Back in His Arms

She had forgotten that the crickets were so loud at night. Not in their chirping noise that used to lull her to sleep as a child, but in their filling the silence now—as if they alone were brave enough to keep talking after all else had grown quiet.

Her rented sedan's tires crunch over the gravel driveway as if in regret for being so late. The Whitaker house loomed up before her, all worn paint and creaking porch, as if it had been holding its breath bated for years waiting for someone to come home. She drove up, cut the engine, and sat with palms on the steering wheel, watching the porch light flicker. A single moth danced around the light as if it had no other place to be.

"Still standing," she whispered.

A gust of wind blew through the sycamores along the property line, carrying the heavy, moldy scent of rain-soaked wood and rusty screens. Somewhere under the trees, out in the darkness, the river was moving. She did not need to turn her head to know that it was high. The storm had passed the day before, and the whole region had been left damp and steaming.

She leaned back to reach for the envelope on the passenger side. Inside the house were the social worker's notes, the names of the specialists in town, and the list of foods Thea could still manage to eat. None of it said what she was supposed to do next. None of it said how to talk to a woman who sometimes remembered that she had a daughter and sometimes thought Ellie was just "the girl who came to visit after school."

It had been eleven years since Ellie had walked out of Silver Ridge. Ten years and ten months since she'd last laid eyes on Rhett Monroe's face.

She swung open the car door.

The screen door creaked and made her stomach curl up before she even reached for it. She half suspected it would burst from its hinges when she pushed it open, but it hung on, squeaking like it was crawling out of a bad dream.

"Thea?" she whispered.

No answer.

The house within smelt like it had always smelt—cedar and dust and the ghost of lavender from an ages-empty bottle. The furniture stayed the same. The green couch with the patches worn through was still in front of the window. The afghan with the scorch still draped on the back of it. A plate of untouched toast on the kitchen counter, butter hardened, and crust curled.

She heard the shuffling before she saw her.

There was Thea standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the hallway, wearing one of her old cardigans, hair tied up loose in a bun that dangled over one ear. Squinting eyes.

"I thought you weren't coming," she said.

"I told you I was coming today," Ellie said quietly.

"I thought today was Monday."

"It is Monday."

"Oh." Thea frowned, then appeared to let the thought pass on. "You want tea?"

"Sure."

Thea nodded and slowly turned towards the stove as if this were a perfectly ordinary day, as if Ellie hadn't driven six hours to inherit a life she'd vowed never to return to.

The kettle hissed softly on the burner.

Ellie waited beside the kitchen table and took in the view.

Two prescription bottles sat on either side of the breadbox. One was still full.

"You haven't been taking these."

"They make me sleepy," Thea said.

"They're supposed to."

"I don't want to be sleepy."

Ellie didn't debate. She knew that voice—flat, stubborn, just enough to remind her that the woman in front of her was still her mother, at least for the moment.

She spent the next hour unpacking. Not books. Not clothes. But little pieces of herself. The New York coffee mug. The two-year-old silver watch that no longer worked but still provided her with a sense of solidness when she wore it. A photograph of her and Thomas, which she placed face-down in the drawer beside her bed.

She slept badly that night. The crickets were too brassy, and the silences between the chirps even brassier. She woke up twice thinking she'd heard someone whispering her name.

She headed down to the corner shop at dawn to buy coffee and eggs. The doorbell clanged as she entered.

The man behind the counter looked up.

And time stood still.

Rhett Monroe was taller than she remembered him, hair slightly longer, darker whiskers on his jaw. Faded blue shirt stretched up slightly on the shoulder and had a faint smell of cedar and gasoline and mornings that receded too soon.

He looked at her like he was waiting for her to answer something he hadn't yet decided how to ask.

She stood frozen in the doorway, heart pounding, all the practiced words evaporating.

She spoke first.

"Hey, Rhett."

His mouth twisted into something like a smile.

"Ellie."

And that was it, the past no longer past.

