Coming Home

Jim Herolin stared at the typed letter through bloodshot eyes. What was he going to do? So many years had passed, so much had happened. His fingers traced the scars on his cheek and neck.

He tipped the bottle of whisky without lifting it off the kitchen table. The neck tapped the ridge of the glass making the clinking sound heard when one toasts a friend, something he hadn't done in years. Too much time had passed; too much drinking alone. He squeezed his blurry eyes shut and opened them as the glass filled. After gulping down the burning liquid, he returned to the letter.

Twenty years had gone by. Back then, Jim had his whole life ahead of him, with a nice house, loving parents, and a girlfriend.

He knew he'd love Candy forever. Her name was Candice, and she hated being called Candy, but tolerated Jim doing so. He had told her she was the candy for his sweet tooth, the candy he craved. They had planned to marry and love each other for eternity.

A week before high school graduation, Jim's life imploded when his father announced they were moving. At seventeen, he had no choice but to go. Candy and Jim hugged and cried outside his house, promising to reunite someday. Six months later Jim's mother died and his father began drinking. Jim dropped out of college and his letters to Candy were written less often. They stopped when he enlisted in the Marines and went...

...to war.

The flash had been like an exploding sun, the noise like a thousand drums, and the scorching fire too painful for words when the roadside bomb sent him sailing twenty yards.

The loss of hearing in one ear had made Jim a civilian again. He drifted from city to city, job to job, bar to bar. Once again staring at the letter, he wondered how the high school reunion committee had even located him. Could he face all those people? His fingertips stroked the bumpy scars.

He twirled the cap back onto the bottle, placed both hands flat on the table, and pushed himself up. He would go.

People always stared in airports, and everywhere else. In the beginning, Jim had tried to cover his scars; later he learned to ignore their looks. But what about at the high school reunion with people he knew?

A knot formed in his stomach while driving to the motel. At every corner he wanted to turn around and go home. Home? Where was home? This was his home. He tightened his fingers around the steering wheel and spun it hard to the left knowing there was a stop he was compelled to make.

Hunched over the steering wheel peering through the windshield, Jim thought he was on the wrong street. The neighborhood looked so different, so run down. When he arrived at his childhood house, Jim sat in the car staring at the peeled paint, the sagging roof, the broken windows, and the weeds in the dirt yard where he had once played on grass. The house looked like he felt -- old, dilapidated, unloved.

Jim wanted to leave but was drawn to the house. He hopped over the remnants of the picket fence lying on the ground and headed for the front door. His steps slowed as he got closer, and then he saw the note taped to the door. The word "condemned" was as painful as the bomb.

Jim staggered backwards on wobbly legs and collapsed. Sitting on the ground, the tears held back for years burst forth.

"Are you all right?"

The voice came from behind him. He wiped his cheeks and looked over his shoulder. His eyes locked on the woman's face and he saw recognition in her eyes. Her hand flew to cover her cheek.

Jim jumped to his feet. "Candy?"

She nodded.

He ran to her and pulled her arm down. The jagged scar was around four inches long.

"Don't look, I'm ugly. I was in a bad relationship and he--"

Jim brought her hand to his face and brushed her fingertips over his scars. "This is what happens in life. It doesn't make you ugly. You're as beautiful as I remember you."

He kissed her flawless cheek and then the scarred one. Then his lips found hers and the two hugged and kissed.

Jim was home at last, with his whole life ahead of him.