Coming Home To You

She gave a wavering smile, probably to show she bore him no ill will and hoped he felt the same. Which inevitably led to the other line all seven women had trotted out. He braced for full impact.

“I hope we can still be friends.”

What to say to that? What did it really mean? He’d called up his second ex to ask her out to the theater a couple of weeks after they broke up and she’d said, “Mel, don’t you get it? We’re not together anymore.”

When he’d invoked the friend clause, she’d said that wasn’t how it worked. Decades later, he still wasn’t sure how it worked.

The motor home had reappeared on the highway, signaling once more its intention to come toward the Tim Hortons. He waited for the indicator to switch. It didn’t. The unit—a full thirty feet long—swung into the opposing lane, forcing an exiting truck to brake to avoid a crash.

“No,” Mel murmured. “No.”

Linda sighed. She must think he was answering her. He pointed out the window.

The RV slowed and entered the narrow two-way lane into Tim Hortons, and then headed right toward them.

People noticed now.

The early eastern light banked off the windshield of the RV and temporarily prevented Mel from seeing the driver. Whoever it was would have to make an impossible right to clear the restaurant on the left and navigate past the vehicles parked to the right.

This morning, the Spirit Lake Funeral and Crematorium hearse, with its extended rear, was right beside the entrance. Jim Creasley, the owner of the hearse and the funeral home, strode from the counter to the plate-glass window. Mel’s family had gone to him when their mom had passed a couple of years ago, and when Mel’s stepdad had died twenty years prior to that.

Jim was dressed like he was going to a—well, he was dressed for work, which, given the early hour, probably meant he had to drive a ways. He was known throughout central Alberta, hundreds of miles in all directions, for his compassion.

“If that brainless driver hits my vehicle,” he said, “there’ll be another coffin in the back.”

The RV clipped the back end of Jim’s hearse and knocked it into the adjacent red car, which triggered a shout from a beefy young woman in a safety vest at the coffee counter.

She tore outside, Jim a step behind.

“The driver’s a woman. A senior,” Linda said, her head cranked to see up past the painted brown tones of the coach to the driver’s seat. Sure enough, an older woman wearing aviator sunglasses was at the wheel, hauling on it for all she was worth.

Jim rounded the corner, waving and cursing as the motor home crept along like a giant steel sloth. As if watching an action movie, Mel stared, fascinated, disbelieving.

Around him, people found their voices.

“Get out of the way, Jim.”

“Brake!”

“She’s not going to make it.”

“Is she insane?”

The driver suddenly pitched to the side. Someone, another female, maybe the passenger, had pushed her and wrenched the wheel away. Mel caught a glimpse of a paperback, an arm covered in something white and lacy, and then the RV lurched to the left—too far to the left. The grille of the house-sized coach bore straight toward Linda and him.

The coach suddenly surged forward. Mel, half lifting Linda, ran for the safety of the counter. Brick, glass and steel groaned and splintered behind them. The impact brought the drama to a final, shuddering stop.

Mel shot from Linda’s side, through the still-intact side door of the Tim’s and ran to the coach door, slipping in ahead of Jim and the owner of the red car. Mel drummed on the door and rose on his tiptoes to see through the window at the top. No luck.

“Hello? Everybody all right in there?”

The door clicked a release and eased open, the running board steps automatically descending, to reveal the passenger. She stood on the top step of the coach and was clad in a full-length white nightgown, so long it trailed behind her like the train of a wedding gown. Her face was drawn and pale, and she clasped a black-and-yellow classic paperback to her chest.

He stepped onto the lowest step and tipped back his cap.

“Hello. I’m Mel. Let me help you.”

* * *

DAPHNE WAS COLD. The book trembled in her shaking hand, and the blood drained from her skin as it ran to her heart, which was pounding so loud that she could feel the vibrations in her ears. She was in shock.

Her gaze drifted to the green lettering on the man’s black baseball cap. Greene-on-Top. The logo showed a roof peak jutting up through the lettering. Beneath the cap, his hazel eyes were warm and steady. Was this what Elinor meant when she praised Edward Ferrars for “the expression of his eyes” in Sense and Sensibility?

“How can I help?”

Ah. Yes. He’d asked her that already. She needed to answer. “My godmother.” It sounded like an expletive, so she gestured to the driver’s seat.

The man—what was his name again?—looked past her to where Fran sat slouched, arms wrapped around the wide wheel, head down, in a kind of sitting dead man’s float. “I’ll be right back,” he said and disappeared inside the restaurant.

Before she could turn to Fran, two more people approached the door. A man dressed nicely with a tie and polished shoes, and a young woman in jeans and a neon yellow safety vest.

“You hit our vehicles,” the woman said, pointing a thumb to her fellow complainant.

Oh. Oh. He must be the owner of the hearse, the undertaker. Daphne had wrenched the wheel from Fran after she hit the hearse, only to ram into the building. She decided not to point out to the woman that Fran was the one in the driver’s seat, as they could very well see for themselves. Or that she was clearly not well. Instead, she pressed Sense and Sensibility to her chest. “Thank you for pointing out the obvious. You may go now.”

The woman looked ready to storm the steps, but the man touched her arm. “Let’s give the lady some room. She’s not going anywhere.”

Daphne was only too happy to let the man edge the neon-clad warrior away. Through the open door drifted a male voice on a phone. “Right away. Traffic’s backed up a quarter mile in both directions, the parking lot’s a mess...Okay, thanks.” Oh. A call to the police.

A long horn blast burst out, and Daphne whirled to see that Fran’s head had fallen against the steering wheel.

“Fran!” Daphne lifted her godmother’s head, easing off her thick sunglasses. Fran was deathly pale and her eyes fluttered shut. Was she having an attack? Had she mixed up her medications? What? What?

A young man in a Tim Hortons shirt appeared at the door. “Everyone okay here? Do you want me to call an ambulance?”

At the mention of an ambulance, Fran straightened in her seat. “Nonsense. I’m fine.”

“A man said he was going for help,” Daphne said. Wait. He’d said he’d be back, and she’d assumed he was going for help, only—

“I got this.” Mr. Greene-on-Top had reappeared with a blonde woman around Daphne’s age. The other woman made a beeline up the steps to Fran. Mr. Greene took up a position on the top step, while the Tim Hortons fellow scuttled back into the restaurant. Would he call an ambulance?

The woman crouched beside Fran. “Hello. My name is Linda and I’m a nurse. How are you feeling?”

Fran groaned. Daphne recognized it as a sound not of pain but of aggrievement. Fran had acquired the same pained tolerance with nurses that she had with her academic peers, and they with her.

“Not bad for stage-four terminal pancreatic cancer. And you?”

Linda’s mouth twisted in either humor or annoyance or pity. With Fran Hertz, likely all three. “Not bad either, considering you nearly ran me over.”