer. Kessa debated strongly on whether to call Jules and back out of the whole affair; the idea of being immersed in all the family's negative bullshit sounded utterly intolerable. To go or not to go? That is the question. 

 Kessa felt all of her triggers lighting up like an overactive switchboard. She felt small and belittled and angry. She felt that helpless, scared, lonely little girl still hiding deep within, begging her not to go. 'We owe them nothing," the girl said with a quiet resonance through her mind. 'Don't go, don't rip open these wounds. Don't face this long buried pain. Please, please, don't go.' 

Kessa shook her head so hard, her curl bounds adorably around her face. She stood resolutely, and realized she found the idea of backing out like a coward was more intolerable than facing the past. She was nothing if not a woman of her word. She'd promised Jules she'd be there and she would be there. 

As if the thought had conjured him, Jules' name popped up on the screen of her cellphone and moment before his customized ring tone of 'Heathens' by Twenty-One Pilot, began to sound. She picked up on the third ring. Jules didn't wait for her to finish her greeting before he said, "I'm outside."

"Hello to you too, big brother."

"We don't have time, Kessa. We're already running late."

"Fine, fine, I'm on the way dow-" Kessa was interrupted by the blankness of an empty line. Jules had hung up. 

In less than ten minutes, Jules and Kessa were pulling up in front of the house they'd called home for nearly eighteen years each. The knots in Kessa stomach, since she'd first received Jules phone call, had twisted up so tight she felt nauseous with the pain. She'd endured so much poison inside those quaint, decorative walls and here she was, willingly subjecting herself to more potential trauma. Flashes of memories projected through her mind, crying herself to sleep after being screamed at by her mother, begging for her sisters to play with her, or pay any attention to her at all. She remember the morning her father had died and watching her mother soak up the attention the family's grief brought in and thriving on it. She remembered objects flying at her head, whatever her mother could get her hands on in one of her rageful tantrums. She could almost feel the bruises she'd collected over the years she'd spend as her mother's punching bag. 

"You're gonna have to get out at some point, kiddo," Jules said. He'd already gotta out of the car and was leaning his tall lanky frame down enough to see her. 

"Don't call me that," Kessa retorted automatically and tried to bury her annoyance at having to remind her older brother she hadn't been 'kiddo' since she was six years old. The year her father had died.

"Whatever. Let's get in there, we've procrastinated long enough."

Jules words were so closed to what Kessa had thought earlier, she had to smile. She'd forgot how much she and Jules thought alike. She'd spent years at his heels, studying all of his moves, his words. She was her brother's biggest fan and always would be.

Kessa was startled to find Jules in front of her, grabbing her hand to help her out of his low sitting Saturn. She hadn't even seen him cross the car. She realized she really needed to get it together. It'd been ten years since Kessa had even thought about crossing the threshold to her old home, so long she barely thought of it as home. Maybe as one who had thought of prison as home for twenty years, and then finally earned their freedom.

Jules looped Kessa's arm around his like that of the classic gentleman he was, and smiled at her. His smile had always warmed her straight to the soul, like sitting next to a cracking fire after a long day playing in the snow. Jules had been the light in a household of pure darkness. It'd been Jules who was there to pick up the pieces that her mother had torn to shreds, then there to wipes away her tears and put a smile back on her face. It'd been Jules who'd been brave enough to step in on the worst of her mother's rages, the ones that were fueled by pure alcohol and mental illness and usually left him bleeding once she was done. Yet, here he stood, smiling, despite all that had been said and done, or perhaps in spite of it, he stood there beaming down at his long lost baby sister.

"I am so glad you're here," Jules said to Kessa, and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. "It's be too long."

Kessa smiled back, she couldn't help herself, and said, "you're right. Far too long."

"Shall we?"

"We shall."

With that small exchange, Kessa could feel years of pent up anxiety at the loss of her relationship with her brother finally begin to ease. She realized she had been preparing herself for an emotional battle; she had all of her guards up so high she could feel the tension in her shoulders. As Jules half pulled her to the house, she made a conscious effort to relax. She was prepare for any sniping, fighting, and manipulation that was bound to happen, but the possibility of a good Thanksgiving meal hadn't even touched her radar. 

The smell of oven-roasted turkey, fresh baked biscuits, and pumpkin pie was already wafting from under the polished cherry wood door. Jules knocked on the smooth wood only after he'd already pushed the deceptively heavy door open. He called for extra measure, "knock, knock! Don't worry the fun has finally arrived, nobody panic!"

"Uncle Jules!" 

Kessa heard the squeal of two giggling blurs that bound down the stairs to the right of the front entry way. She'd barely gotten the door shut before the blurs revealed themselves to be the two young daughters of her second oldest sister, Reese and Edy. The girls were screaming their delight at seeing their aunt in a chorus of 'Aunt Kessie, Aunt Kessie!'

"Oh my goodness," Kessa finally exclaimed when she was able to get the girl still enough to inspect. They were darlings, all rosy cheeks and twinkling eyes. They looked up at Kessa with such adoration, it seemed as though no time had past. They fired questions at her faster than she could answer and then a voice from the kitchen called them into silence.

"Girls come sit down. Let Aunt Kessa get inside and actually sit before you smother her with more questions." 

The girls obeyed their mother, running to their spots at the table. Jules hung their coats and after making his greetings of side cheek kisses and firm hand shakes, finally sat down in one of the last two vacant seats. Kessa hesitated at the door way, taking in the scene of her family sitting altogether over a full Thanksgiving feast. The table fell silent as they gave her varying eyes. Kessa looked at each of her sibling until finally her glaze rested on her mother.

Sindy Barns did look every bit as sick as Jules described. The last time Kessa and her mother had see each other, it had been a battle of epic proportions. It'd been a Thanksgiving night, much like the one before her. There'd been shouting, on both sides, and a small shoving match. She'd been sixteen, and fed up with the chaos and narcissism that was Sindy Barns. It'd seemed that after the protection of their father had gone, the true mommy dearest had emerged. Sindy had made it clear it had been her husband's idea to have children and when he'd gone, Sindy had never forgiven his betrayal and took her rage out on the only targets closet enough.

Sindy Barns stood, and crossed to her prodigal daughter, though it took her some time and some aid from Rowan. Kessa stood her ground. She could feel the tension she'd worked so hard out of her system tighten back up. She expected a slap, a guilt trip, some bitching and a rant of how terrible of a daughter she'd been for the past decade. What Kessa did not expect was for Sindy to raise her feeble arms out and wrap them around Kessa's neck. Kessa had to bend down a bit in order to let her mother pull her into a hug she hadn't felt since before her father had died. She stayed stiff for a moment unsure of how to react and then Kessa relaxed. She melted into the warmth of her mother's arm and felt the burn of tears in her eyes. It took a moment for Kessa to realize her mother was whispering in her ear. 

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Please, please. Forgive me." And in that moment, Kessa did. She let the years of anger, of resentment, of fear, of insecurity slip away, even if only for one last Thanksgiving meal. She pulled back to look into her mother's face and saw true regret there. A sorrow to deep and ashamed it pulled at the strings of Kessa's heart. She knew then her mother meant her words. The pain was still there, amends still needed to be made, but Kessa knew in that moment that she didn't want to go back to the way things were. She was tired of being alone. If relationships could be healed within her family, she wanted to be apart of it. 

Sindy took a moment to hold Kessa's face in her hands, beaming at her as if she'd heard the thoughts that had just run through her head.

"Welcome home, baby," Sindy said, her voice soft with emotion. Kessa kissed her mother's cheek and said what the whole family had been waiting to heard all evening. "Let's eat."