Chapter Text
Later, Emma wonders if the conversation would’ve gone differently if she’d known it would be the last one, but when she really thinks about it, there’s no regret, only grief. It seems unfair that it happens how it does, that if her grandmother had only held out 24 hours, Emma would’ve been there. But life doesn’t work out like in the movies. So the end of her first year of grad school is spent packing her things between crying fits, and then driving back to the place that no longer feels like home. Home has always been about people, and now there’s no one left for her in Indiana, not really.
Her grandmother’s house is quiet and dark when she arrives, and it’s easy enough to pretend the old woman is simply asleep upstairs. But when she crawls into bed in a room that looks exactly the same as it always has, with a small pile of clean laundry folded lovingly on the desk chair, it sets her off crying all over again. For all intents and purposes, she’s an orphan now, and it fucking sucks. She sleeps and dreams of childhood summers full of baking pies and catching fireflies and staying up far past bedtime with the woman who had loved her unconditionally, fiercely, always.
The morning sees her sharing her space with her parents for the first time in a long while. Things are tense and awkward, especially when it comes to going over the will with the lawyer, only to see that her grandmother had essentially left her everything, save for a few trinkets here or there.
“It would be my recommendation,” the lawyer says, “to get the house appraised, regardless of your intentions.”
“Oh, I’m selling it,” Emma says quickly. It catches her off-guard. When had she decided that? Her mother looks at her then, and the flash of hurt in her eyes is entirely unexpected.
“I have some realtor recommendations,” the lawyer offers and Emma chuckles when he slides her a card with Linda Greene’s name across the top. “Something wrong?”
“No.” Emma meets his eyes, still smiling. “Nothing at all. Thank you. I’ll give her a call.”
She’s grateful to leave the lawyer’s office and her parents behind again, but she’s not ready to go back yet, either. So Emma sits in her car with the AC blasting and checks her notifications for the first time in four days. There’s a flood of comments and condolence messages, and there, tucked in the middle, is Alyssa’s name.
I’ll be at the service. Let me know if there’s anything I can do. <3
She wonders if Alyssa had lingered on the message, if she’d thought about Emma at all after the last time they’d seen each other--in passing, two days before Christmas, at CVS. Was she just being polite? Probably.
Being back really sucks. It makes her feel like she hasn’t made a lick of progress, like the last five years she’s spent building an actual life for herself outside of the confines of Edgewater don’t matter.
Frustrated with herself, Emma drives back to her grandmother’s house, only to find a familiar car in the driveway. And there’s Barry, standing on the porch, holding a giant bouquet of flowers.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Emma says as she walks up the porch steps.
“Who do you take me for? Of course I did.”
She lets Barry pull her into a hug, and then they’re both crying, and it’s not at all how Emma had imagined starting her summer vacation.
Getting drunk in her high school bedroom is a marginal improvement. It’s just her and Barry and whatever cheap alcohol her grandmother had kept on hand for holiday parties.
“So you’re selling the house, huh?” he asks after a bout of silence where Emma gets lost staring at the stars she’d blu-tacked to the ceiling fifteen years ago.
“Yeah. There’s nothing for me here anymore.” It hurts to put it into words. She’s only ever lived here, college and grad school notwithstanding. “You know, the lawyer gave me the name of a realtor? Three guesses who it was and the first two don’t count.”
Barry’s brow furrows in confusion and then he sits forward to stare at her.
“No!”
“Yep. I mean, it’s not a big town, but come on.”
She remembers the last time she’d said goodbye to Linda, how tearful the whole exchange had been, how it’d felt like a second breakup all on its own.
“Take care of yourself, Emma. I hope you know how sorry I am and what a remarkable young woman you are. If you ever need anything…”
But they’d both known she’d never ask. Alyssa’s family belonged to Alyssa. And Emma’s family….well, the only one who’d wanted anything to do with her is gone now.
Barry laughs in a sort of hysterical way that only comes from grief, and it’s all she can do to join him until her sides ache and her face is streaked with tears. She has no idea if they’re from sadness or laughter or something else entirely, but then again, it doesn’t really matter.
For better or worse, she’s home, and this is the only part that doesn’t hurt like hell.