Coming Home to the Mountain: Complete Edition

1. Rye

CHAPTER 1

Rye

I t hasn’t always been like this.

I used to come home for Sunday dinner and enjoy myself. Sit at the table, watch my family, shoot the shit, and think how good I had it. Think how lucky I was to be the oldest of seven siblings, living up here on Rough Mountain, my family the ones who built this town of Home, Washington.

As my father's go-to man with the world in the palm of my hand, I had the respect of anyone I wanted. Hell, I built a home of my own by the time I was twenty-two years old.

Far as anyone could tell, I had it made.

Then one year ago, everything fucking changed.

“Would you like another serving?” Mom asks, bringing me back to the present. Those bad memories are pushed aside as she hands me a platter of her chicken. She’s sitting next to me at the table, trying to fatten me up, thinking maybe if I get some more meat on my bones, I might become happier. Smile more often. I know she's worried. Everyone here is worried.

“Thanks, Mom,” I say, adding another chicken thigh to my already heaping plate of food. My mom has a few love languages. One of them is feeding her kids until they're more than full. I would never resist my mother's home-cooked meals.

She smiles at me softly but she looks tired. Like she needs a break. And hell, I'm sure she does.

Fig, the youngest of us Rough kids, is in the second semester of her senior year of high school and giving my mother a run for her money. You'd think by the end of raising all seven kids she would have this down pat, but Fig is like none of the rest of us. Wild in ways I wasn't. Which is saying something considering I know I've been a handful.

“How's work going?” Mom asks me.

Work is the last thing I want to talk about.

The table is full and loud. Mac and Graham are arguing as usual. Fig and Lemon are discussing the dress Fig is planning to wear to some school dance. Bartlett is staring at his new bride, Abby.

Plum is looking at her grandpa Red like he’s the greatest man on earth which, well, in her eyes, he is. Rueben, Plum’s dad, is in the other room on a call and I'm wondering what that's all about, but I'm not rude enough to ask. Even though everyone at this table thinks I've turned into an asshole.

But there's all different kinds of assholes. Me? I'm just rubbing everyone the wrong way. It doesn't mean I don't know how to be polite.

And I hope it means Reuben is talking to some woman. God knows he deserves to be happy after the hell he and Plum have gone through.

Mom nudges me. “How are you doing? I tried calling this week and never heard back. You busy with work?”

“Work is going fine, Mom.”

“Is it?” she asks, taking a bite of her green salad. “Because your father said things haven’t been going so great at the lodge build site.”

I scowl, feeling like shit for bringing trouble to my mother’s life. That’s the last thing she needs. “Well, you don’t need to worry, Mom. It’s all good.”

“Since when have you fought with the newer guys on the crew?” Mom presses. “Used to keep to yourself if you were unhappy, now you seem set on making everyone around you miserable.”

“Annie,” Dad says softly from across the table. He never has to speak loudly to get her attention. I swear they have a secret language. “Maybe we should have a family meeting if we are going to go there .”

Mom nods. “You’re right, Red. We should. We all need to clear the air. I only see Rye once a week. When else am I supposed to talk to him? God knows he won't come over any other time unless it’s a family obligation.”

Across the table I hear Lemon scoff. “Yeah, when you don’t come around, it means we pick up your slack.”

I run a hand over my beard, annoyed at the sudden shift in conversation. “Point taken, Lemon. Anyone else have something they wanna say? Family meeting can begin. Say whatever you want.”

All our lives, if there was something that needed to be said, my parents let us go for it—they preferred us talking it out, even if it felt harsh, rather than leaving things to simmer under the surface.

Unfortunately, right now, everything I feel inside is about ready to boil over.

“Yeah, matter of fact I do have a few more things to say to you,” Lemon tosses back, sour as ever. “Why are you so mad at us? What did we do to you?”

I balk looking at her, unable to answer. If I do, it will only make this worse. But me keeping my mouth shut pisses her off something fierce.

She rolls her eyes. We've always been fire and ice, oil and vinegar.

This is no exception.

Mac clears his throat, not meeting my eyes. “Dad needs you on the crew, Rye, with your head on straight. He counts on you. And you’re making things hard for us at work. The guys were mad on Friday with you hollering about?—”

“Hey,” Bartlett says, cutting Mac off, always the peacemaker. “We don't need to do this. I'm sure Rye is just having a rough time, but everything will work out. Let's just eat this amazing food Mom made?—”

Graham chuckles. As the brother who's right in the middle, he always seems to find situations funny even when they should be taken more seriously.

“What are you laughing about?” Mac asks him.

Graham groans. “I just think it's funny. Bartlett always wants to put Rye in his place. But Bart's not the oldest. Rye is.”

