Page 11 of Fresh Start
Losing my job left the next few days free to sort things out before my flight. On Friday, I took a cab to Heathrow and boarded the plane home. My feet couldn’t stop tapping the entire trip. I couldn’t even close my eyes and fall asleep.
It had been so long. Too long. Would anyone even remember I existed? My brothers definitely didn’t. Only Melody and my yaya were ever there when we video chatted.
By the time we landed in Dulles, VA, I had already decided I wasn’t going back to Cedarwood Beach, and by the time I got my suitcase, I’d already booked a flight to LA.
But then I saw Melody waiting for me, beaming, a bright smile on her face, fists resting lightly on her breasts, and standing on her toes, and all my resolution went out the window.
I realized then that it had been too long since I’d seen her as well. As I approached her in the slowest pace I could have picked, I tried to remember the last time we spoke online. It must have been five months ago. Her curly hair had definitely grown. And there were wrinkles around her eyes. Had it been longer than five months?
She didn’t say anything when I stood opposite her. Instead, we crashed into each other’s arms and held on tight. Her perfume smelled of citrus and roses, and it brought tears to my eyes. It had been Mom’s perfume. She’d always made it herself and had taught Melody how to make it too.
I’d missed her so much, and I didn’t even know it. How terrible was I?
When we pulled apart from the embrace, she clasped my cheeks and stared into my eyes with a tearful gaze.
“You’re old, little brother,” she said and tried to laugh, but instead, blew snot out of her nose which she wiped with the sleeve of her jacket.
“Says you,” I said and elbowed her hand. “I’m not even forty yet.”
Melody lifted a finger at my face. “But soon, youngling,” she said. “Come on. Yaya is so excited to see you that she might have a heart attack. We want to be quick. There’s going to be some serious traffic.”
I nodded. “The Butterfly Festival. Yup. Maybe I should have flown sooner,” I said.
“Well, you’re here now, little lion,” she said.
I almost burst into tears again hearing my nickname from our childhood, one she hadn’t use on me since. Fuck, I wasn’t even home yet and I was already not ready to leave.
Melody had been right. The roads were busy, and even on the final stretch to Cedarwood, there was a traffic jam from all the incoming Butterfly tourists. Once we got into town, it was a quick ride to the family home.
Pulling into the long driveway to our house made my life flash before my eyes and remember all the things that still tied me to this place, but mostly all the reasons that had pushed me out of this town.
Nothing much had changed at the house, other than the fact there was a lot more cars now than before.
Melody parked hers in front of a white 4x4 Toyota, and we climbed up the steps to the house. At the top of them, YayaMarina, my grandmother and the matriarch of the family, was waiting with her arms stretched wide open and a smile wider than humanly possible.
“Come here, my little lion,” she said, and I found myself in the warmth of her embrace and a victim of her sloppy kisses that I used to hate as a child, but which felt like a much deserved revenge for finally being back home.
“I missed you so much, Yaya.”
It was amazing how small I felt in her presence. I might be pushing thirty-nine, but one of grandma’s kisses and I was ten again.
“So have we, sweetie. So have we. Come on inside. I’ve made your favorite,” she said. “I even made it vegetarian for you.”
“Don’t tell me? You made moussaka?”
“Of course. What a silly question. Why? Do you have another favorite dish? I’ll make it. You’re staying for a week, right? I have all the time to spoil you so you don’t leave again,” she said.
My empty stomach would have to wait, however, when I came into the house and saw my younger brother was sitting on the stairs looking at his phone and leaning a shoulder against the wall.
“Lucas,” I said and made for him.
“Oh, hi,” he said lazily and lifted his gaze from his phone.
I hugged him, but his hands never reached around me, and he pushed himself off me after a few seconds.
“Welcome back, I guess,” he said and climbed the stairs without another word.
“Young man, come down this moment. We’re going to have a family dinner,” Yaya shouted at him.
