Coming Home To You. Liesel Schmidt

all the time, so I had decided that Neil’s would be a stopgap. A place to land while I looked for another, more permanent place to call my own.

      Was I ready for this? God, I hoped so.

      I hefted one of the boxes and walked out into the hall, looking up to find myself face to face with the door of Paul’s apartment.

      It was a sight that greeted me every time I went out, every time I came back.

      It was a sight that drove home how alone I felt.

      And it was something that I wanted to get away from. Needed to get away from.

      Paul’s apartment.

      Even though it wasn’t. Not anymore.

      The new tenants were people I avoided at all costs. I didn’t want to know them, didn’t want to think about the lives they were living in the apartment where my dead fiancé once lived. I didn’t know their first names or even how old they were, just that it was a man and a woman. I didn’t even know if they were just living together or married—each choosing to keep their respective last names.

      And it didn’t matter.

      All that mattered was that their names now replaced Paul’s next to the buzzer for 5B in the lobby downstairs. That their furniture was where his had once been. That their lives were going on behind that door, within those walls, while his had stopped.

      I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

      Here we go, I thought. This is the beginning.

      The beginning of what, I wasn’t at all sure. What mattered was that this was a step in the right direction.

      “Zoë, dear, are you alright?”

      I opened my eyes to see Mrs. Fenmore, the lady from two doors down, looking at me with eyebrows knitted tightly together in concern. I tried to smile reassuringly at her, but I’m not sure it came out looking right.

      “Oh, I’m fine, Mrs. Fenmore,” I lied. “I’m just getting my stuff out to my car. How are you this morning?” I asked, anxious to shift her focus.

      Her wrinkled face sharpened as she assessed me over the tops of her horn-rimmed glasses. I could see all the wheels turning in her head as we stood there, silently facing each other in the hall. She may have given the appearance of being absent-minded and often flighty, but I knew well enough that she was sharper than a tack. She just knew how to use age to her advantage. I had a feeling that she knew more about every tenant in the building than they realized, simply because she was so good at unobtrusive observation. That, and the fact that people seemed to just off-handedly spill their guts whenever they were around her.

      Which was precisely what I was determined not to do right now.

      She smiled sadly at me and took a small step forward, getting close enough to rest a gnarled, vein-mapped hand on my arm.

      “We’re going to miss you, my dear girl,” she said softly, her watery blue eyes seeming to bore directly to my soul.

      I took a long, deep breath, fighting off the tears that seemed inevitable. I managed a wobbly smile and nodded, fearful that opening my mouth to respond would open the floodgates; and then I’d never be able to leave.

      “Let me know if you need anything, Zoë. I know of a few able-bodied young men who’d gladly help you move your things.” She squeezed my arm with another small smile, then turned to go.

      “Mrs. Fenmore,” I said, wanting to catch her before she walked away. “Thank you. For everything.” I had to stop there, but I knew that it was enough. She dipped her head in kind of a half-nod, the corners of her thin lips curving up ever-so slightly.

      I watched her retreating figure, wondering just how much she knew. Wondering just how much those watery blue eyes had seen, and thinking that maybe she had once been where I was standing.

      There it was.

      My new life, twenty minutes and fifteen miles away from my old one. Yes, I could have moved to another state, another country, even. But this was far enough. Even such a short distance was a huge step for me—the thing that mattered most here was the simple fact that there was nothing, no reminders of my life with Paul, here.

      The house was one story with a brick and wood siding façade, sitting on a postage stamp yard. There was no garage, just a carport and a small area near the front door that had aspirations of being considered a porch. I was guessing that the house was at least thirty years old, but it looked as though it was wearing those years well. The yard was well-kept, and nothing appeared run-down or cluttered.

      There was a truck parked up under the shade of the carport, a late model Ford Ranger. The charcoal body of the truck looked newly washed and meticulously polished, a telling sign that its owner took pride in its appearance—even if he was going to be too far away to enjoy it.

      I sat in my car, idling in the driveway as I tried to process what I was staring at and how it now related to me. This was going to be home. For the next nine months of my life, this was where I was going to start and end my days.

      I sucked in a long, deep breath, letting it out slowly.

      I was really going to do this.

      I took another deep breath, hoping that maybe I would feel a little more resolute. Not that having a car jammed with boxes and suitcases of my belongings wasn’t resolute enough. I was just scared.

      Scared stupid, if I was going to be brutally honest.

      Here we go, I thought, gritting my teeth as I cut the engine and opened my door. I stepped out onto the worn concrete of the driveway and unfolded myself from the car. I took a minute to look around at the houses around me, trying to redirect the nervousness I was feeling. Putting off going into the house just a little bit longer.

      It was a nice enough neighborhood. Small, nothing spectacular, but it looked safe. There were a couple kids zipping up and down the street on bicycles, hollering indecipherable things at each other. A woman across the street was busily pulling up the weeds in the flower bed that bordered the front of her house, and somewhere nearby someone was mowing their lawn.

      I stood there listening to the sounds of Saturday, the sounds of normalcy, feeling the warm sun on my face as I waited for…what? Why was I waiting? I shook my head at my own idiocy and shut the car door.

      When I reached the front door of the house, I pulled the key from my pocket and held it in my hand for a minute, just standing there and contemplating the door. It was brown; a deep chocolate color that made a nice contrast to the sand-colored wooden siding fronting the house. This was a guy door, I thought with a small smile. To go with a decidedly guy house, I added mentally, noting a beaten-up toolbox shoved into a corner of the front porch.

      I slid the key into the lock and twisted the knob. It took some jiggling and a hard shove against the door with my shoulder to get it open, and then I found myself standing in a small living room. A large window to my right let in the only bit of light. White mini blinds, closed against the curious eyes of the neighborhood, gave the room a soft, hazy feel. I looked around without turning on any lights, wanting to get to know the room a little bit before I exposed it to the harsh realities of a light bulb.

      Time to start the tour.

      An hour later, I’d determined through various clues that the guy was far from a germaphobe, but still clean enough that I didn’t feel as though I had to attack every room in the house wearing a hazmat suit. He was a runner—and quite good at it, if the collection of various medals and awards were anything to go by. And, aside from an assortment of empty missile shells, the man was definitely not prone to tchotchkes.

      I started making a mental list of things I wanted to do to make myself feel more at home in these new surroundings. Vacuum, clean the bathroom, dust…and I’m going to have to stock the fridge, of course, I thought as I moved down the hall to the kitchen.

      It was modest and serviceable, much like the rest of the house. There was a refrigerator,