Coming Home(83)

“Come on,” he said. “I know my way around down here.”

He stepped out of the elevator, pulling Leah behind him into the darkness of the basement. It was a long corridor, nearly pitch black except for two exit signs at each end of the hallway, which only served to cast an eerie red light in each direction.

Leah inhaled a deep breath, and he gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

“You’re fine,” he said through a tiny laugh just before a loud metallic banging gave way to a creepy humming noise. Leah yelped, tugging on his hand so that he stumbled back into her.

“It’s just the heat kicking on,” he said with a laugh. “We’re almost there.”

After a few more steps Danny stopped walking, and Leah could hear the jingling of his keys as her eyes began adjusting to the darkness. She could just make out the outline of a door before them, and then she heard it swing open as Danny took a step inside and reached above him, pulling a string that illuminated a tiny dim light in the room.

It was a small space, about the size of a walk-in closet, filled with boxes and crates and plastic bins. Danny walked farther into the room and Leah followed, still gripping his hand.

“Can I have my hand back for a sec?” he said through a barely contained smile. “I need to move some stuff.” Leah nodded before she released him, crossing her arms over her chest as her eyes combed the tiny space.

“Can we hurry? I really don’t like it down here.”

He laughed as he turned from her, lifting a box off one of the piles before moving it to the other side. Leah watched him move two more boxes before he stepped back, wiping his hands down the sides of his jeans.

“Okay,” he said, turning to her as he held out his hand, and she took it as he pulled her gently toward him.

He placed his hands on her shoulders and moved her so that she was standing in front of him. Leah’s eyes scanned the area before them. At first all she could see was a few crates full of books and what looked like old car magazines.

And then she saw it.

She gasped loudly as both hands flew to her mouth, and she felt his hands slide down from her shoulders and rub the tops of her arms.

“I hope this was worth the trek down here,” he whispered.

She turned her head to look up at him, her eyes wide with shock and her hands still clamped over her mouth. He smiled gently before urging her forward, and she turned back around and dropped to her knees, her hands falling from her mouth as she ran them over the rough concrete.

She dragged them over the jagged LM that had been etched in the stone. She used her fingertip to trace the CM and SM next to it.

And then she reached the DM.

She didn’t trace it. Instead, she just pressed the pads of her fingers into the grooves, as if she could somehow embed the initials into her skin. Leah carefully slid her hand up until it sank into the indentation of her mother’s handprint.

It was a perfect fit now.

A soft sob fell from her lips, and she was suddenly aware of his hand on her back, rubbing gently as he crouched behind her.

“I repaved that yard last fall because some of the blocks sank in, and there were raised edges all over the place. I was afraid Gram was gonna trip over one.” He continued rubbing up and down her back, his voice a soothing murmur as he said, “I spent the entire day breaking up the concrete in the yard, but I couldn’t do it to this one. The little handprints, with the big one…”

He trailed off, and Leah felt him run his hand over the back of her hair. “It just hit a nerve with me. So I got a crowbar, and I pried it up. I didn’t know what to do with it, but I just couldn’t junk it. I ended up burying it under some stuff in Gram’s basement. She never even knew I did it.”