Homecoming (Lesbian) - Chapter 33: Chapter 33

"I think that's everything," Connor said, placing the empty boxes in a pile so they would be easier to throw away.
"I think so." Faye had a big notepad on her hands and was checking things off of a list. "The remaining copies are at the back. The coffee machine should get here tomorrow, and the office's set up." She looked up. "Yeah, I think that should be it."
"Alright, so we'd be ready to open up on Wednesday?"
"Pretty much."
"Great. Great job guys."
"Alright. I'll go throw these boxes out. After that, I'm out."
"Fine. Faye and I will finish dusting everything up. I don't think you should come to work tomorrow, Connor. We're only missing the coffee machine and it's for us, so it won't be a great deal."
Faye went to the office to get the broom.
"Why don't you just open up tomorrow?"
"I wanna take tomorrow to make sure everything is in place. We've got all our paper, out receipts, our books, our pricing. It's more about the administrative stuff."
"I can help with that."
I smiled. "Don't worry little brother, I'm still paying you full week."
"Good to know but still. I just... I don't wanna be home all day tomorrow."
"Why?"
"Because... Nothing. Fine, if you don't want me to work tomorrow I won't. You the boss."
"Connor..." I was about to ask him about what he meant with not wanting to be home, but Faye came in with the broom and the duster.
"I'll get going. See later."
Connor picked up the few things he went to work with that day; his jacket and his phone, and left.
"Is everything okay?" Faye asked.
"I'm not sure." I turned to Faye and asked. "How are things with Scott?"
I didn't mean to sound bitter, but that is exactly what my voice projected. I suppose my feelings have more saying on my tone than my thoughts.
"Why would you wanna talk about it?"
"Because I want to know where we are."
Faye walked towards the office again and I followed. I closed the door behind me as she sat on the chair across from the desk. I sat on the one next to her.
"What do you want me to say? I would much rather not think about Scott."
"He's still your husband."
"You know why."
"Doesn't mean it hurts any less."
"But I love you!" She said placing her hand on mine.
"Yes, but that doesn't change anything either. You are still married to him and I am still just... what? Your mistress?"
She smirked, "You know in S&M Mistress would mean you have control over me," she raised a brow, she was trying to lighten things up.
"If I had control over you, you would leave Scott."
"And do what?"
"I don't know! Something. Something will come up, we can figure this out."
She smiled again, but this time, there was only tenderness in her lips. "I thought I was the positive one."
"Yeah, well, some must have rubbed on me over the years. Please, Faye. Leave him."
Faye sighed, stood up and walked towards the corner with her hand in her mouth. She was actually considering it, but she wasn't sure what to do.
"I... I want to. Since you've gotten back, he's being worse. More possessive, controlling. Always keeping his hands on me at parties, doesn't let me talk to anyone or do anything. He's being checking my phone, for God's sake! Always asking where I am, why am I not home to greet him after a hard day at work. Whenever I tell him I had a hard day at work too, is like he doesn't care. He's becoming so... authoritarian."
I stood up. "Is he...?"
"No! No. Scott can be a lot of things, but a wife-beater is not one of them. But he has gotten worse. He wasn't like that in the beginning. I guess we both know."
"What?"
"That I was bound to go back to you sooner or later."
I walked up to her and hugged her. She felt warm, her hair smelled of her shampoo mixed with the dust of the bookstore.
"Ry?"
"Yeah, baby?"
"I need you to come with me to a place."
I pulled back. "Where?"
The taxi stopped and Faye paid for it. I got out, kept the door open for her and as she walked out of the cab, I didn't have time to see where she'd brought me, until I looked up.
"The Saint Mary-Anne Cemetery?" I glanced down at her. "Oh, no."
"Why?"
"There is a reason I don't visit anyone. I get... weak."
She smiled. "Yes, I think that's the whole point. I need to see him, please. Let's go quick, the cemetery closes in an hour."
Faye held my hand and we walked through the paths and graves to left and right. I hadn't gone visit him for a reason. I don't believe I am strong enough to deal with watching the grave. Thing is, until you see the grave, until you see that their bodies really are underground, you can cheat yourself into believing that they just aren't home. You can act as if they are still alive, you just don't get to see them. But as we got closer to Erick's grave, I knew that dream was shattered.
