Chương 101: Home Sweet Home

The answer wasn't long in coming. His father immediately bombarded Lloyd with a flood of questions, his voice sounding anxious, hurried, breaking off mid-sentence here and there, as if he were afraid his son would vanish again on the other end of the line the moment he paused, the moment he fell silent even for a second. — How are you? Are you okay? Rozi and I have missed you, four days without a word from you, we already started thinking...

He didn't finish, his voice cracking and trailing off somewhere in the middle of the sentence, but it was clear enough what exactly he and his daughter had been afraid of these four endless days, what they'd been keeping quiet about, sitting at the kitchen table, glancing over and over at the phone lying screen-up without a single new message, without a single glimmer of hope.

Lloyd walked slowly forward along the frozen, creaking roadside, trying to put as much energy into his voice as he could, though every word cost him effort, as if he were pulling them out from beneath some rubble, from beneath a pile of exhaustion and disappointment that had built up over the past few days. — Yeah, everything's great, couldn't be better. I just didn't have a chance to answer there, so sorry about that.

The words came out far from sincere, each one leaving his mouth mechanically, flat, without a trace of any living intonation, as if they weren't spoken by a real human throat at all but by some soulless machine repeating a long-memorized, routine phrase. His father, on the other end of the line, sounded anxious — too anxious, far more than ordinary parental worry over a late son would warrant.

Lloyd hadn't heard that kind of raw anxiety in his voice in a long time, that barely contained tremor running through every word. — I see. Well, we're waiting for you, come home soon, please. There's a good breakfast waiting for you. Through the receiver Lloyd clearly heard someone's hurried whisper, muffled shuffling, the sound of a chair being pushed back, and then the soft patter of bare feet on the wooden floor — it wasn't hard to guess who that belonged to.

"She's up at nine in the morning — now that's something new." For some reason, at that thought, a faint, warm smile appeared on Lloyd's cold-stiffened face for the first time that whole morning, smoothing out, if only for a moment, the harsh, tired lines around his mouth, as though the snowflakes still settling on his eyelashes had melted something inside him too. — I'll be there soon.

Without waiting for a reply, he ended the call, shoved the phone back into his pocket with a hand numb from the cold, and, drawing a deep breath of the sharp, frosty air, quickened his pace — the snow was falling much thicker by now, in large, lazy flakes, settling in a soft white layer on his shoulders and hair, crunching under his soles with every step, muffling every sound around him, as if the whole town had wrapped itself in a thick, cottony blanket of silence.

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"So here I am." Lloyd stood facing a door he knew down to the last scratch, the very one that remembered him as a small child, its paint peeling in places, its brass handle darkened with age, polished smooth by hundreds of touches over the years.

His hand reached out on its own to knock, even though they'd long had a working doorbell, neatly mounted in the frame beside a crooked house-number plate — but the old childhood habit of rapping his knuckles against the wood never let him press the button, as if knocking were somehow more honest, more real than a short electric buzz, as if that, and only that, was the proper way to come home after everything he'd been through.

A dull knock sounded, and almost immediately, without a single extra second of waiting, Lloyd heard familiar, light, hurried footsteps coming from somewhere deep inside the house — he knew exactly who they belonged to, could have picked them out even through a wall, even through a deep sleep.

The door swung wide open, letting out the warm, achingly familiar smell of fresh baking, cinnamon, and something else that smelled purely of home and nothing else, and there in the doorway stood his sister — hair tousled, wearing a house sweater thrown on in a hurry, her blue eyes plainly showing worry, however hard she tried to hide it behind a wide, almost desperate smile trembling at the corners of her lips.

— Aren't you supposed to be at scho— Lloyd didn't get to finish the sentence — his sister threw herself at his neck at once, pressing close, burying her face somewhere against his shoulder, fingers clutching at his hoodie as if she were afraid he'd disappear again the moment she let go.

He stood there like a statue for a couple of seconds, frozen in surprise, feeling the cold snow on his hoodie melt from the warmth of her embrace, trickling down the fabric in barely visible damp streaks, but in the end he hugged her back anyway, tightly, awkwardly, as if relearning that simple, forgotten motion.

"Ha. They're right what they say. It's nice to visit, but there's no place like home." After a few seconds of silent, tight embrace, Lloyd opened his eyes, still feeling his sister's heart pounding against his own chest, quick and anxious, as if she'd been running this whole time instead of just coming down the stairs.

In the hallway, a little further off, right by the entrance to the kitchen, stood his father — a tall, sturdily built man with gray at his temples, having to duck his head slightly under the low doorframe, wearing an old house sweater with the sleeves rolled up, that same achingly familiar, soft smile on his face, clearly pleased with the sight before him.

Noticing that Lloyd had finally opened his eyes, his father gave him a small wave, not daring to come any closer, as if afraid of startling away this fragile, almost weightless moment of quiet. Noticing that Lloyd had finally opened his eyes, his father gave him a small wave. Lloyd immediately pulled back from his sister, feeling his face flush with embarrassment, and nervously scratched the back of his neck with his free hand, shaking the last remnants of melting snow from his hair. — So, yeah. I'm home.

His father's smile widened even further, his eyes narrowing into a warm, almost solemn look — the very same one he always gave his son whenever he came back from somewhere far away, alive and unharmed, as if in those two simple, tired words he'd managed to hear far more than Lloyd could ever have explained. — Welcome home.