Thicker Than Water

Family Ties

The house lingered like an apparition. Duncan eased out of the driver's seat and looked up. It was surreal standing in front of it again. He left eight years ago and still couldn't shake its ghost. That old cliche - how one's childhood home looked so much smaller than one remembers - couldn't be further from the truth. It stood like some shadow with all the want and expectation of another person, one he wasn't sure whether he loved or hated.

The great façade made his stomach sink and his hands grow clammy. It gave off an unwelcome vibe, that same one he'd felt driving down Main Street. So much for feeling welcomed home again. It only made him want to leave. Shouldn't homecomings be happy?

Not here. Not in Millbrook. Set in the valley were the North winds rolled down the hillside, Millbrook sat nestled between two lakes, next to the Strand River. In wintertime, the cold wind hung like a shroud over Dornach County so that the land, the trees, and even the buildings themselves seemed weighted in place. But it wasn't all so oppressive. On bright days, the fast-moving Strand stirred up that same air so when daylight dawned and sunbeams collided with the morning mist already rising in breaths and gusts, it suspended above the countryside in sparkling gossamer.

"How's it look?" Keagan said, coming around the front of the truck to stand next to him. "Smaller than you remember?"

Duncan shook his head and stared up at the windows, half-expecting them to flutter their curtained eyelids at him. The top floor was dark, but the front room glowed from inside. It made the window look like a single glaring eye, the same way Lachlan liked to narrow one eye at him and stare with the other.

"After all these years, I built this place up in my mind. But it's just a house, isn't it?"

Keagan laughed and placed her hand on the small of his back. "Well, it's beautiful, like a gingerbread house."

Duncan smiled. "That's what my mom used to say. She loved it."

He stepped toward the veranda, leaned over to trace his fingertips in the weathered posts. He'd done that so many times as a kid, trying to find the joy that had to be there, somewhere deep in the wood the way his mom used to do. It was the only time he could love this place, thinking of her.

His mother shone with such beauty that even as a child, Duncan believed her spirit emanated with so much light she made everyone and everything around her brighter. How else could Duncan have survived so long in Millbrook with Lachlan always gone to the mill or tending to Council business? Or from the torment Connor inflicted on him daily?

Childhood nostalgia aside, it wasn't about the house. The things he'd lived through in that house, in this town, had made Duncan the man he was. He'd never been at ease with that man. Coming home only made that more obvious.

He placed a foot on the bottom step and took them one at a time. The weathered planks groaned under his weight. The entire ride there, he had played this moment over in his mind, but it was here. And all he wanted was to head back to the car and get the hell out of there.

Keagan moved behind him. "Maybe we should knock?"

Duncan waited. He wasn't sure what for. Some sign, some divine intervention that would either swallow the house up so he wouldn't have to go in there, or for his father to come clamoring out the front door waving his cane and chasing he and Keagan all the way down the driveway and out of town for good.

"Maybe we should find somewhere else to stay tonight? I'm sure my sister is off doing bridal things. She doesn't need us crowding her," he said.

"I thought you said there weren't any motels in town?"

"There's a bed-and-breakfast in Creighton. It's only a half-hour drive."

Keagan pulled her collar up to her chin and crossed her arms around her body. "Duncan...I'm freezing. And your sister is expecting us. She won't think we're crowding her."