A Kind of Homecoming

1. Sunrise 

     The light touched the top of the tall white house, flickering with the scudding clouds like a lighthouse, warning neighbors to stand off: grief ahead, do not approach. 
     Miranda sat on the front porch, crammed into a corner of the tattered brown sofa. It was rough under her bare feet and she dug her toes into the nubby fabric. The ocean whispered to her from over the bluff, unencumbered by highway noise at the early hour. The sky was rain-washed, a pale blue dotted with stands of slow-moving cumulus, ragged and patchy after the night's storm. The new leaves on the weeping willow, nearly transparent, shimmered with the flickering light and fading dew. 
     A mug of microwaved day-old coffee steamed in Miranda's hand, though she hardly felt the scorching ceramic. The clear light of the early spring morning crept over the hillside behind, illuminating first the ocean's swells, then the cliffsides cluttered with ice plant, and then, as the sun rose higher, the weeds she called a front yard. 
     The light was clear, the ocean calm, and the sky clean and new. It was all washed away: the past, her father. Gone in a blink. She could start anew. 

     If she only knew how. 

     The light had grown flat, and the coffee cold, when Patsie arrived. Without invitation she crawled next to Miranda on the couch, hugging her knees to her tanned, sunken chest. "How're you doing?" she asked, looking out across the yard to the cliffs beyond. 
     Miranda shrugged. "I don't know." 
     "Tired? Scared?" 
     "I don't know." 
     Her wrinkled hand closed gently around Miranda's wrist. "You know, when my husband died back in '97, I didn't know how I felt either," she said. "For the first few days at least." 
     Miranda nodded. 
     "Have you eaten?"  
     "I'm not really –" 
     "Nonsense," Patsie said, pushing herself off the couch. "Let's see what you've got in here." She pulled open the front door and, with a groan, Miranda stood and followed her in. 
     She folded her arms, watching Patsie pick her way delicately between the stacks of newspapers, file boxes, black grocery bags filled with clothes and more papers. Patsie moved aside a large metal sign – as tall as her petite frame - that said "Holy City, 2 miles" and reached the dim kitchen. She opened the fridge. "Oh."  
     Miranda kicked aside a yellowed file box. "I don't even know why we have that fridge," she said. She took her usual path and leaned against the kitchen counter. "There's never anything in it." 
     Patsie shut the door and turned to look at her. "What did you two live on?"  
     Miranda shrugged. "History." 

2. Noon 
     There was something in the way Patsie folded her hands that fascinated Miranda. She didn't interlace her fingers but held them as if always ready to applaud – as if every movement and shift in life were worthy of an ovation. Miranda wondered idly if she preferred mittens over gloves. 
     Miranda shifted in her seat, the plastic back hitting everywhere but where it would give comfort or support. Her father had wanted his service outside, and she was grateful for the crash of the waves in the distance to drown out the stuttering minister's well-meaning homily. But the wooden pews would have been much more comfortable. And comforting. 
     The February sun was high, though veiled in a mist of ocean spray and lingering fog. I wonder if anyone really ever sees the sun, Miranda thought, shifting again in her seat. The service ended and the small group rose; after a moment, she heaved herself to her feet. 
     The minister - it was funny to call him that, she'd always called him Charlie in school – approached and took her hand. Though the breeze off the ocean was cold, her face was hot with suppressed emotion. 
    "I'm so sorry for your loss," Charlie mumbled. 
     Miranda shifted uncomfortably. What are you supposed to do in this situation? "Um, thanks," she said, and dropped a perfect curtsey. 
     Charlie dropped her hand in surprise. "Miranda, do you have anyone who can stay with you tonight?"
     "No," she said, smoothing the creases on her shirt, picking at a bit of dried salsa. "Why?"
     "No – no reason," he said, smiling nervously.
     Miranda chanced a look around. Patsie, down at the other end of chairs, nodded and smiled encouragingly. The other four chairs were peopled by a waitress from the nearby café, a guy who used to surf at their beach all the time but stopped after his heart attack, the local guy who fixed locks and did handyman work, and one of the migrant workers she recognized from the farm just up the coast. They all nodded at her, expectantly.  
     "Charlie – Minister," she whispered. "What happens now?" 
     "Your father wanted to be – to be spread - in the ocean?" he asked, lips pursing. 
     She nodded. "He didn't want to spend the rest of eternity in this filthy dirt," she said, kicking a patch near her white plastic chair. 
     Charlie sighed. "Steve said he would take your father out tonight." 
     The old surfer nodded and gave a half-wave. 
     "You realize this is illegal," Charlie said. "You can't just spread ashes wherever you want." 
     "Charlie, take the stick out of your ass," Patsie said, her high voice floating on the ocean air like bubbles. "Harry wanted to be laid to rest in the sea. It's not your concern now. You've said your piece." 
     Charlie put his hands up. "I'm just telling you what the law is –"  
     "I'll come by at sunset," Steve said, his voice booming over Charlie's trailing explanation. "Joanna, you guys serving now?" 
     The young woman from the café nodded and zipped up her green fleece jacket. "Yeah, I can open the taps at noon." 
     "See you tonight," Steve said, patting Miranda's arm awkwardly. He turned and followed Joanna the half-block back to the café. The migrant worker stood hesitant, hands in his jeans pockets, looking from the minister to the unremarkable cardboard box on the hastily devised trestle; Charlie was preoccupied with his sulk and did not notice the young man. Miranda dropped back into her seat and watched while Patsie took him aside. He was a beautiful young man, with shining black hair and a mestizo face. After a few whispered words, Patsie sent him along the narrow road with a smile. 
    She came back to Miranda and sat, but said nothing. Miranda shifted away. 
     "Your father was –" 
     "Don't say a wonderful man," Miranda groaned, watching Charlie wander off toward the church. 
      "I was going to say that he was a right bastard," Patsie smiled. 
     Miranda chuckled, but the sound subsided quickly. "What am I going to do now?" she whispered. 

