| Romance Fiction posted September 22, 2025 | Chapters: |
...22 23 -24- 25... 
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Rachel Comes Home
A chapter in the book Yesterday's Dreams
The Untold Story Chap 2
by Begin Again
The front struts squeaked at the corner, and the loose change in the door pocket made the 1999 Civic rattle like a jar. Her mother had called it the red rattletrap. It probably was, but Rachel had bought and paid for it, and wasn't that what mattered?
She turned onto Ashland Avenue, mid-chorus in a Shania Twain song — off-key but happy — then went silent and coasted to the curb. She clicked the radio off and checked the street sign, just to be sure she hadn't taken a wrong turn.
Kids used to race their bikes here until the porch lights blinked. Chalk lines marked starts and finishes, and on the Fourth, bottle rockets hissed from coffee cans. Fathers dragged sprinklers across the grass, and in July, children cupped fireflies and let them go.
She wondered what had happened to those easy days and how it had come to this.
She sat a moment and watched the block as if it were an old photo. The once neatly kept homes now looked tired — the corner mailbox leaned as if the wind had blown too hard, the garage hoop was gone, and SUVs crowded the curb.
She bit her lip and eased back into the roadway.
The house slid into view — smaller than she remembered, tucked behind a maple that needed trimming. She turned into the driveway and let the engine idle.
A gutter hung loose with maple seeds packed in the corner. Paint curled under the front windows. The third step sagged. The porch light lens was yellowed and full of dead bugs.
Be fair, she told herself. Mark had the night calls, the pills, the doctors, and his job. Maybe he ran out of weekends. Maybe winter got there first. Perhaps he just hadn't gotten to it yet. Still, installing a porch bulb takes only five minutes. A rail needs one bolt.
Her fingers tightened on the wheel. Guilt followed on the heels of her anger. Suddenly, she could see her mother on the front step, yelling, "Don't come back crying when things don't work out!" — and a twenty-year-old version of herself throwing an army-green duffel bag into the trunk and getting into the car because leaving felt like the only move left. She had driven away fast, pretending her hands didn't shake, and pulled over three blocks later when the tears came.
Rachel shook her head, trying to make the memories go away. She cut the engine. The car ticked in the quiet. The excuses sat there. So did the questions.
She climbed out of the car and walked to the front porch. The third step still gave under her shoe. Through the glass, she saw the outline of the living room, and for a moment, she thought she saw her mother in her favorite chair, her hand on the arm, and her chin tilted as if she were listening.
Rachel gasped and stepped back. "I can't do this." She turned toward the steps, stopped at the rail, and drew a slow breath. "In and out, just breathe," she said, and then turned back to the door.
The lock scraped softly. Lemon cleaner mixed with something sweeter — vanilla from a grocery-store candle. The thermostat was set at the same number her mother kept year-round — 65 degrees.
She didn't know what felt worse — the cold or the silence. She wrapped her arms around herself and whispered, "Hi, Mom. I'm home."
The little table by the door still held the violet dish with two pennies, both heads-up the way her mother left them. She set her purse down and stepped into the living room.
The favorite chair faced the window. A folded throw lay over the back of the couch. On the table beside it, a coaster showed a faint ring. The dial radio sat ready, cord coiled, tuned to 88.3.
She moved to the bookcase. The white ceramic vase stood where it always had, the hairline crack mended with a neat line of glue. She touched the seam with one finger and saw her mother at the kitchen table with toothpicks and epoxy the night teenage Rachel knocked it over. "It's just a thing," Julia had said, and fixed it.
In the hall, the potluck photo hung crooked — Julia laughing with a wooden spoon, eyes on someone out of frame. They had argued about a dress that morning. The drive was tense. The afternoon was fine. Rachel straightened the frame and kept going.
The kitchen stopped her in the doorway. The round table still had the burn mark from a hot pot. Magnets from a church bazaar, an animal clinic, and Whitman's Pharmacy crowded the fridge. Each held appointment cards, a shopping list, and a recipe card. On the counter, a plastic pill organizer sat open, revealing a week's worth of pills no one would finish.
She set the carnations in the sink and ran a little water until the stems darkened — a peace offering to the house or maybe the spirits that might still think of it as home. The hum of the refrigerator filled the quiet.
"Okay," she said to the empty house. "Now what?"
She opened a cabinet. The angel food cake pan waited with the paper sleeve tucked inside, measurements in Julia's hand. A mixing bowl on the rack still wore a dusting of flour along the rim. She closed the door.
"Don't make a shrine out of it," she told herself. Saying it put her stamp of reality on the moment.
She poured water and didn't drink it. On the message board, she found a dentist reminder, a veterans' hall calendar, and a coupon. Tucked under a cookie recipe, a small photo — she and Mark as kids, faces sticky, their mother behind them, eyes on the sky. Heat pressed behind her eyes. She set her palm on the counter and counted to five.
"No self-pity," she said. "What's done is done. You were you. I'm me. Nothing can change that." She knew the last part wasn't all true. It kept her moving.
The dining table was bare except for a placemat with a coffee ring. One chair cushion wore blue stitches that didn't match, pulled tight and neat.
In the bedroom, the bedspread was pulled flat. On the dresser, a dish held safety pins and two buttons. A sweater lay folded with a receipt pinned to it: Hem repair, $6. She pictured her mother holding it to the light, checking the stitches, and setting it back.
A small jewelry box sat by the mirror. She opened the lid — a church pin, mismatched earrings, a thin chain kinked near the clasp. She lifted the tray to see underneath.
A soft thud came from the closet. The door had eased an inch, and a shoebox slid off the top shelf and hit the carpet. Rachel snapped the jewelry box shut and kept her hands there a second longer than she needed. For a moment, she felt sixteen again, caught in a room where she didn't belong.
"I'm just looking," she said. She put the box back exactly where it had been and nudged the closet door closed with her hip.
On the nightstand, a small notepad — first page blank, second page with Whitman's Pharmacy and Refill due? in the margin. She slid it back under the radio.
In the hall closet, the winter coat still hung on its wooden hanger. Tissue in the sleeve. In the pocket were cough drops and a folded receipt for carnations. She put everything back where she found it.
On the bureau, a frame faced the wall. She turned it around. Julia stood by the lake pavilion, younger, hair pinned up. A man's shoulder was cut off at the edge. Rachel set it down, glass up, and looked at it until her throat tightened. Her mother looked so happy.
Why couldn't I ever see that side of her?
Her phone buzzed — a text from Mark. "Five minutes out." The words made a chill run down her spine. She didn't know why, but he seemed different to her. Had carrying for mom been too much? He'd never said, though they'd rarely talked.
Tires crunched in the drive. The back screen door bumped. She wiped her palms on her jeans and opened the back door before he could knock.
Mark stepped in and took a slow look around. "What have you been doing?" he asked.
It sounded ordinary, but it landed with a heavy impact.
"Remembering, I guess."
"Why bother? It won't change anything."
She scowled and started to walk away. "Maybe I should leave. You can do whatever you want with everything. I think that's what you want anyway."
The second the words were out, she regretted them —not because of the glare and the muttered curse, but because she felt she'd gone against something her mother wanted her to do.
"Sure, leave the work to me and then complain later. That sounds about right."
“Sorry, Mark. I came to help, and that’s what I will do.” More words she regretted saying, but ones she knew she had to keep.
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