Coming Home-Short Fiction

 COMING HOME:

December 2020 Writing Contest: Hallmark Christmas Romance entry
and a winner of the Westerville Arts Council 'Celebrate the Arts' writing contest

The house looked alien to her after thirty-eight years away.

The sparse, yellowing grass and stunted palm trees seemed outlandish compared to the cold, inorganic habitat she had gotten used to. The yucca plants looked healthy and still grew out of the pebbled beds along the walkway.

A Christmas wreath hung on the door. The smell of the pine assailed her senses, so unused was she to little more than the acid-sharp smell of metal and the chlorine-tinged scent of regulated air.

Like her, the house did not look like it had aged almost four decades.

Christmas lights twinkled in sequence around the windows, and while they filled her chest with warmth, they also amused her, whisking her right back to the Georgiana and the blinking lights that communicated with the crew. Of course, the effect of the festive-colored bulbs was markedly different from the glaring, red warning of the Vital Systems Alert indicator, or the multicolor blinking of the air pressure sensors.

She had tried to make the Georgiana a temporary home. She had taken a few mementos, cozy footie pajamas, and even some artwork done by her nieces. But she missed unexpected things like the feel of carpet beneath her feet, weather, and variations of color.

But it was Jiro she missed the most.

She never expected their separation to be so painful. They were used to long intervals apart. After all, the second year and a half of their relationship had been long distance. When they reunited, it was always as if no time at all had passed.

They had met at the University of Kyoto during her international fellowship program. He was marine biology, she was physics. Days in Kyoto parks, temples, and the university libraries. Nights sharing kaseiki ryori, and reading to each other on the pillow-laden futon in his apartment.

She lifted her arm to knock at the door, but she changed her mind and grabbed the door handle—another strange sensation, to open a door manually. Her legs weakened at the emotions roiling inside her, and she reached out for the wall. It wasn't only the return to normal gravity that made her unsteady on her feet.

She remembered their first kiss. She had thought it would never come. He was so shy, such a gentleman, not like the men she had dated back home in the U.S. They were at a sushi bar, nestled in a booth side by side. He reached for the wasabi. It may have been her who leaned in to make his reach a kiss. That first kiss, and the way he nuzzled her cheek afterward, sustained her through every absence thereafter.

The length of the deep space survey mission meant six years of cryosleep each way. She told him she would understand if he couldn’t wait for her. But he had. She had watched him age through the video messages he sent for each week of her sleep. She relished those images and his one-sided conversations during the many years of the mission’s blackout communication. When she woke up the second time, another six years later, his salt and pepper hair had made him look that much more distinguished, the crease above his left eyebrow had deepened to be that much more endearing. They remained who they were in each other’s eyes.

He had stayed in this house waiting for her despite the drying landscape around him, their friends moving to the ever-dwindling greener lands, and the places with more abundant water.

She walked the hallway, passing the antique Chinoiserie mirror, the Edo-period wall panel they had chosen together before leaving Japan. She paused at a framed photo of her and Jiro, taken just before she left. Their brindle mutt, Nova, sat between them. On the console table was a flowerless vase, some unopened mail, and a photo of Jiro and a new dog, Atlas. A dog she had never met. Further down the hall hung another photo; Atlas graying around the muzzle, Jiro with lines between his brows and crisscrossing the hands that cupped the dog’s face.

She could see the flickering light of the fire from the den, hear its crackle and pop. She imagined she felt its warmth already kissing her skin.

She turned into the room, and there, sitting on the ratty brocade loveseat, was an old man. There was no denying it. His skin was sallow and sagged, but his dimples were just the same, as was the crinkle above his left eyebrow. He stared back at her with the same sense of wonder she was sure she exhibited.

“Mallory?” Jiro whispered as she turned into the room.

“Yes. It’s me.”

And before he could rise, she raced, on still-unsteady legs, to throw herself beside him and into his open arms.

This house was a vessel, as sure as the Georgiana had been. It was in his arms that was home.