Mac drops his fork. “Well, if Rye wants to be the oldest, why doesn't he start acting like it?”

“Hey,” Reuben says, off his phone call, stepping in and taking Plum’s hand. “We’re going to take Hijinx out for a walk, that okay, Abby?”

Abby looks over and smiles at Reuben. “Sounds good. Thanks, Plum.”

The adults in the room understand that Reuben is doing his fatherly duty of getting his daughter out of this grown-up conversation, which is really more of a fight.

Part of me wishes Reuben would stay. He's the brother who’s usually on my side. But he always puts his daughter first. Because he's a Rough. He knows what really matters—family.

I know what matters too.

That's why I have this secret. Why I have this problem.

Why everyone at the table thinks I'm a goddamn asshole when really, I'm trying to protect them.

Family comes first.

The last thing I want to do is ruin them by telling them the truth.

“I don't know what you want from me,” I say, defeated. “Just tell me what you want.”

Fig opens her mouth. “I want you to stop being so grumpy. Be the brother I remember. The one who laughed at dinner, who came over just because and told stories all night at the fire pit. I miss him.”

“It’s like we’re walking on eggshells,” Lemon says softly.

“And it’s exhausting, Rye,” Fig says with a half-laugh.

There's a few chuckles at that comment—at the moment, her teenage antics are a bit exhausting themselves. Fig just rolls her eyes, crossing her arms.

“Hey,” Graham says, winking at our little sister. “Don't laugh at Fig for speaking her truth. Even if she’s her usual drama queen.” I know he is trying to lighten the mood—but it’s too late.

“Well, I'm exhausted by this family meeting,” I tell everyone at the table.

I take my plate and carry it into the kitchen. Wanting to be done with this night—done with all of it. Clearly no one in this family is happy with me or the way I've been acting and handling things. Point taken. Understood. I'll go home now and get out of their goddamn hair.

My father, though, meets me in the kitchen. “Son.”

“What?” I turn to him. “You know, I really didn't appreciate that blindside. If you were upset with the way work was going, you could have talked to me.”

“We are all worried about you.”

“I don't know if it was worry in people's voices or if everyone's just sick and tired of me,” I say.

“I think people are sick and tired of you too,” Dad says with a teasing chuckle, running a hand through his beard. “Rye, I don't know what's going on with you. But these last few months, hell, this last year, you're not yourself. I'm worried about you, son.”

“Are you?” I ask.

“Ever since Luke died…” Dad shakes his head, missing his best friend. “I know the business has changed with him gone. And maybe I put too much on your plate. Maybe I expected too much.”

“No, that's not it. That's not it at all ,” I repeat more intensely. I reach for my keys on the counter. Grab my jacket on the back of a kitchen chair. “I'm leaving,” I say. “I'll see you at the site tomorrow.”

“No,” Dad says, “actually, you won't.”

“What are you trying to say?” I ask my father. We've been working side by side for the last decade. Ever since I graduated high school I've been working on his crew, until I started leading his crew.

“I'm saying it's time for you to leave town for a bit right now. You got to figure out your shit before you come back to the job site and before you come back to family dinner. Before you come back Home.”

“You're kicking me out of town?”

“Yeah,” Dad says. “I am. You need to go to the Rough Forest. Go to the family hunting cabin.”

I give a sharp laugh. “You want me to go to the middle of bumfuck nowhere? Is there even running water out there? It's fucking February.”

“It'll be March first in a week,” he says, “you'll be fine. And yeah, there's water. There's a well up there.”

“Has anyone in the family been there in the last few years?” I ask.

“I'm not sure,” Dad says, “why don't you go up there and find out. Pack your truck and head up to the mountains.”

“We're already living in the mountains,” I tell him.

“I'm talking about the real mountains. You go to the Rough Forest and clear your head, son. You come home when you're ready to be a real family man.”

“You say it like it’s an ultimatum or something.”

“No, it's a deal.”

“It doesn't seem like much of a deal,” I say, angry that the secret I am keeping to protect him is hurting me more than ever. “I don't really see what say I have in this.”

“The deal is this, son: you go up there and clear your head or you're not coming back to my job site.”

“Oh, it’s your job site now? I thought it was our family business.”

“It’s my business until the day I die. Rye, I always hoped one day I would give it to you. But I'm not handing my business over to a man who is this unhappy. You need to remember what it means to be alive.”

He understands nothing. I'm holding secrets inside to protect him.

I walk past him without saying goodbye to the rest of my family because I already know what they're thinking. They're sick of me.

And I'm not going to change their minds with anything I say right now. My head's too hot. My body is all tense, feeling ready to throw down.

Since I'm not going to start a fight with my flesh and blood, I know it's better for me to just get the hell out of Dodge.