Page 14 of Homesick

“Good to see you, Colt. I miss these soul-crushing embraces of yours.”

He releases me and steps aside so I can walk into their home. I take in the scene before me. It looks like a tornado of baby clothes and toys ripped through the living room. I cringe at the mess and feel my hands shake with the need to clean something. I turn to Colt and say, “umm, is Emma here? I have some groveling to do.”

“Yep! She’s in the nursey trying to get Milo down for his nap. You can go ahead and go on back. Don’t mind the mess. Having a kid has really kicked our asses these first couple of months.”

I head down the hallway and quickly find the nursery where my best friend is holding her son. The sight makes me think about my current situation and how different our lives turned out after high school.

I lightly tap on the door to get her attention and not to frighten her while she’s holding Milo. The little dude is currently squirming in her arms trying to break free.

She looks up and says, “oh good! Can you grab him for a sec? I really need to pee after he basically kicked me in the stomach.” She playfully looks at Milo and says, “I thought you did enough of that when you were still in my tummy.”

Emma unloads the kid on me, and we both give each other the stare down. “Hey bud. I’m your Aunt Wren. I’m the one that sent you those cool tractors for your birthday.” He looks at me like I’m speaking a foreign language.

I sit down on the rocker and place him on my lap to get a better look at him. He looks so much like his mom, it’s unreal. I bounce Milo on my knee a little for comfort and to hopefully get him to stop fussing. He looks content for a minute, and I think to myself, hey I might be getting the hang of this. Two seconds later he spits up all over the front of my t-shirt. “Aww, that was lovely. Thank you very much, Mi.”

“I’m so glad I didn’t miss that. Welcome to parenthood,” Emma chides jokingly before taking Milo out of my hands. “Don’t take it personally, he tends to spit up on the people he loves the most. Exhibit A,” she says as she points to an old stain on her shirt.

Emma balances Milo on her hip and hands me a random towel laying on the dresser. “Thank you,” I say as I wipe his spit up off my shirt. “Do you have a few minutes to chat? I wanted to talk about the other night.”

“Yeah, sure. Let’s go out to the living room,” she suggests before yelling Colt’s name. He quickly appears in the doorway like some kind of magician.

“Yeah?”

“Can you try to get his little gremlin down for his nap. Wren and I are going to go chat in the living room,” she explains while handing off their son to him. “Oh! Actually, we can go on the back porch. We just spruced it up a bit,” she says excitedly. “Do you want anything to drink?” I give her a look and she just laughs. “I meant like water or something.”

After grabbing two bottles of water, we head to the porch. It’s a beautiful day and their porch overlooks a small creek that cuts through their backyard. We both take a seat across from each other.

“So,” I say.

“So,” she replies.

“I’m sorry for being a jerk,” I quickly blurt out. Emma looks at me for a minute and bites her lip in concentration.

“Wren, can I be brutally honest for a second?” She doesn’t wait for me to respond and continues, “I may have overreacted Saturday night, but I feel like it’s because I’ve barely seen you in the past couple of years and I felt . . . well I felt like you thought I was some boring old mom, and you’d rather hang out with some dumb guy.”

I begin to interject, but she cuts me off.

“Wait, I’m not done. I feel dumb for even bringing up how long you’ve been gone because one thing I love about us is that no matter how much time passes, it feels like we can pick up right where we left off. But that night and the last couple of times you’ve been home, it’s like you were here, but you weren’t really here. I know there’s a lot of shit going on in your life, but you do this thing where you completely shut everyone off and try to put on a face. Hell, I didn’t even know you got laid off and were moving home until two weeks ago. If I would’ve known you’ve been going through all that alone, I would’ve dropped everything and drove to Cleveland to be there for you.”

I feel a swirl of emotions building up in my chest. I hate that I’ve been pushing her away, even if I did it unknowingly.

“I’m sorry you’ve been feeling like that, Emma. I . . .” I pause for a moment feeling very vulnerable and out of my element. The need to retreat is nipping at my heels. “I didn’t want to bother you with my issues. You’re a frickin mom for god’s sake. You literally gave birth to a whole-ass human and my problems felt small when I tried to compare my life to yours. We’re in such different stages of our lives and sometimes I’m ashamed of how far behind I am.”

She opens her mouth to say something, but then clamps her lips back together. Emma looks anywhere but my eyes and I can feel her mind wander away from the conversation for a second. Before I can ask what she’s thinking, she clears her throat and then continues.

“Wren, who in the hell said you were behind? Just because I got married and started a family does not mean that you have to be in the exact place as me. You’ve always gone after what you’ve wanted and sometimes a traditional family doesn’t always fit into that dynamic. I’ve always envied that about you.”

I take a minute to examine every feature about Emma. Her pale blonde hair is in a messy bun and the bags under her eyes are much more present than they were last Saturday. She looks different and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing yet. Nevertheless, I smile and attempt to keep the mood light.

“You’ve become so wise in your parent era,” I laugh and slouch back in my chair. “I appreciate you saying that, but it’s hard to go after what you want when you don’t really know anymore. It turns out marketing research wasn’t a passion of mine, no matter how practical it seemed or how good the paychecks were. Don’t roll your eyes at me when I say this, but I feel even more behind than I did before. It’s like I have to do this complete 360 and start over at the ripe age of twenty-four.”

She laughs at my statement, thankfully matching my light mood. “Okay, I am going to roll my eyes at the twenty-four-year-old thing. God, we’re going to hate ourselves for wasting such youth when we’re old and wrinkly. It’s perfectly fine not to have it all figured out at our age. Just because I checked off most of my boxes does not mean I know what I want. I know it’s easy to feel like a failure, but you really need to take a step back and realize how far you’ve come. Like I said before, if you want something, you go after it. After high school, you wanted to move away and get some space, and you did it! Most people don’t make it out of their hometowns, period. Just because your life is on a different path now, doesn’t mean it’s the wrong path.”

“I know everything you’re saying is true, but it’s hard for me to get out of my funk so easily,” I mutter. “But Em, if I ever start doing that shit again, please let me know. Sometimes it’s hard for me to be self-aware when I’ve been away for so long.”

I feel a slight weight lift off me, but I still feel bogged down.

“That’s perfectly fine. You know what you need to do? You need to take some time to just have fun and quit worrying about your next steps. Take a step back and appreciate that you don’t have to be anywhere at a certain time, and you can spend more time with your friends and family. Just enjoy not being tied down for once.”

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