Coming Home Read Online Free PDF

dad you don’t remember, but I know it well.”
    Jessie sighed, feeling guilty. “I’ll try better, Mom.”
    “That’s all I can ask for, sweetie.”
    They hugged tightly, and Jessie felt her own tears struggle to the surface, beginning in her throat and moving up to her face. Mom whispered a giggle. It sounded so strange that Jessie broke free to catch her mother’s expression. “What?”
    “We’re quite the pathetic pair, you know.”
    Jessie smiled, wiping her face, the sudden tension fading from her shoulders and face. “I’m proud of our … pathetic … ness.”
    Mom’s face broke into a grin, the dark circles melting into the tight gray flesh surrounding her eyes. They fell into each other’s arms again, this time laughing without restraint. For a moment things were normal again.
    Jessie broke away and locked eyes with Mom as hard as she could, as if she could heal her by her will and desire alone. They were looking into each other’s souls, and a sense of knowing passed between them, as it often did, a sense of connection, as if no secrets separated them, as if they were one person. It was the weirdest feeling and yet the happiest feeling in the world—this sense of closeness with someone who knew you best and yet loved you totally. Jessie actually pitied other kids who had normal moms.
    She also pitied herself, because another part of her wished her mother were normal. Like Michelle’s mom, who yelled a lot and had a sarcastic sense of humor. Or Andy’s mom, who looked at Jessie with unforgiving eyes, as if something were wrong with her because her mother was sick. Or Cindy’s mom, who practically lived at the country club and was always late picking Cindy up. Sometimes Jessie wouldn’t have minded having a mom who wasn’t so cool, just to have a mom who wasn’t so sick.
    Then it happened again, as it often did. Mom’s eyes twitched, not on the outside but from the inside. And then, like the flicking off of a light switch, they turned vacant. She closed them momentarily, then opened them again and frowned, as if confused and scared.
    “Mom?”
    “Jessie?”
    “Mom?”
    “You’re home?”
    Jessie shuddered, her heart sinking, but she sucked it up. “I went to school tonight,” she said, forcing a painful smile and swallowing the lump in her throat.
    Mom smiled back sleepily. “Oh yes … tell me about it.”
    “Sure,” Jessie said. “They had cookies… .”
    A small panic trickled through her veins, and Jessie placed both hands on the steering wheel, steadying herself. She remembered once as a little girl holding a cracked glass in the palm of her hand and feeling the water seep out the bottom. The sensation had frightened her. The glass was ruined, wasn’t it? Just throw it away. But no, she couldn’t. She’d become obsessed with the leak. She tried masking tape, glue, duct tape, clay, but nothing worked. The more she tried, the more determined she became. In the end, the water dissipated, leaving an empty container, and Jessie wept. It’s just a glass! she told herself.
    Now the old feelings were back as if they had been floating in the air somehow. The thread was unraveling at an alarming rate. She removed her hands from the wheel of temptation. Just drive away, Jess! She hugged herself, but the whirlpool continued to spin….
    “I’m floundering here …” she whispered, her voice a barely audible squeak.
    What’s the matter with me? she thought for the thousandth time.
    Kids lose their parents. You cherish the good times. You move on. You grow up .
    But here she was, little Jessie, still refusing to grow up. Her body was racked by such emotional heaves she wondered if she were becoming physically ill. Tossing her sunglasses to the passenger seat, she clutched her stomach. It was like riding a roller coaster. Up, down, twisting this way and that …
    Twenty minutes later she was still sitting there, eyes closed. She knew her eyelids were swollen as if stung by invisible