KATE
Home.
It was a good word. She didn’t know how much she’d miss it, being away. She had some money saved up and after she sold her house back in Florida, she used the profit to travel, just like she said she would.
She’d been to places she never thought she’d be brave enough to go by herself. She started in Scotland, since she’d always wanted to see it. From there, travel wasn’t expensive as she thought. It turned out, as the months ticked by, she got good at it. She was so confident she’d gone to places that people said she was crazy to want to see. Egypt was her favorite.
“Kate!” Tia’s excited scream echoed through the airport and Kate turned towards the voice. She spotted her sister immediately, running across the tiled floor. She had flip flops on, which made the movement difficult.
“Tia!” Kate dropped her shoulder bag and purse on the ground beside her and swept her sister up in a tight hug. Her baby sister’s form had filled out, thanks to motherhood. She now had fuller breasts and gentle hips, curves that suited her well. She beamed at Kate and had to wipe tears from the corners of her eyes.
“Oh my god. I missed you!”
“Come on. You didn’t miss me that much. You were probably glad to have me out of your hair at last.”
“Never.” Tia shook her head. “You haven’t even seen Dawn yet.”
“That’s not true. I’ve seen her online a hundred times. She’s the most beautiful girl on earth. She looks just like her mom.”
“Oh my god!” Tia put her hands on her newly rounded hips. “Did you actually learn some charm over there?”
“Over there? You make it sound like I was away at finishing school or something.”
Tia grinned. “Jack’s at home with Dawn. I wanted to come here without having a meltdown or a blow out in the car.”
“I don’t even want to know what a blowout is.”
“You’re right. You don’t. Just imagine a child covered from head to toe in their own feces…”
“Yup. Definitely didn’t want to know.” Kate shouldered her bags and together she and Tia walked over the baggage carousel.
“So- are you- are you home for good now?”
Kate shrugged. She didn’t stop watching the spinning metal track though none of the bags were out yet. “I guess so. Seven months was long enough.”
“Now you get to come home to a three-month-old baby who sleeps for above five minutes a night.”
“Remind me to stop and buy earplugs on the way home.” She flashed her sister a wry grin. “Don’t worry. If traveling taught me anything, it’s that it’s possible to live without being comfortable. And it’s also possible to sleep on a moving train, in an upright chair, during a massive thunderstorm or even a room full of people talking. I might have left a princess, but I’m not one anymore.”
“You were never a princess,” her sister reassured her.
One by one the bags started pouring out of the strange black mouth that led onto the carousel. Kate watched for her lone purple suitcase. She’d also learned to travel light. Once upon a time, she’d been a lover of clothes and shoes, but then- then her world collapsed in on itself and she learned that a nice purse, a designer sweater, a thousand-dollar pair of shoes- they didn’t mean shit.
She was okay living out of a suitcase for over half a year.
She’d faced the one-year anniversary of it alone. She’d made it through it, just her and a glass of wine. Rather than mourn Creed’s passing, she decided to mark it as a celebration of the day she finally figured out what it meant to live.
Creed, she knew, wasn’t dead. Jack never had been able to find a body. He’d called and done that bullshit routine about being the guy’s brother, and he’d never turned up.
Kate knew she hadn’t dreamed that last part, about Creed being there, right before she passed out. He was likely the one who had called the police. He’d made it out alive. And disappeared.
That tiny seed of hope in her heart had never been extinguished. She’d just gone from hoping he was alive, to knowing he was alive and hoping one day he’d come back for her. When he didn’t, after months, she’d got tired of sitting around waiting. She’d picked up and gone to Europe.
A year and a few weeks after the event, she still held out hope that one day, maybe, just maybe, she’d find him.
“Is that your bag?” Tia pointed and Kate snapped out of her thoughts.
“Yeah.” She lunged for the purple suitcase, the one with a large butterfly on it. It might have been girly and Tia might have picked it out, but it was easy as hell to identify, which was nice amidst the sea of black suitcases that surrounded it.
On the ride home, Tia chatted happily about all the things Kate had missed. Even though she called home as much as she could, and used her laptop for video chat when she could get an internet connection, she knew she’d missed a lot. Tia filled her in on the gory details of a thirty-three-hour labor. On how seeing he daughter’s face for the first time finally made it all worth it. She learned every detail she already knew, and she didn’t mind one bit.
When they got home, Jack was at the front door to greet them. The same front door where they’d once found Creed, injured, bleeding, alone.
Kate stuffed the pain of that somewhere deep inside of her, where she shored it all up, the pain, the fear, the agony, but also the happiness, the joy, the laughter. She kept those few hours she’d spent with Creed locked away, a vault inside her heart. Those memories would remain with her until the day she died. She’d remember every single detail of his face for the rest of her life.
