In the Wake of Touch

My stomach is in my throat, my heart is beating so fast that I'm shaking. I

remind myself that I've dealt with some of the highest retainer accounts in

all of Manhattan. I single-handedly sniffed out and dissolved the pitfalls and

traps of the largest acquisition of the decade. If I can spot the loopholes and

traps coming for my clients even when they're hidden in the finest of print

and nail the verbiage that protects their asses in multi-billion-dollar deals, I

can walk through this door and give my mom a hug, despite the rocky

history behind us.

At least, that's what I'm trying to believe as I stand on the porch, bags

in hand, asshole clenched.

Before I force myself to open the door and walk past that threshold, it

opens for me and the face I hoped to avoid the longest while I was here—

okay, maybe second longest—greets me there instead.

"Wow. Look who finally showed up."

If intuition, or the tone of her voice, didn't tell me that she couldn't be

less excited if she tried, the fact that my sister's back is turned on me and

she's walking away before she's even let go of the doorknob is a dead

giveaway.

I grit my teeth, keep my eyes from rolling, and order my legs to move

forward, one at a time.

"Lexi," I greet her as kindly as I'm capable of.

"Deserter!" she hollers over her shoulder without bothering to turn her

head more than forty-five degrees.

I close my eyes and breathe deeply through my nose, out through my

mouth, counting to ten and wishing like hell there were the noises of the

city, the hustle and bustle that's distracted me from the cruelty in my own

head all these years, but there's nothing to save me here.

"It's nice to see you, big sis," I whisper to the empty entryway.

My bags thunk to the floor just inside the door and I close it behind me,

not bothering to lock it because my parents never locked their doors once

that I can recall. I'm trying to avoid triggering any lectures right off the bat

here, but I'm sure every step I take, every word out of my mouth will smack

straight into an invisible laser in the maze of complicated emotions running

between the remaining members of my family, apparently all here under

this roof tonight.

Even Catherine Zeta-Jones in a catsuit wouldn't be able to avoid this

shitshow, so how can I? Whether I can sense those triggers or not, I'm

going to smash right into a ton of them either way. I know there's no

helping setting my sister off, but I'm not here to make the rest of Mom's life

any harder. I'm determined to make things better with her, for her, for

however much time she's got left. Then Lexi and I can go back to hating

each other quietly from seven hundred miles apart.

"In here," calls my mom's voice. It's raspier than I'm used to. I follow

the sound of it, trepidation at what awaits me in every hesitant step. Hiding

from this won't make it easier, logically, I know that, but no part of me is

ready for what I'm about to come face to face with.

I round the corner into the living room and there she is. In the dark

green La-Z-Boy that used to be my dad's. Her hair isn't falling out. She's

got her teeth, as far as I can tell from here. She's wrinklier than the last time

I saw her, and her skin is sagging a bit, probably from the rapid weight loss,

but she looks surprisingly normal. She looks … almost the same. Give or

take ten years. Nothing that tells me she's in her final months on this plane.

That's not right, it doesn't seem fair that she looks so close to normal

while she's dying right in front of my eyes, but my mind will dissect it later,

when sleep is eluding me and there's nothing and no one to distract me

from the worst of my own thoughts.

"Hi." That's what my brain comes up with.

Seven years of schooling. Passing one of the most stringent tests of

intelligence in the nation. My entire career is navigating verbiage and

wordsmithing for a rate of eight hundred plus an hour, and all I can think to

say is hi. Genius. Truly inspired.

"You didn't have to do this." My mom's voice is a whisper, and if those

are tears in her eyes, fuck me dead. I probably should've cried a dozen

times over by now, and it might make me a horrible person that I haven't,

but I can't take seeing her cry. Over me, or her … situation. I'm not ready

for any of this, but I make myself stand here anyway, knees locked, frozen

in place so I can't turn back.

"We've been over this," I remind her quietly.

We've spoken more in the last three weeks than in the last twelve years.

She couldn't talk me out of it before I turned in my notice at my dream job

and abandoned my lease, she's not talking me out of it now. She was

thrilled when my bosses counter-proposed a way for me to work remotely

as time allows while I'm here, but nothing was going to talk me out of

coming back to her. Despite the nerves my churning gut might indicate, I'm

set on my plan.

"Of course I—" But I'm cut off by the scathing words of my big sister.

