Christmas Home (The Coming Home #6)

31. Ruther

thirty-one

Ruther

I walked into the large brownstone my family had owned for years and crashed down on the uncomfortable loveseat my father refused to replace. Looking around, I felt the simplicity of our Quaker roots, even if my parents hadn’t really embodied the teachings. My father’s true philosophy was more about what you had to do to better yourself.

Having come from a family with deep ties to New York, links that stretched back to when it was a Dutch colony, the city had always felt like home. Even if my distant ancestors had settled in Flushing, Queens, not a brownstone in Manhattan. Although my family also founded Crawford City generations ago, they never fully cut ties with New York. It’s ironic how history repeats itself.

I got up and poured myself a glass of whiskey, another Quaker no-no, but one of the rules my father had chosen to ignore, which was good for me. Right now, a shot was what I needed.

I’d been through the brownstone several times since Dad had passed. Mainly to get rid of things I didn’t need. I thought about selling it. I probably would, and all I needed to do was reach out to Dad’s cousins, one of whom would likely buy it from me. I felt that keeping it in the family was important, rather than listing it on the market, since generations of Crawfords had lived here at one time or another.

I just hadn’t been able to let go yet. I laughed at my sentimentality. My dad hardly cared about me. My relationship with my mother was almost worse than it had been with Dad. Then when I was burned, both of them had pulled away. I’d spent too many years wondering what I’d done to make them dislike me.

Was it the fire? The fact that I was damaged, physically and emotionally? My dad had always refused to come to family therapy with me, even when I was young, so I guess I’ll never know. All I knew for sure was I’d never be the perfect son they’d expected, even if the fire had never happened.

After putting my tumbler in the dishwasher, I walked up the stairs and entered the room that had always been mine. It felt different now Dad was gone. Empty, but also devoid of emotions. I shook my head. Damn, this place was getting to me.

I peeled off my clothes and climbed into the oversized shower with double rain showerheads. A luxury I didn’t understand why my father had installed in the guest bathroom, considering I’d never stayed here and, to the best of my knowledge, he never had guests.

I was thankful for it now, though. The water soothed the hours of travel from Crawford City. After a long shower, I dressed in sweats and climbed into bed, then opened my laptop. I didn’t really do social media. I didn’t have that many friends to connect with. At least, no friends that frequented those apps.

I found myself logging into Facebook, though, and searching for Clyde. I found him fairly quickly with his unmistakable quirky side smile and timid brown eyes. I missed him. I know I had no right to, not after he’d shut me out.

There wasn’t much more than the picture on his profile. Just something from a few years ago saying he’d gone to school. Being a glutton for punishment, I ended up downloading his picture to my computer. Silly, yeah, but I missed our evening walks and daily meetings during his morning break. Clyde had somehow gotten past all my defenses, and he hadn’t even wanted to or tried to. I chuckled bitterly because that’s probably why he had.

Was I so shallow that I couldn’t connect with someone unless they were out of reach? For a moment, I entertained the notion of calling my latest therapist and hashing through it, and maybe I would later. I didn’t, however, need a therapist to know it was complicated.

The irony of feeling a deep desire to be intimate with Clyde wasn’t lost on me either. Although I was much better now than I used to be, my scarred body still worried me when it came to new lovers. Somehow, I didn’t think Clyde would criticize me or shy away just because of the burn scars. I honestly didn’t know that for a fact, though. It’s possible I’d built up an image in my mind of who Clyde was that didn’t match reality.

Okay, yeah, I needed to contact my therapist and schedule a few sessions. I had more work to do.

That didn’t mean I would stop caring about Clyde or wishing we were in a relationship. Maybe what it could do, though, was help me process the lost opportunity with him without beating myself up.

I closed my eyes, thought of Crawford City, waited for the telltale signs of panic, and smiled when they didn’t surface. I’d accomplished something meaningful during my trip, maybe not the relationship I’d like to be pursuing, but I had managed to quiet the fire-breathing dragon that seemed to lurk in the recesses of my mind.

Clyde was behind that healing. That’s something I could cling to. Something I could remember and associate with him. I fell asleep thinking about how happy that thought made me.