The highway stretched out before me like a promise I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep. Four hours from Chicago to the house I’d grown up in, the same route I’d driven a hundred times before, but this time felt different. The rental car smelled of synthetic pine from the air freshener swinging beneath the rearview mirror, a cheap approximation of the real thing. Outside, Illinois farmland gave way to the familiar rolling hills of home, white with early December snow that clung to fence posts and gathered in the shadows of bare trees.
I’d left work early on Christmas Eve, my desk still cluttered with project files that could wait until the new year. The office had been nearly empty anyway, just a skeleton crew of people with nowhere else to be or nothing else to prove. I’d been one of them for years, volunteering for holiday shifts, taking on extra projects, building a career that looked impressive on paper and felt hollow in practice. But this year was supposed to be different. This year, I was going home.
The passenger seat held evidence of my optimism: a homemade apple pie that had taken three tries to get right, the crust finally achieving that golden-brown perfection my grandmother used to manage effortlessly. Beside it, gifts wrapped in glossy red paper with white ribbon, chosen with the kind of care that comes from wanting to prove something. I’d spent weeks selecting them—a cashmere scarf for my mother in the exact shade of blue she’d once mentioned liking, a leather wallet for my brother engraved with his initials, presents that said I’m still part of this family, I still belong here, please let me belong here.
The GPS announced my arrival with cheerful confidence, and there it was: 412 Maple Street, the split-level ranch with the sagging gutter I’d always meant to fix and never had. Someone had strung lights along the porch railing, the multicolored kind that flashed in sequence, a garish rainbow against the winter twilight. A small American flag, faded from too many seasons, was pinned beside the front door. Frost sparkled on the concrete steps like scattered diamonds.
I gathered my offerings and approached, my breath forming clouds in the December air. The porch creaked under my weight, the same familiar groan it had made when I was sixteen and sneaking in past curfew. Through the window, I could see the warm glow of the living room, hear the muffled sound of television laughter and conversation. My family was inside, celebrating without me, waiting for me, I’d thought.
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