3. Afternoon 

     Miranda stood at the front door, hands on her hips, staring into the darkness of the hallway. She had not been afraid to return to the empty house. She had been afraid to return to a house full of him, his obsessions and quirks, the way he'd set his empty beer cans just so on the windowsill, the stacks of history, clippings and mimeographs and warping photographs, piled next to the drooping single bed in his small front bedroom. "Might as well get it over with," she whispered. Taking a deep breath, she headed for his room. 
     She stepped across the tiny space and unlocked the window, surprised that it slid cleanly open. Surely he hadn't opened the window in years? Who knows, she mused, leaning on the dust-covered dresser and looking out into the shabby yard. Who knows what he did in the middle of the night? Maybe the sea called to him even then?
     Miranda pushed off the dresser and wiped her dusty hands on the front of her jeans, looking around the small room with a sigh. Let's get on with it, she thought. She pulled a shiny black garbage bag out of its box, shaking it out with a snap, disturbing dust motes and the silence. After a moment, she stopped and laughed, a shout that felt raspy in her throat after so many years of disuse. Everything was already in garbage bags. In boxes. 
     She pulled open a dresser drawer to find nothing but mouse droppings and bits of lint; the rest of the drawers were equally bare. She knelt down to pull open the bottom-right drawer; a piece of paper rattled in the back as she pulled it out, caught in the space between the drawer and the dresser. She sat on the floor and reached in, yanking the paper out, tearing it off at the corner. 
     The photo was old, a faded Polaroid with scalloped edges, maybe from the 50s, maybe from the 60s. Her father had the distracted look he always wore, but the sagging, yellowed skin was replaced by the patina of youth. Had he ever been young? She sat down on the floor, cross-legged, resting her elbows on her knees and chin in her hands, the photo on the floor in front of her. She sighed.
     He stood next to her mother on the cliff, their backs to the ocean, faces to the sun. They did not hold hands, he did not have his arm around her shoulder in love, or possession. They stood near but in separate worlds. Her mother smiled, dark hair like Miranda's stiff with hairspray against the whipping wind. Her father looked past the camera, squinting, scowling against the light. 
     Miranda's sobs were at first dry. And then, as the minutes passed, her slow tears streaked patterned stains on the dirty hardwood floor. 
     The sun edged lower, streaming in and reaching Miranda on the floor. She sat up, absently wiping the grime from her cheek with the back of her hand, then dug into her jeans pocket for a battered book of matches from the café. She heaved herself up and walked down the hallway to the kitchen, her pack of Marlboro Golds resting atop a precarious pile of clippings and photographs. She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out on a half-laugh. 

     The burning paper smelled faintly comforting in a way. The black plastic bags fluttered on the front porch like funeral flags in the ever-present ocean breeze. It had taken the better part of a lifetime to collect. It had taken the hours of an afternoon to haul the papers and old boxes into the front yard. It had taken only half an hour for it all to burn into dust. 

4. Sunset 

     She could hear the voices whispering on her front porch, though she could not make out what they were saying. The sun had disappeared behind the ocean bluff and she lay in the middle of her empty living room floor, hands behind her head and ankles crossed. "I can hear you," she called, not sitting up.  
     "Are you ready?" Patsie said, pushing open the front door and stepping in. "Steve is here."  
     A rush of adrenaline coursed through her. "Yes," Miranda said, standing up and stretching. "Is there – do I need –" 
     Patsie walked over and put a soft, wrinkled hand on Miranda's shoulder. "Nothing. It's all taken care of."
     Miranda nodded and followed Patsie out the front door. 

     As they approached the crossroads, Patsie hesitated. "Are you sure you don't want to do it?" Steve waited there, his wetsuit already zipped up against the cold late afternoon wind. 
     "I'm sure." 
     Patsie walked ahead and spoke with Steve, their words lost in the wind and Miranda's preoccupation. She saw him nod, take the plastic bag from Patsie's hand, and with a brief wave, walk down the path toward the beach.
     "Come on, let's go watch from up there," Patsie said. 
     They climbed the steep path from the beach to the cliff top, the sandstone soft and crumbly beneath their feet, the first tiny white wildflowers struggling out between the rocks and sea grass. 
     Panting, they stopped at the edge of the cliff. As they had done many times before, they laid down on their stomachs, inching their way forward until they could see down the sheer face of the cliff into the crashing waves. 
     "Are you OK?" Patsie called, the wind whipping her meager hair into her eyes. 
    Miranda nodded and looked back down to the rocks below. 
     Patsie pushed herself up and rested on her knees. "I see him," she called, pointing north and west to a small point of black bobbing in the waves. 
     "Yeah," Miranda said. Pulling herself to her feet, she shielded her eyes against the watery setting sun. In half a moment's time, she saw Steve raise his arm, shaking her father's ashes into the ocean, and then a moment later he was paddling back to shore. 
     She blinked. Is that it?
     "What is left of him now?" Miranda wondered. "The world will never know that he lived. He was just a weird old man who drank too much and never left his house." 
     "You'll remember him. I'll remember him," Patsie shrugged. "The real question is, will the world know that you lived?" 
     Miranda looked at her.
     "It's time, honey. You've burned it all away." Patsie held her arms out. Miranda rolled her eyes but stood and returned the hug. 
     Patsie pulled away and smiled. "I'll see you tomorrow." 
     Miranda shrugged. "Maybe." 
     Patsie turned and without a word climbed back down the steep cliff path. Miranda turned and, hugging her arms tight against the cold, turned her face into the wind.

A Kind of Homecoming by Julie K. Rose is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at juliekrose.com.