Coming Home

Coming Home by Priscilla Glenn


Twelve years.

She had been doing this every year for the past twelve years, but somehow—even after all that time—it still managed to have the same effect on her.

She should have been numb to it by now, or at the very least, prepared for it. But the second Leah Marino turned onto the familiar little side street, her eyes began to sting with the threat of tears.

She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as she took her foot off the gas pedal and allowed the car to coast unhurriedly down the narrow one-way road.

It always seemed so strange to her that something could be exactly the same and yet completely different all at once.

She’d seen these same houses—packed together like books on a shelf—and their tiny fenced-in yards countless times. She could vividly remember coming down this street in the back of her mother’s car, blowing her warm breath against the window and drawing little hearts in the fog that magically appeared there.

But that was years ago. Another lifetime.

The neighborhood seemed to get smaller every year, although she knew that wasn’t possible. The cars parked along the street were always different. Some of the houses changed color; some of the gardens were ripped up or the driveways refinished. But at its core, it was the same little world, one that was as comfortingly familiar to her as it was painfully remote.

Leah felt her heart quicken in her chest just before the house appeared on the right, and her shoulders dropped in relief as the unchanged yellow siding came into view, standing out against the whites and blues of the other houses. She was always afraid that one year, she’d drive down to discover the new owners had re-sided the odd-colored exterior, erasing the warm, pale yellow that always reminded her of sunlight on sand.

Her mother once told her that if happiness were a color, it would be yellow.

Leah jumped as the rude squawk of a horn burst into her consciousness, and her eyes flew to the rearview mirror. The large black pickup riding her tail was apparently in no mood to accommodate her sentimental pace, and if she had to guess, she’d say the three cars lined up behind him weren’t either.

She sat up straight as something like panic fluttered in her chest. She wasn’t ready to leave yet. She’d barely gotten a chance to see it. And she knew if she kept driving, she wouldn’t loop around and come back. The spell of this little street would be broken; reality and logic would set in, reminding her that this little yearly indulgence was as childish as it was inconvenient.

The horn blasted again, and this time, the burly man behind the wheel thrust his hand at the windshield, shouting something at her through the glass.

Her eyes scanned the road frantically, trying to find an open space on the cramped little street, but there was nothing. The cars were lined up bumper to bumper along the sidewalk, the only openings being the entryways for those houses that had garages. Not that it mattered. Even if there were an open space, there was no way she could pull off parallel parking on this narrow street, especially not while the kind gentleman behind her cheered her on by blaring his horn and shouting obscenities.

Without thinking, she pulled into the empty space in front of the house’s one-car garage. The black pickup sped by with another beep of its horn, this time accompanied by a middle finger pressed up against the passenger window.

“Merry Christmas to you too, sir,” Leah said, watching the other cars pick up speed again as they continued down the road.

When the last car had passed, she exhaled, turning to look through the passenger window at the little yellow one-story house. Although she’d been making this trip ever since she could drive, never once had she actually parked the car. It was always a slow crawl down the street, a few quick seconds to take it in, and then back to real life. But now that she was sitting there, so close she could practically reach out and touch it, she was completely overwhelmed by the desire to see it. Really see it.