The Road Home by Kathleen Shoop & Kathleen Shoop

Author:Kathleen Shoop & Kathleen Shoop [Novel, A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kathleen Shoop
Published: 2015-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

Yale and I got a good night’s sleep in a small room in a broken-down boardinghouse near the train station, using nearly the last of the money I had from the letter Mrs. Mellet had sent. Tommy had begun the night in our room, sharing the slender bed with us, then going to the floor, then, sometime at night, slipping out. When I woke and he was gone, I panicked, afraid that seeing him again had simply been a dream. But when Yale and I went downstairs that morning, we found Tommy sitting on the porch in a rocking chair, waiting for us.

He treated us to breakfast at the boardinghouse and told us that he had been doing odd jobs for Reverend Shaw. “But I have a good job waiting for me. Well, I think so anyway. I need to check back in and see when I will start.”

I pushed the remains of the oatmeal I didn’t eat toward him. “A job? You are really something.”

His camping out worried me. He told me all about it over breakfast. He promised to pack up his things and leave the woods just as soon as we rented rooms, which we’d do later that afternoon, after Mrs. Mellet settled her debt to us. He looked uncomfortable at the thought.

“Tommy.” I squeezed his hand across the table. “I can see how you’ve grown, but you’re my son, and I can’t have you sleeping outside. You’ll be hurt or… You’ve already been hurt out there. I can see you’re all bruised.” My heart soared and ached at the sight of him. I could see him smiling past what must have been stiff pain. I began to wonder what other hurts he might have suffered in the years since the prairie, but I stopped myself. I could not visit the space where my failures were so evident. Not right then, not so soon after getting together, not when this felt so good.

“I like it outside, Mama.” He inhaled, expanding his chest, shoulders going back. “The fresh air, the freedom. Father used to say the fresh air gave a fresh start. Now I know what he meant.”

He looked away.

“Well. Now that I’m here, it’s time for a proper home.”

Father used to say…

Those words shook me. It had been so long since I’d heard mention of Frank by one of my children.

Tommy grimaced and pushed his hand through his hair like he did when he was keeping some silent sliver of anger to himself. I suspected he wished to reminisce about his father, wanted me to say I wanted him back. Knowing I could not satisfy Tommy with my thoughts on his father, I asked him about the coal miner he had been boarding with instead.

“They were inhospitable in the end, Mama.”

Without elaboration, he went on to describe how he met Mr. Babcock.

His mention of the bad experience at the miner’s home circled back in my mind and settled on my heart. “I’m sorry about the miner.”

Tommy shrugged. “Babcock’s place was good.

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