The door shut behind Ellie, the bell ringing once more as though attempting to break the quiet neither one of them moved to erase. She walked further into the store, running her eyes over the shelves habitually. It was all just the same. The same sagging wire shelves. The same old freezer rumbling in the back. The bulletin board with wrinkled up posters advertising lawn service and lost cats. One said, "Church Potluck, Sept. 22. BYOF."

Rhett stepped out from behind the counter like he wasn't sure if this was real.

"Here to stay, or just passing through?" he asked.

Ellie seized a carton of eggs. "That's a terrible welcome."

"You hoping for roses?"

"No. Just. Maybe a minute before we start swinging."

Rhett raised an eyebrow. "Swinging, huh?"

She didn't smile. "You know what I mean."

"Do I?

His voice had changed too. Still low, still smooth, but heavier now. Like he only spoke when it was necessary, and every word cost something. He’d always been like that when they were younger. Quiet but sharp. Now he sounded tired underneath.

Ellie tucked the eggs under her arm and grabbed a bag of coffee grounds. “I’m staying with my mom.”

“I figured. Word got around.”

“Already?”

"It's a small town, Ellie. You know that."

"I used to."

He leaned back against the counter, folded his arms. His shirt fit over his chest and she didn't look at that part of him because she saw that part of him had filled out—just a little—like time had moved in on his shoulders, too.

"You look like you haven't slept," he said.

"So do you."

"Farm doesn't wait."

"Neither does a mother with dementia."

There it was once more—the bite beneath the words. The truth that neither of them knew how to sugarcoat. Rhett didn't flinch. He merely nodded.

"Sorry about your dad," she added. "I didn't hear until after."

He didn't thank her. Merely tilted his head.

"It was quick," he said.

Ellie set things on the counter. "That's supposed to be a mercy."

"Supposed to be."

He started to ring her up, fingers moving along with slow care, as if the task gave him something to hide behind.

She looked at him.

She didn't mean to. But she did.

That same look he'd never lost when he was pretending not to feel something. Eyebrows slightly scrunched. Jaw tight. Mouth soft, not hard. Not cold. Just closed.

He handed her the receipt.

"You sticking around?"

"I don't know."

He nodded. "Well. Take care of yourself."

"I always do."

He didn't smile. "That's not the same as letting anyone else have a turn."

She grabbed the bag, heart thudding in some awkward beat that hadn't yet figured out what decade it was.

Then she went out.

Outside, the sky was cloudy but soft, the sun a haze behind the clouds. Ellie stood on the sidewalk for a moment, bag in her hand, and let the silence settle around her.

Rhett Monroe was still Rhett Monroe.

But the man in the shop was not the boy she'd left behind.

And she didn't know whether that scared her more—or less.

Thea wasn't home when Ellie returned.

She put the bag of groceries on the kitchen table and yelled, not quite nervous, not yet. "Mom?"

No answer.

She peered into the bedroom. Made up neatly. The coarse white bedspread tugged tightly as always. Thea's slippers lined up exactly under the bed, toes pointing outward. Her robe hung over the hook, still damp.

The back door was ajar.

Ellie stepped outside and saw her mother sitting in the garden chair next to the toolshed, sitting facing the unpruned hydrangeas as if expecting something to develop.

"Spooked me," Ellie answered, still with her teasing tone.

Thea looked up. "I'm not a child."

"No," Ellie said gently. "But I still prefer to know where you are."

Thea turned back to the garden. "I used to have tomatoes out here."

"I know. You made me weed every Saturday."

"You hated it."

"You made me do it anyway."

"That's parenting," Thea said, smiling for a moment. Then it was gone. "What happened to the tomato cages?"

"You gave them away."

"I did?"

"I sat beside her.” Last fall. You said you were done feeding everyone but you."

Thea did not respond.

Clouds drifted by overhead, and for a moment or two, they sat in the silver-bathed stillness. Ellie listened to birds in the trees, the faraway growl of a chainsaw, someone's country music drifted thinly on the open air. Silver Ridge hadn't changed much. But it hadn't stayed the same either.

