Page 42 of Catcher

She turns that look on him, the one that probably kept classrooms full of kids in line for decades. “I use it well enough to order truck parts when you forget.”

Dad points his fork toward me without looking at her. “She’s meaner since you left.”

Mom laughs, and the sound fills the kitchen. Breakfast stretches longer than I expect. Coffee gets refilled. Biscuits get passed.

Mom tells me about the school, even though she’s retired from it now, about how the new teachers don’t know how to handle kids with “too much fire and not enough direction,” which is her polite way of saying no one has patience anymore.

Dad talks about the shop, about how he keeps saying he’s gonna slow down, but everyone in town still brings him their broken-down trucks and busted lawn mowers because they don’t trust anybody else.

My brother talks about work, about a woman he was seeing for a while who apparently ‘had ‘strong opinions about everything except where she wanted to eat,” which makes Mom laugh. Dad mutters that every woman alive does that to keep men humble.

I don’t say much. Don’t have to. For once, nobody seems to need more from me than what I can give. That’s the part that gets under my ribs. No questions. The space. They let me sit here with them without asking me to explain why I stayed away for so long. Mom keeps putting food on my plate. Dad keeps sliding tools and truck talk into the silence as if he’s handing me something familiar to hold onto. My brother keeps running his mouth, but now and then, his gaze cuts to me, checking without making it obvious.

This is where I came from.

Not blood and prison bars.

Not courtrooms and concrete cells.

These are my roots.

A kitchen full of noise.

A mother who loves too hard.

A father who says little but means all of it.

A brother who knows when to joke and when to shut the hell up.

I used to think coming back here would crush me. Maybe it still will. But sitting at this table, with gravy on my plate and coffee warming my hands, it doesn’t feel like the walls are closing in.

Mom reaches for the biscuit basket, sees it empty, and gives my brother a pointed look.

“What?” he says around a mouthful.

“You ate the last one.”

He looks at me. “He’s bigger than me.”

Mom gets up, already heading for the stove. “I made another pan.”

I lean back in my chair, coffee in hand, and for the first time since I walked through that door, the tightness in my chest eases enough for me to breathe without thinking about it.

Things feel… almost normal.

By afternoon, the house fills up, cars crowd the driveway and spill into the yard, and neighbors and old friends all show up for one reason—my parents’ anniversary. It’s not fancy, no catered spread, no decorations that don’t mean anything, just homemade dishes on every surface, music low, and laughter spilling onto the porch while people talk over each other.

Mom moves through it all with a smile that never fades, and my dad is standing off to the side, taking it in with that quiet pride he carries in everything he does.

I keep moving, helping where I can, shaking hands, nodding, and taking the claps on the shoulder. Some looks linger a second too long. Small towns don’t forget. But nobody says anything. Not today anyway.

At some point, I slip out onto the porch with my brother, needing a break from the noise. The back porch creaks under my boots when I step outside. The night air hits me immediately, cooler than Louisiana, cleaner too. Crickets hum loudly in the dark while the yellow porch light spills across the weathered boards beneath my feet.

Home.

Or whatever the hell home is supposed to mean after years of trying not to think about it. I lean against the porch railing and drag a cigarette from the pack in my cut. The first inhale burns all the way down. I let the smoke roll slowly from my mouth while staring out across my parents’ backyard. Same old tire swing hanging from the oak tree. Some things survive time. Some don’t.

The screen door groans open behind me. “You still smoke those nasty things, huh?” Dean says.