Comfort & Joy

“The tree was fine. I donated it to the nursing home on Sunset. ”

That’s right. The tree was only strapped onto my car for a day or so. Not the week I imagined. “Thanks. ”

Stacey pulls into my driveway and parks. “You’re home. ”

There are cars everywhere, and lights are on all up and down the street, but the neighborhood is strangely silent for late afternoon. For almost ten years I have lived in this house, on this street, and yet, just now, looking at it, I wonder if it ever really was my home. Rather, it was where I passed the time between shifts at the high school and tried to make a failing marriage into something it could never be.

The Comfort Lodge . . .

(which doesn’t apparently exist)

. . . now that’s a home.

Don’t go there, Joy.

Stacey comes around to my door and helps me out. She gets me situated on my crutches and together, moving slowly, we make our way around the yard.

We are at the corner, by the huge, winter-dead lilac tree that was our first investment in the yard, when a crowd of people surge out from behind the house, yelling, “Surprise!”

I stumble to a halt. Stacey places a hand in the small of my back to steady me.

There must be two hundred people in front of me; most are holding lit candles, several hold up signs that say “Welcome Home, Joy. ” The first person to come forward is Gracie Leon—a girl I suspended last semester for defacing all three copies of To Kill a Mockingbird. “We prayed for you, Mrs. Candellaro. ”

A young man comes forward next, stands beside Gracie. Willie Schmidt.

Seven years ago, he was my fourth period teacher’s assistant. Now he has students of his own at a local high school. “Welcome back,” he says, handing me a beautiful pink box. Inside it are hundreds of cards.

Mary Moro is next. She’s a junior this year, and head cheerleader. She holds out a Christmas cactus in a white porcelain bowl. “I bought this with my babysitting money, Mrs. Candellaro. Remember when you said the only plant you could keep alive was a cactus?”

Then I see Bertie and Rayla from work; they stand pressed together like a pair of salt and pepper shakers. Both of them have left their families to be here.

My throat is so full I can hardly nod. It’s all I can do to whisper, “Thanks. ”

They surge toward me, all talking at once.

We stand in the yard, talking and laughing and sharing the surface connections of our lives. No one mentions the plane crash, but I feel their curiosity; unasked questions hang behind other words. I wonder if and when it will become a thing I can talk about.

By the time they finally start to leave, night is falling on Madrona Lane. The streetlamps are coming on.

My sister guides me to my front door and unlocks it.

My house, on my return, is as silent as it was when I left.

“I put you in the downstairs bedroom,” Stacey says, and our thoughts veer onto an ugly road. We are both remembering the day I came home to find her in my bed.

It is not the first time our thoughts have gone here and it won’t be the last. Our recent past is like a speed bump; you slow down and go over it, then drive on your way again.

“Good thinking,” I say.

She helps me get settled in the downstairs guest room. When I’m in bed, she brings me several books, a plate of cheese and crackers, a Big Gulp from the local mini mart, the television remote and my wireless laptop. I notice a magazine in with the books. It’s the same Redbook I was reading in the lodge. “That’s pretty old,” I say, pointing to it.

Stacey glances at the magazine, then shrugs. “I read it to you in the hospital almost every day. There was a great article in it on refurbishing a log cabin that used to be a bed and breakfast. Remember when you wanted to be an innkeeper?”

“Yeah,” is all I can say. No wonder my Comfort Lodge was in need of repair.

Stacey props my cast onto a pillow, then steps back. “Will you be okay for the night? I could stay. ”

“No. Your . . . Thom will miss you. ”