Homecoming Read Free

as a little boy. Mom helping him tie his first tie before a middle-school dance. Her eyes filling with tears before he shipped off for Iraq. The game he played when he was a kid.
    How long will you love me, Mommy?
    I’ll love you forever and back.
    All of it was a fucking lie. “You said you’d love me forever.” He felt like a groveling idiot, reminding her of her promise.
    A new sob broke loose, but she pressed her knuckles into her mouth and swallowed. Dropping her hand, she squared her shoulders. “I didn’t say I didn’t love you. I said you are no longer welcome here.”
    “Where am I supposed to go?”
    His father sneered. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you betrayed your country and your family.” The Colonel pushed Will’s mother back inside and Will heard her cries even after the door had shut.
    Will stared in shock and disbelief. She had really turned him away. Shock hit him hard and he lost his balance as he stumbled to the rental car, then tore out of the cul-de-sac. He could go to Megan’s. His sister would take him in and hopefully be able to explain their mother’s strange behavior.
    Since he’d only been to her house once when he was on a short leave a year before, it took him several tries before he found it, a bungalow in an older part of town. He parked the car in front of her house, afraid to get out. The reality sunk in and he couldn’t keep it in any longer. His mother’s rejection ripped his soul in two. He leaned his face into his hands, sobbing out his pain and frustration. Several minutes passed before his car door opened.
    “Oh, Will.” His sister’s brokenhearted voice whispered in his ear. She grabbed his arm and tugged. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
    He allowed her to pull him from the car, and she put an arm around his back, leading him toward the front door. Glancing down with his blurry eyes, he noticed her protruding belly under her green sweater. He gasped, realizing his very pregnant sister was walking on an unshoveled path. He grabbed her elbow to help with her balance. She glanced up at him with a soft smile and his eyes teared up again. How was it that the woman who brought him into this world and was supposed to love him unconditionally turned him away, yet his sister, who owed him nothing, so willingly took him in?
    The front door stood ajar, and a lamp on the entry table flooded the room with soft light. She ushered him into the living room and pushed him down onto a sofa.
    “Let me get you some tea.”
    Will didn’t want any, but Megan had always been a firm believer that hot tea solved a myriad of problems. A trait she’d learned from their mother.
    And suddenly a memory flooded his head of Will’s mother giving him a cup of tea and a warm hug after he dropped by to tell her he’d broken up with his girlfriend Trisha. A fresh batch of tears overcame him.
    Megan’s arm wrapped around Will’s shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
    He shook his head, words escaping him as she pulled his head to her shoulder, touching her forehead to his temple. Will sobbed his mother’s betrayal. But her betrayal only reinforced the horror of his crime. Will had stood outside the school as the children’s bodies burned and listened to their screams. They’d died because of his orders and his rashness. No wonder his mother had turned him away. “She’s right.”
    Megan’s head rose. “What are you talking about?”
    He turned to look at her, his eyes widening in horror. “I’m a murderer.” He stood and spun around to face her, grabbing his hair with both hands and pulling until his scalp burned in pain. “Oh, God. I’m a monster.”
    Megan stood and cupped his face in her hands. “No. Will.  You listen to me . You are not a monster.”
    “I killed those kids, Megan. I watched them die and I  just stood there .” He tried to pull away, but her fingertips dug into his cheeks.
    “You listen to me, Will Davenport.” Her voice broke and tears