The Homecoming

It seemed as if she had been waiting for him forever.  It seemed like that the first day she met him, and it still seemed that way now.

Her hands tightened around the steering wheel as she watched lights in the dark, shadowy houses being switched off as the hours ticked by.  How long would she wait for him this time?  Just being this close to him – even if he didn’t know it – made it all alright for a while.  Just thinking that he might be shadowing her in the darkness of his own night, made it alright for a while.  And maybe he was smiling, too, sometimes.  She hoped that he was happy, and content, and she hoped that the new man he had been with her had somehow translated into the old man he had become, and the man he was reconciled with when their love affair had come to its inevitable bitter end.

It wasn’t what she wanted. This distance between them. She would never want to be estranged from him and all that he was.  Not in a million years.  All she needed was a word or two, the knowledge that he was living and breathing, that he woke in the morning and enjoyed his morning cup of tea or coffee, that he was wearing his vest in the winter to protect his chest, that he was enjoying whatever it was he was doing at work, wherever he was.  She had no idea.  How?  How did life change shape so much that one minute you were lying comfortably in someone’s arms, having been joined together mentally and physically in one extreme, to lying empty with nothing.  No-one had died, but everything had gone dark.  The lights were out.  The lights were slowly going out now.  She looked across and over her shoulder out the car window, willing him to come into view, the dog straining at its lead to be free, salivating as the landscape opened up before him.  He knew how that felt.  She was sure.  He had felt like that once, every time he got in the car to drive across town to be with her, every time he took the stairs two at a time to arrive breathless into her waiting arms.  He was let off his leash for a minute – they both were.

She saw him suddenly appear, hunched into his jacket, hands pushed into his pockets and the hand grenade under her chest rolled slightly forward, pushing against her breast.  He would worry if he saw her, if he recognised the car, he would look backwards to the sanctity and peaceful haven of his home and he would worry about all of that, and all that had gone before, and what might happen if something sparked another explosion.  She didn’t want him to worry about that, but something made her get out of the car.  She pulled her collar up and her hat down, concealing her face.  After all the time they had been apart, this was what she had wanted.  She had wanted to find some peace, just by looking into familiar eyes that she was scared to admit she missed so much, even now, and she wanted to take hold of familiar hands and kiss the fingertips – like she once had when they had lived underneath each other’s skin momentarily.  She wanted to embrace him, and draw him to her, hold her cheek against the curve of his chin and she wanted to feel his warmth again.  She didn’t want him to think that she was going to scream and shout and start kicking against fate.  She had done all that.  She had so many layers covering her now that he would never see the scars.

She wanted to kiss him, and as she turned in the small, dark car park, she could see him falter as he recognised the outline of her, the slight frame and short hair that he had professed to love once.  The small fingers and tiny feet, the curl of her lip and the sparkle of her eyes when they were together.  Just remember, she whispered inside her head.  Just once.  Remember me?  Remember us?  Remember when we sat in a room full of people, and there was just me and you, drinking wine and drinking each other in, remember the enjoyment and the sheer poetry of our love and all the intensity and sadness that fell at our feet when all was said and done.  Remember how you felt about me?  She willed him to think as he stopped walking, his dog scampering about in the bushes.  He looked straight into her eyes and took a step forward.

Just for now, she said softly.  Just for old time’s sake.  Just because it’s Valentine’s Day and you are, and always have been, my Valentine, my love.  Love of my life. My spiritual soul.  Rest here awhile.  She took him in her arms and circled him close to her, drinking him in once again as memories of their times together danced around them, glad to be freed for five minutes after being caged for so long in a dark room.  She watched them float around her, cobwebs blowing into the crisp, cold, night air as he bent his head – like he used to – to find her lips.

It was a circle of one.  A homecoming.  A prison of hope.  She felt the hand grenade in her chest roll backwards, tiny explosions shooting out fire across her body as the familiar smell of him filled her nostrils and her senses.  She closed her eyes and they were swimming upstream together, like they once had, to find a whimsical cloud of happiness.  And for a long moment the cloud enveloped them and clung to their skin like a hot embrace.  Like a kiss in long grass.  Like a fast journey on the motorway heading for home.  Like a familiar DVD playing in the background, hissing forward to their very favourite part.  Like two people mirrored in ecstasy and joy.  Like hot roasting coffee bubbling in heat.  Like climbing a mountain of pure joy and reaching the summit breathless and exhausted but… happy…

For once, she didn’t need any words.  She watched him step backwards, away from her and she couldn’t tell what was in his heart, she couldn’t see what was in his soul, and as he walked away he looked once over his shoulder at her, and she wondered if he’d ever been there at all.  He disappeared into the darkness, the dog snapping at his heels and guiding him back, and she got behind the wheel of her car.  They were both destined to go home.  It was what they always wanted in the end.

The two extremes, the chance to fly, the world to explore, the hollow to fill … as long as the silence was broken and the earth shattered by time once in a blue moon, it could always be Valentine’s Day.  She turned the key in the engine and drove home.