"I saw Rhett," Ellie said, not looking at her.

Thea remained silent.

Ellie waited.

Then: "He never stopped loving you, you know."

Ellie's mouth was dry.

"You don't know that."

"I see what it looks like when someone waits. I see the kind of silence people hold when they still hope someone will come home."

Ellie swallowed. "It's not that simple."

"No," Thea said. "But it used to be."

The silence sat there.

Then Thea spoke up, "I liked him."

"Like everybody, I guess."

"No," replied Thea. "I tolerated most of them. I liked Rhett."

Ellie stood up. "You should come in. It'll rain."

Thea didn't move.

Ellie didn't stay.

In the kitchen, she brewed a cup of coffee and cleaned out the fridge. There were jars she had no memory of, a crumpled post-it with just "Call Eleanor" scribbled on it. Her full name. That old-fashioned, buttoned-up version of herself she never had liked.

She dumped the contents of the crisper into the trash and started writing a list.

Milk. Yogurt. Butter. Apples.

Halfway through, a knock sounded at the door.

She frowned. No one knocked in Silver Ridge. People either barged in or yelled from the porch.

She opened it.

Claire Sanders stood there, arms full of Tupperware.

“You’re back,” Claire said, blinking. “Wow.”

Ellie hadn’t seen her since they were nineteen.

But the face was the same: angular, surrounded by curls too big for her face, eyes that had somehow contained all the world's secrets at some point. She wore boots and a blue sweatshirt reading Silver Ridge Public Works in white letters fading away.

"You cooked dinner?"

"Chicken and rice. What one does when someone moves house under tragic circumstances."

Ellie laughed, taken aback. "It's not a funeral."

"It's a kind of funeral," Claire said, entering the room. "Your life, the one you knew it, has officially died. You have my sympathy."

Ellie accepted the cup. "Still melodramatic, I see."

Claire plopped onto the couch. "And you're still obstreperous."

They stared at each other a moment too long.

Then Claire said, "You okay?"

Ellie did not lie.

"I'm here."

"That's not what I asked."

"It's what I've got."

Claire nodded. "Fair."

They talked for almost an hour—about nothing. The town. The weather. The new fellow at the drugstore who had a twitch and kept mixing up medicines. And then Claire blurted out, out of nowhere:

"You know Hank Rawlins is trying to sell off half the farms up north?"

Ellie blinked. "What?"

"Started last fall. Some Raleigh big shots are building a distribution facility. Warehouses. Vast parking lots. Hank calling it 'progress.'"

"Isn't that Rhett's land?"

"Among others."

Ellie rose and went to the window. The street outside was deserted. A woman led a dog that looked as tired as she felt. A boy on a bicycle rode by with his hands off the handlebars.

"He'll never sell," Ellie breathed.

Claire stood too. “Maybe not. But this town? It might not hold.”

Ellie turned. “What does that mean?”

Claire’s voice lowered.

“It means people are tired. And money’s tight. And not everyone here remembers what it felt like before it all started falling apart.”

Ellie didn’t answer.

Claire moved to the door.

“You want a drink tonight?” she asked. “Just a couple girls talking about our terrible taste in men?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Claire opened the door. "You've got that look in your eye," she said.

"What look?"

"The one that says you came back, but not all the way."

She closed the door.

Ellie stood there, staring after her for a long time.

The darkness came with a stillness that was not peace. The cicadas were slightly quieter this evening, as though even they were holding their breath in waiting. The wind had begun by the time Ellie flipped on the porch light, a storm light kind of wind—warm but wrong, full of ozone and distant dirt odors.

At home, Thea had forgotten her own name once more.

She sat in the green armchair, watching the weather channel on mute. Her cardigan was buttoned wrong, one side tucked too high. She held a folded napkin in her lap like it was something delicate, something worth guarding.

Ellie crouched beside her.

“Hey. It’s me.”

Thea blinked at her. “You’re… the one from the newspaper?”