"Don't worry, Mom. She won't stay." Her brown eyes—the same hue as

mine but so much harsher—slice over to me and cut me as sharply as her

words do. "She never does."

Our mom cuts her a sideways glare and uses the same warning tone that

always meant danger was near in our childhood. "Lexi …"

Lexi tosses her head to the side carelessly, hair swinging with the

motion. "Tell me where I lied," she says defiantly.

"Alexis Marjorie!" Our mother does what probably would've once been

a bellow but now sounds more like a harsh whisper. The reminder of the

strength seeping out of her, all the parts of herself she's losing, how we'll

lose all of her soon, it nestles beneath my skin and tries to find an open soft

spot within me to burrow in and hurt on a deeper level, but I lock it out.

"I know I've missed a lot," I start, and see my sister physically

(ostentatiously) pinch her lips shut with her fingers at a look from my

mother, making a duck bill with her own mouth that should be comical but

just serves to remind me of how much this trip is going to absolutely suck.

"But I'm here now. To help however I can. I'm not expecting to waltz back

in like I've been here all along. But don't shut me out."

"Of course we won't," my mother says, but I'm not sure any of us

believe her.

Lexi doesn't dare voice anything in response.

But, kindly, perhaps more kindly than I deserve, neither of them point

out how I've shut them out for more years than I have fingers.

"Do you mind if I go settle in? Then we can catch up, you can fill me in

on your lives, your routine, what I can do to help, all of that?" I point to the

hallway at the back of the living room, toward my old bedroom.

"Actually …" my mother's voice trails off.

But Lexi can't keep it in. "You think you're staying here?" she scoffs.

My eyes shift between them and back to my mother again, but Lexi's

scathing laugh breaks the silence before either of us do.

"As fucking if." Chills erupt along my arms at the vitriol in her tone.

How clear it is she thinks the worst of me, even when I'm standing right in

front of her, as selfless as I've ever been. She continues her verbal assault.

"No one believed you'd show up. Why would you start now?"

It comes out so callous. Like this hasn't changed everything for me.

How could it not?

Her arms flail as she holds nothing back. "No one set the guest room up

for you. No one wants you here."

The fire in my gut soars upward and threatens to spill out of me, but I

knew what I'd be walking into. It was me who ran and broke all the hearts I

left in my wake. It's me who never came back to clean up that damage, and

it's me who's going to have to deal with it now. But I will not put up with

her attitude if she keeps this up. I'm determined not to lose it on her on my

first night back, but she remembers the girl who left, and she's about to

meet the woman who returned.

I've spent the last twelve years, and the last eight especially, using my

words on way scarier opponents than Alexis Weiss. Forget my clients and

their competitors, just being a New Yorker demands a special kind of

hardiness from those who survive there. Even my favorite bagel vendor

gives me the kind of verbal sparring that Lexi could only dream of

executing.

My mom's voice cuts into my thoughts. "There's no room made up for

her because I'm not letting her make me her entire life. She's built up her

own, and she's not throwing all that away to wait on me twenty-four-seven

like some hospice caretaker. Lexi, leave and do whatever you need to do to

calm yourself down. You're not helping anything jumping down her throat.

Your sister left her job, her life, to come back here and be with us."

Be with her is more like it, but I'm not going to correct her.

"Stop trying to scare her away," my mom continues. "I, for one, am

thankful she's here."

My sister grunts, clearly struggling to withhold the rest of her thoughts,

and she stomps out of the room like the incredibly emotionally mature

thirty-five-year-old she is. "But you do need to find somewhere else to stay,

Rory," my mom concedes.

My blood rushes at that name. "Aurora," I correct her quietly.

"I know your name, I'm the one who gave it to you," she tells me with

rare bite that Lexi would find impressive.

Now that I say that, that's probably where she got it from. Not sure I've

ever found too much Lexi's inherited from our mom before. She's always

been a lot more Dad in the personality department. Less kind and levelheaded, more asshole.

"Bye, Rory," Lexi calls out with as much disdain as you can fit into two

syllables from the foyer before I hear a door slam and a sigh escapes me.

I turn back to my mother, reminding myself not to take it out on her.

She's going through enough. The pillow in whatever shitty motel I end up

in, however, that's probably going to catch these hands at this rate, unless I

can find a twenty-four-seven kickboxing gym on my way. This rage is

building up in me fast. I can feel the thoughts brewing, waiting to get me

alone and begin their torment.

