Coming Home

“Send them,” she said. “They have to pass inspection before he can have them. I’m not allowed to bring anything into the facility when I go.”

“Inspection?” Alexis asked, taking a bite of her pasta. “What, like someone could hide a shiv in a magazine?”

Leah laughed. “No, it’s more for content. They can’t have anything R-rated or pornographic.”

“Oh,” Alexis said with a nod of her head. “Bummer.” Leah smirked as she added, “No porn, though. It’s some stuff your brother picked out. A bunch of automotive magazines. I have no idea if they’re the ones he reads or not.”

“If it’s car stuff, he’ll love it,” Leah said. “Honestly, he’ll pretty much read anything now. My dad sent him some book on US history a few weeks ago and he read it cover to cover. I keep telling him it’s a pity he had to be incarcerated in order to become a good English student.”

Alexis laughed loudly, cupping her hand over her mouth when the people at the next table looked in her direction, and Leah laughed too, feeling momentarily carefree.

“Thank you,” Leah said suddenly, and Alexis’s expression softened as she looked across the table at her.

“You’re welcome.”

They finished their meal, and as they hugged their good-byes in the parking lot of the restaurant, Leah had never felt closer to her.

As soon as she was inside her car, she rummaged through her purse and pulled out her phone before hitting the speed dial for Catherine.

After a few rings, her soft, raspy voice came through the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me,” Leah said as she started the car.

“Hi, sweetheart. How are you doing today?”

“I’m good. About a six today. You?”

“Hmm,” she hummed. “Maybe a five.”

“You should have a few glasses of wine,” Leah suggested. “That’s always good to add a point or two.”

Catherine chuckled.

They spoke on the phone two or three times a week, and early on they’d come up with the number system to let each other know what kind of day they were having. Ten meant they were feeling great, and one was total meltdown.

“What time will you be here on Saturday?” Catherine asked.

“Probably around four or five? Depends on if they’re ru

“Okay. How does eggplant rollantini sound for di

“Delicious,” she said, “but you know you don’t have to cook for me.”

“Leah, old Italian ladies live to feed people. Don’t take that away from me.”

She laughed as she merged onto the highway. “Okay, you win.”

“Alright sweetheart. I don’t want you to get a ticket for being on the phone with me while you’re driving. Thank you for checking in, and I’ll see you Saturday.”

“Okay. Call me before then if you drop below a five.”

“I will. Bye now.”

“Bye,” Leah said before she cleared the screen, tossing the phone onto her passenger seat.

And then she reached to turn the radio off, allowing the silence to fill the car.

For whatever reason she just felt like thinking today.

She spent so much of her time avoiding it; her life had become heavily rooted in routine over the last few months, and she rarely allowed herself a reprieve from that. Consistency was comforting these days; she needed it like she needed air.

But even the routines that she took solace in were carried out with an air of detachment. It was like when she used to run on the treadmill for conditioning during field hockey season; whenever Leah would look down at the display and realize she still had a ways to go, she would try to separate her mind from her body, pretending it wasn’t her feeling the pain in her legs, the ache in her side, the burning in her throat. And that’s what most of her days were like now: disengaging herself from really feeling anything until the clock on the display ticked down to zero.

Until he was next to her again.

One thing she had going for her was her profession. There was no way she could mope or succumb to any kind of sadness when she had one hundred different personalities in and out of her room all day, with a hundred different questions and a hundred different needs. She had always loved her job, but now she let teaching absolutely consume her. She had to.

Robyn and Holly had been wonderful, of course. Always finding a way to check in or include her, always acting like everything was normal around her, just like she’d asked them to.

But despite all that, Leah knew she was just going through the motions. That every smile and every laugh came with some level of fraudulence. There were little blips of happiness for her, but she knew she wouldn’t feel wholly content with anything in her life until he was home.

And every night, without fail, she cried.

It wasn’t even a conscious thing anymore, and she barely felt anything when she did. Like everything else, it had just become routine for her, like breathing or blinking. She would lie in bed, and as if on cue, the tears would come, trickling down her cheeks without warning, without permission, without feeling, as if she were literally leaking the sadness away.

The sound of her phone ringing on the passenger seat pulled her from her thoughts, and she sighed in relief, deciding she’d had enough thinking for one day. Leah reached to turn the radio back on before she swiped her phone off the passenger seat and brought it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“What the hell did you do to your car this time?”

Leah smiled. “Hey, Jake. And I didn’t do anything, I swear. It just started doing it on its own.”

“Well, I’m in your neck of the woods. You want me to swing by and check it out?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind. I’m not home right now, but I’ll be there in like ten minutes.”

“Alright. Is it doing it right now?”

“Not really. It only does it at high speeds. It’s like this wobbly-shake thing.”

“Wobbly-shake,” he repeated. “Thanks. Your technical terminology will make this much easier for me to figure out.”

“You’re an idiot.”

He laughed loudly before he said, “See you in a few.”

“Bye,” Leah said with a laugh before she ended the call.

By the time she pulled into her development, Jake was parked in the space next to hers, leaning against his bumper with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Hey,” Leah said as she got out of the car, and he walked over to her, giving her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“Alright, let’s take it for a spin and see what the hell is going on.”

“Okay,” she said, handing him her keys before she walked around to the passenger door.

Jake started the car and pulled out of the parking space, immediately accelerating through the lot, and her eyes grew wide as she grabbed the handle on the door.

“Jake! Jesus!”

“What?” he said i

“Yeah, when you’re legally permitted to drive at high speeds!” she scolded, and he laughed just as the car began to shimmy.

“See? That!” she said pointing to the dashboard. “Feel the wobbly-shake?”

“I do,” he said, “although we usually refer to that as having unbalanced tires.”

“I like wobbly-shake better. Can you fix it?”

“Yeah,” he said, slowing down as he made the turn to bring them back to Leah’s. “But not here. You gotta bring it down to the shop. And sooner rather than later. You really shouldn’t be driving around like this.”

“Okay. When do you have openings this week?”

Jake blew a raspberry with his lips. “Are you kidding me? Bring it down whenever you want. We’ll take care of you.”

“Thanks,” she said softly as he pulled into her parking space and cut the engine.

“So…” His expression turned serious as he shifted to face her. “How are you doing?”