Ellie swallowed. “Sure. Yeah.”

“You write the stories.”

“Sometimes.”

Thea nodded, satisfied with that, and looked back at the screen.

Ellie stayed there on the rug, hand on her mom's arm. The rug smelled of stale coffee and dust. It grounded her. Reminded her of things didn't really get lost even when people got lost.

She pulled Thea in a half an hour later. Brushed her hair gently, as she once did as a child, when her mother still scolded and combed and clipped. The ritual was easier than the sensation.

Ellie filled a glass of water and went downstairs to the porch.

She sat on the steps, knees up, glass against her leg.

It was quiet in that rich Southern way—where even the air seemed to be holding its breath.

A truck pulled up across the street.

Rhett.

He emerged slowly, boots pounding on gravel.

She didn't move.

He didn't either.

"Didn't mean to scare you," he said.

"You didn't."

He lingered for a moment, then came across the street.

"I forgot," he said, holding out a small paper bag. "You take sourdough in the morning."

Ellie looked at it.

Then stretched and reached for it, not wanting his fingers to brush against hers.

"Thanks."

He stood there, fingers on hips, not turned to her.

"I met your mom the other day. She was in front of the gas station. Talking to a plastic flamingo."

Ellie's throat tightened. "I know. She's been. Drifting."

"She always did go a little sideways."

"Yes. But now she doesn't come back."

Rhett nodded.

"Sorry," he said.

"For what?"

"Everything."

Ellie left that hanging.

The silence between them stretched and twisted but did not break.

Finally, she questioned, "Why now?"

He looked at her, really saw her, for the first time since the shop.

"Because you came back," he said to her.

"I'm not sure I did."

"I know."

He turned away to go.

But then hesitated.

You know," he said to her, "I'd sit on this porch for hours waiting to see your car come driving down the road. I promised myself if I saw you once, just once, I'd know that you were all right."

Ellie did not answer.

He stepped off the porch.

And walked away.

She watched him go.

Then looked down at the bag in her lap.

Inside, still warm: a loaf of hot sourdough, wrapped in parchment and twine.

And tucked alongside it, folded into the corner of the page—

—a picture.

Decades yellowed, sun-faded.

She knew it immediately.

The two of them, on the riverbank. She was laughing. Rhett was lying back, smiling, hand on her knee like it belonged there. Thomas had taken it, she was sure.

She hadn't seen it in years.

She didn't know he still had it.

And now he'd given it to her.

Ellie sat on the porch long after Rhett's truck had come around the curve. The bag was in her lap, the photo covered up underneath the string as if it didn't want to be seen but wouldn't want to be lost either. She couldn't make herself look at it yet. Memory had its own level of heat, and this one was too much for her hands today.

And now here she was, again in this same house with this same porch and this same air.

She turned the photograph over and traced the edge of the paper.

There were creases, soft at the edges, as if it had been spread and folded a thousand times. Maybe it had. Maybe Rhett had tucked it in with something—his wallet, maybe, or that tin can he used to hide under the truck seat.

She couldn't help but wonder if he'd intended to leave it in.

Or if it had slipped in like memories tend to fall on top of each other in still, unsuspecting ways.

She stood there, fidgety suddenly, and stepped down off the porch.

The grass felt cool under her feet. Dewy. She walked out to the edge of the yard and gazed out across the town. The hill rolled up gradually, streetlights indistinct in the fog, and the water tower beyond that was still streaked with rust, like someone had tried painting it a decade ago and given up halfway.

The town hadn't let her go.

That was the worst of it.

Some towns you could leave.

Silver Ridge didn't release. Even if you didn't want it to.

She heard her mother's voice through the open window upstairs. Muffled, mid-dream, soft, and stuttering.

Ellie turned back.

There wasn't a clean way to stay on.

No safe way to leave.

She woke to the smell of coffee. Not the expensive stuff she was used to back in the city, but the bitter, pungent crap her mother always made. It filled the kitchen, mixing with the scent of toast and something burned.

She padde