Erick Josef Burton
Loving father, husband and son
Will always be remembered
Faye kneeled in front of the gravestone and said, "Hey, dad. Riley's back."
I approached them slowly, as if to stop myself from accepting it. But I was too late, there he was. For a moment, I thanked God I wasn't there for the burial.
I sat next to Faye and stayed quiet. The letters of his name were carved in a golden color over the white background. It seemed as if his name was shining. I ran my fingertips through each letter, not sure of what I was expecting to feel. Maybe a connection with him, maybe a word of advice, maybe a word of comfort. Anything. But there was nothing, because he wasn't there. He lived in our memories now and that is all we had from him, and with time, that was more than enough.
"I'm sorry I couldn't be here for the funeral, dad," I said.
We didn't say anything else.
There's something odd about visiting a grave. When you are not in front of their resting place, you miss them, you suffer, you cry their absence; but when you are in front of their graves, with the silence of the cemetery, eventually, you feel nothing but comfort. You miss them, but without pain this time. As funny as it sounds, being afraid to visit Erick's grave, the more I visited it over the next few months, the more I got used to the idea that he wasn't with us anymore and that was fine because we did have him for many years and those memories won't go away.
Faye and I sat there for close to thirty minutes saying nothing. We cried in silence without trying to give each other solace. After thirty minutes there, we stopped, we dried our own tears and stood up.
"Six months," she said, without any context.
"What?" I said rubbing my eyes.
"Give me six months. I'll leave Scott in six months, whether I've figured out a way to get our house back or not. I'm leaving him."
"Are you sure?" I asked, immediately regretting it. I didn't want to give her the opportunity to take it back. It was silly because I know her, but I wanted to have some sort of certainty.
"Pretty damn sure," she turned and hugged me.
Six months was fine by me. I could wait for that. I had waited four years to be with her again, what could six months do?
Wednesday came and you could feel the tension in the air. Even Connor was nervous. Have you got any idea what it is to open up a business and sell nothing in the first day? I would be glad just to sell one book, or a box of colors. Just one item would give me the hope I needed.
We opened up at ten. I had thought ten to eight. Connor was in the back, Faye and I were in the front taking care of cash, making sure we could help whoever could walk in.
No one did.
Let me rephrase that. No one walked into the store for the first three hours we were opened. It made the environment even heavier. Faye was getting angry, Connor and I were getting worried. I had invested everything I had into this bookstore, if things didn't work out, I was done for. By one PM, we were hungry and frustrated.
"Hello?" said a thirty-something-year-old woman peeking her head through the door. She was carrying what looked like a cardboard box with the logo of the grill next door.
Faye and I stood from behind the counter. "Hey," Faye was the first one to stand up. She knew the woman wasn't a customer, she'd seen her at the grill next door before.
"Hey there, neighbor. I'm Andrea. I noticed you just opened today so I thought I'd welcome you and bring lunch in the meantime. I hope you like burgers."
"Someone said burgers?" Connor popped his head out of the office as soon as he heard that word.
The woman smiled and said, "Yeah."
"You didn't have to do that."
"That's fine," she replied.
Faye took the box from her and asked, "Shouldn't you be at the grill? It's lunchtime."
"Nah, as you can see. Today is not as busy, and not at this hour. We got like ten people at the grill right now. Wait until it's four, then you start seeing the waves of people walking through here."
"Oh," I said.
"Yeah. Don't worry. Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays are pretty busy, so don't worry if things look too empty. We make in a weekend more than we do on the weekdays, although most of our regulars come through the week and we can't afford losing that."
"Right."
"Anyway, good luck and if you need anything, I'm always at the grill with my brother."
"Sure thing, thank you so much for this."
Andrea gave me a friendly smile, then said goodbye again and left. Connor grabbed the box from Faye and opened it up. Inside there were three beautifully made burgers and one bag of fries. I really needed to thank that woman better for it.
Since the day had been slow, not to say dead, we decided to have lunch in the office and leave the door open to hear if any customer walks in.
Connor and I ate our burgers like wild animals, the only person there who'd been properly taught how to eat was Faye, who looked amazed at us.
"Jesus. I'm half way through this one and I'm already full."
"I can take care of that for you." I said.
"Hey, that is not fair, Faye has preference. Give it to the underdog, come on."
