Coming Home to the Mountain: Complete Edition

1. Fig

CHAPTER 1

Fig

I t’s not as if I haven’t been home at all in the last four years.

I ccame back for Christmas and for a couple weeks during the summer every year. And I cherished that time because spending time with family is important.

It’s a fact that I learned while I was away.

Still, rolling up to my family’s house after graduation, I’m hit with a wave of emotion. This is my homecoming, the first one since I left where I’m not planning to go back to California or Paris or anywhere else.

I have suggested I’ll be gone by the end of the summer.

I’ve loved my experiences and my travels. They were educational both from a human perspective, and of course in my study of fashion. I have everything I need to go apply to a firm and start designing what may be the trends of tomorrow. I even managed to get noticed by a premier designer who offered for me to be his apprentice in Los Angeles.

But despite all this worldliness? I just wanted to come home for a while. I get out of the car, and hoist my backpack, which is stuffed full of the things I’ve been traveling with these past few months. Paris itself was beautiful. But backpacking through France for a couple weeks after graduation was what made me appreciate what really matters in life.

There’s a slew of cars parked all around the house. My half-dozen siblings are all here, and they’ve all been so very busy.

That’s one thing that’s bothered me about being away. Everything that’s happened in these past four years I’ve mostly had to follow from afar. And a lot has happened in that time. People have gotten married, had fantastical romances, raided not one but two cult compounds, plucked a woman and her child out of a natural disaster – all while I was in Los Angeles where yes, I was learning a ton and following my passion, but it felt like the most interesting thing to happen was when they started selling pumpkin spice lattes much earlier than they were supposed to.

It's been a bit jealousy-inducing, I guess. Maybe I expected to find some hot city slicker to come and sweep me off my feet, and make any crushes I had back here in Home seem minor. But Home must have spoiled me, because none of my attempted courters really hit me the right way. Douglas was a nice boy, conventionally attractive, and was super popular. Nothing seemed to be a red flag about him, and he asked me out on a date.

And I turned him down. Because I didn’t feel that spark.

Same problem with Scott and Chris, and a couple others I went on first dates with over the last four years – no sparks. No second dates.

I open the front door and apparently the rumbling of my car has already set off that maternal alarm, because Mom is right there waiting for me, wrapping her arms around me and pulling me close in the tightest hug she can manage. “My precious, sweet Fig, how I’ve missed you so much!”

“Hi Mom, I’ve missed you too.”

“Have you been eating alright? You look like you could use a good meal.”

I laugh. “Regardless of how I’ve been eating, I’m more than happy to have any dinner you cook, Mom.”

“Good, good. I’m making my pizza casserole that you always said was your favorite.”

“Sounds awesome, Mom.” It’s really some sort of Chicago-style deep dish, but I think my poor mother got into too many arguments about pizza with people around here who aren’t used to deep dish and has just been resigned to calling it something else to avoid fights. Regardless, it’s tomato sauce, cheese, garlic, pepperoni and Italian sausage, on top of a bunch of other wonderful goodies. In essence? Whatever you call it, it’s delicious and I’ve had nothing like it in years.

“I’ve also got berry pies baking for later, your other favorite.”

“Trying to catch up on spoiling me, eh, Mom?”

“Absolutely. A few meals cooked for you over four years is far too few, Fig. I need to catch up.”

I laugh and point out that I was home every summer, then I drop my bag and go into the dining room. Everyone gets up and says their greetings with a hug. There’s a lot more people here than I’m used to, given the marriages that have happened. Everyone’s found their ‘one,’ and some of them even have families already. There are two small children sitting on their mothers’ laps, plus my first neice, Plum, who’s grown so much since last time I saw her.

The kids, the wives – their presence doesn’t change anything. It’s definitely some heavy-duty nostalgia I’m feeling.

“So how long are you sticking around for?” my big sister Lemon asks, bouncing one of the little girls on her knees. It’s not hers, but neither the child nor her seem to care.

“Well, I graduated,” I say as I sit down. “I don’t need to go back to California any time soon.”

“Yeah, well, I figured you got your degree because you have bigger ambitions than staying in a little place like Home.”

I hold my tongue. There’s a knee-jerk reaction I suppress at the idea that maybe I think myself bigger than my hometown. But Lemon knows better. There was no any malice in her words. As the only two girls of the Rough brood, we’ve talked a lot about our dreams over the years, and mine were always uncertain. I was always wondering if there’s more out there.

And I guess when I headed off to college, a lot of my family thought I may have become certain.

“I don’t know, Lemon. I need to rest my brain, take in a bit of Mom’s home cooking, and just enjoy myself for a bit.”

She laughs. “After you went off and vacationed in Paris?”

“You know that there’s few more stressful things than a vacation, right? Although part of that time was spent shadowing a French designer who ended up being disappointingly haughty.”

“I guess you’re right. There really isn’t much that beats coming back here and being with family, and that’s not even counting how much it’s grown recently.”

Prairie, Meadow, Anchor, Merit, Abby, and Tallie are all new additions, along with the kids. All of them are now my kin and I know almost nothing about any of them. It’s a bit daunting to say the least.

The doorbell rings. Reuben, one of my brothers, gets up. “That’s for me. We got one more guest at dinner tonight.”

“Isn’t this supposed to be Fig’s homecoming dinner?” Mac says.

“Relax, I cleared it with the folks. And I don’t think Fig minds sharing the love. Do you, Fig?”

I shrug. I’m already surrounded by lots of almost-strangers, so what's one more? “Go right ahead.”

Reuben goes to answer the door. I hear some mumblings of, “Hey man, how are you doing? Good to have you back.” Normal guy chat.

I’m thinking nothing of this visitor until he walks into the dining room, and I look up at him. Tight jeans and a sweater stretched over a muscular form. I look to his face and stare at him with awe. A clean-shaven stone-cut jaw, looking like the right mix of action hero and male model.

“This is my best friend from high school, Hank Black. You remember him, don’t you, Fig?”

His eyes meet mine.

Oh, yes. I remember Hank Black.

I remember him too damn well.