"So, what? I'm supposed to find an Airbnb in this town that's just chock

full of options at eight o'clock on a Thursday night?"

My mom doesn't miss a beat. "You're the smart one in the family. I'm

sure you'll figure it out." She flashes me a sarcastic smile that tells me not

to test her, and I'm smart enough to listen.

"Fine. When am I allowed to come back, then?"

Do you want some fries to go with that salt, Aurora?

I can only hope my inner monologue stays on the comical side of dark

humor and doesn't tend toward the cruel when I'm alone again, in the

pressing silence the mountains provide, nothing to distract me from the

onslaught.

"Why don't we start by doing breakfast together tomorrow and go from

there? You still eat waffles?"

My chin dips in a single nod.

"Good. I'll have them ready at nine, then."

"Great." It's a whisper that sounds far from it.

Feeling glad I left my bags in the entryway, because the only thing that

could make this scene more pathetic is if I were dragging two suitcases

behind me as I trail out of my childhood home, metaphorical tail tucked

between my legs.

"Aurora," my mom calls softly.

"Yeah?" I turn back over a shoulder.

"Try Suds."

Suds. Suds. Smoky Suds? The one and basically only bar we have?

"For …?" She's not wrong, I could use a pick-me-up, but I'm more

worried about finding a place to stay that isn't an infected, negative-star

motel within a half an hour of here. And this absolute piece of shit car I

bought for the trip making it that far and back after the trek I put it through

today. Pretty sure the noises it was making through the last two states

weren't a good sign.

"I have it on good authority that the owner's apartment is available."

My brows dart up, but I nod in thanks and make my way out of the

house, bags in tow. Reload them back in the trunk of the shitty gray Cutlass,

and head toward downtown. Even gone all these years, my internal compass

doesn't fail me, leading me there on the first try. I guess some things you

just don't forget.

The lot at the north end of Main is pretty full, but I find a spot without

any trouble. My stomach churns as I make my way to the wooden double

doors that look more like you're heading into a barn than a bar. Try to give

myself a pep talk on the way.

You're a bad bitch. You can walk into this bar full of the locals you left

behind.

No one even remembers you.

Probably.

Likely.

Maybe.

Just don't yell "Roll Tide!" when you walk in and we should be good,

yeah?

By the time I get to the doors, I have myself nearly convinced it'll be

fine. I'll sneak in undetected, find Duke, assuming he's still the owner of

Suds, and inquire about the apartment above the bar. I just need somewhere

to stay for the night, and then I'm sure I can find something online for the

foreseeable future when I have a little sleep and caffeine in my system. I'll

be a better Aurora tomorrow, more suited to problem solving than bitching

about how unfair it all is.

A deep breath, in and out, like the yogi I make it to once or twice a

quarter always stresses, and I reach for the door on the right. My hand

wraps around the rough handle and the handle fights back. A prick of pain

and I yank my hand back with a curse. The door comes with it, and I prop it

open with my foot so I can inspect my fingers and palm. There's a small

gash in the meatiest part of my middle finger, with a little rivulet of blood

already running down to my palm.

I can feel numerous eyes on me and the still-open door, probably

wondering what kind of idiot just holds a door open and doesn't come in,

and to answer their question, it's me. This kind of idiot. The one who cuts

her hand open on said door and tries to lick the cut to quell the sting and the

bleeding as she stands in the open doorway, wishing no one was paying her

any attention.

I miss New York already. Nobody looks twice at you, even if you're

bleeding out on the street. Too much going on for any one person to be

anyone of importance. Here, where nothing goes on, everyone takes notice

of everything.

And this is how I make my grand re-entrance into the hub of Smoky

Heights. Ratty after a day-long drive, looking worse than I probably have in

a long time, bags that wouldn't fit in an overhead compartment under my

eyes, saggy ponytail, no makeup, kicked out of my family home, cussed out

by my sister, and cut open by a fucking door as I try to find somewhere to

get more than four hours of sleep for a change.

All so that I can help my mom through her end-of-life care in any way

she'll let me. Which is looking less and less like I'll be able to do any of

what I was planning and more and more like I'll just be getting my ass

handed to me continually over what my twenty-one-year-old self chose to

do.

And that's when I come face-to-face with what my twenty-one-year-old

self ran away from. Who give this chapter a attractive nam