Faye laughed at that. "I'm sorry Connor but you are not an underdog. I'll tell you what, I'll write down a number from one to five, the first person to guess it, wins."
Connor won. I wish I could tell you what number it was, but I don't really remember. After we ate, we felt revitalized. Like we could keep going, even if we hadn't had a sell in the whole day.
"I really need to thank that Andrea for this."
"Oh, I'm sure she'd like that," said Connor with a crocked smile.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Faye turned to me with an expression of disbelief until she said, "You really didn't notice? She had her eyes all over you."
"No, she didn't."
"Yeah, she did! Jesus! You really cannot, for the life of you, notice when a woman is imagining how her mouth would feel in your p—"
"Wow! We're eating! And my little brother is here."
"Oh, please. Your room and mine are next to each other and you too weren't particularly quiet," Connor sentenced.
Faye and I turned to him. "Really?" we said together.
"Yeah. Remember when mom and dad went away for the summer? I was like fifteen or sixteen and you two were so loud I had to sleep with music on every single night to forget my sister was getting her brains ban—"
I almost spat out the fries I had in my mouth. "Wow! Again, I'm eating."
"Yeah, I believe that's what you were doing back then, too."
Faye cracked up and I shook my head trying to not laugh at that. It was refreshing having Connor with us, laughing with us, telling jokes and sharing memories, even if it were embarrassing ones.
We finished eating and went back to work. The day kept going slow until close to three PM, where the first person entered the store. We tried our hardest not to let him know he was the first person to get in. Unfortunately, he didn't buy anything and we reached four PM without a single sell. But then, something amazing happened. Andrea was right. From four to seven, the streets began to fill with people walking from one place to the other, going home from work, trying to catch the bus or stop a cab. We went from no one walking into the store to people outside screaming, 'Hey, look! They already opened!'
We sold fifty-seven dollars that day. Yes, I remember that number, I'll never forget it. It was more than enough to restore my faith... And throughout the weekend, we sold almost five hundred because this one guy came in to buy our biggest easel. Funny story, that guy became a regular.
By the end of our second week, I had Connor's monthly salary. According to an economy class I took in college, you should make a budget for a business foreseeing that the first six months, the business will not produce one single penny, so that you have enough time to build a clientele. So that is what I did, but to my own luck that wasn't the case. The first month we didn't break even, the second month we did, by the third month, we were making enough money so that I could pay all of our salaries, the rent, utilities and the supplies and still have a bit extra to save for unforeseen events.
"What about Faye?"
"We kept sleeping around on Scott. Some days we would just go to Portland and have a date, nothing else. Some others we would have sex." I look up at her. "I'm not sorry. I know you want me to be, but I'm not sorry for sleeping with his wife."
She frowns. "Why do you think I want you to be sorry about it? Have I ever said that?"
"No but... I can see it in your eyes. Betraying a friend is a horrible thing to do."
"He wasn't your friend anymore. And didn't he betray you first?"
I lick my lips. "What's your point?"
"That I have never said nor implied that you should be sorry for sleeping with Faye while she was married. I do not judge, Riley, you know that. I believe it is you who is judging yourself, but you are reflecting that judgement on me."
I forgot she is that good. "Yeah, maybe."
"So, I'll ask again, what about Faye?"
"We were happy... as far as we could be. Some nights she would call me crying saying she missed me and she couldn't keep going any longer. Some others she would smile all day and all night and nothing could ruin her mood. That happened mostly after we'd been together."
"And your brother?"
"Fine, too. Of course, we still had issues. One time I caught him smoking pot during working hours. We had a fight and he quit, but he came back three days later saying he was sorry and he was gonna get his act together. That was the only heavy fight we had."
"So things were good."
I smile. "Yeah. Despite everything, I counted myself as lucky. Business was good, the woman I love loved me back, even if we couldn't be together freely, and I was getting my relationship with my brother back. I was going to physical therapy, taking my pills and doing my memory exercises. I could remember a five-digit number for up to five minutes I think. It was such an achievement for me. My headaches were spacing out, even my nightmares were spacing out. Things were good."
"Then when did it happen? When, do you think, did the first domino piece fall down triggering the chain of event that would... bring us here? When did your breakdown begin?"
"I think... I think it began when Matthew Duffy walked into the bookstore."