“What a huge girl you are!” Kate swept up Dawn and laughed as her niece cooed and waved chubby fists at her face. “She knows me,” Kate said proudly. “See, she remembers all our video chats.”
Tia laughed while Jack moved out and gathered up Kate’s few pieces of luggage. Dawn babbled away in her own language and reached out, trying to grab Kate’s nose. She ducked a few times before she let the chubby baby hand close over its target. Dawn gave a squeal of triumph and Kate laughed. God, it was good to be home. Even if it wasn’t truly her home.
She’d picked up the pieces where she could and got on with her life. She was still learning how to do that. Rather than pay for an apartment, Tia already filled her in on the fact that she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Kate was going to stay with them while she did her Masters. Tia said she might as well take her sister’s money if Kate was willing to throw it away renting a hole in the wall apartment. Kate couldn’t really argue with that logic.
So maybe it was technically her home.
Kate continued to play with Dawn until she smelled a strange odor coming from the beautiful little girl with the chubby cheeks and dark curls. “Uh oh.” She searched Tia down and handed Dawn over. “It looks like your adoring mother will have the pleasure of changing you.”
Tia made a face. “Aunty duties will resume tomorrow morning. Be prepared.”
“I’ve never changed a diaper in my life.”
“Never too late to learn.”
Kate shook her head, but she kept right on grinning. Her face actually hurt from all the smiling. The best part of it, was that it was absolutely real. She’d missed her sister. She’d even missed Jack. She loved being away, seeing foreign places, eating new food and trying new things, but there was something about being home, the comfort of it, that she’d never understood before.
She was downstairs in the kitchen, raiding the fridge, when Jack caught up with her. She closed the door and found him there and nearly jumped right out of her socks.
“Holy shit, Jack. What the fuck!” She guiltily lowered the carton of OJ that she’d been about to take a sip from without a glass.
He opened the cupboard door and passed her one. His strange gray eyes cut into her. He passed over the glass and watched as she poured the juice.
“Okay. Seriously. Are you going to tell me why you’re looking at me like that or are you going to keep staring at me and creeping me the fuck out?” She smiled a little, to soften her words.
“I have something for you, but I need to know if you want it or not.”
Kate froze. She sucked in a breath and nearly dropped the glass of juice. Her fingers went numb and Jack reached out, calmly taking it from her before it slid out. He set it down on the counter. His hand dipped into his pocket and he produced a piece of paper, folded in half, then again, and one more time.
Kate’s hands trembled. She kept them at her sides, afraid to take what he offered. Her eyes met his and there was a softness there that she hadn’t seen before. A friendly, sad, guilty kind of look.
“What is it?” she rasped, even though she already knew.
“I have friends too. Contacts. It took me a while, but I finally found out what I needed to know.”
That seed of hope inside of her didn’t know what to do with itself. It didn’t know whether to push through her half-healed heart towards the sunlight, grow and sprout and flower, or whether it should stay hidden away, protected.
“Please… if it’s- if that’s an obituary or something along those lines, I don’t want to know. Don’t you dare give it to me if- if…” Tears welled up in her eyes and her hand shook.
Jack stepped forward. He gripped one palm, turned it face up, slid the paper into it and tucked her other hand over it. It was the strangest thing anyone had ever done. He squeezed her hands in his version of an apology for what had happened. For everything that happened to her.
She remembered that Tia had said, in the hospital, that Jack felt like it was all his fault. What happened. With Creed. With her. To her.
“Jack,” she said softly, as he started to walk away. She crumpled the paper in her fist. His eyes met hers. “Thank you. And it’s… it’s alright. Everything is alright. There is nothing- I’ve let it go. You should too.”
He stared at her for a long moment before he inclined his head, just a little. He disappeared out of the kitchen and his footsteps echoed on the stairs. A minute later, Kate heard his laughter, followed by Dawn’s much higher pitched baby laugh.
She smiled. Home. Family. She didn’t know why she’d always taken those things for granted before. The things that mattered most had always been last on her list of priorities.
Not anymore.
Her stomach flipped all over the place and her heart beat wildly as she stood by the window, the same window where Creed had…
She couldn’t think about that. She couldn’t think about the men who had been there after, who had beaten him, spattering his blood on the walls and over the kitchen. Of course, all traces of it had been wiped away. They were erased before she ever got home from the hospital. Likely compliments of Jack and some real strong bleach.
Her fingers, her hands, her arms, all vibrated so hard she could barely unfold the paper. She tried to take a calming breath, but the air burned her lungs. Finally, she decided she just had to dive in with both feet and look.
When she unfolded the paper, there was a single line, written in block letters.
Jack’s sure, strong writing.
A series of numbers. A land location.