Coming Home

Packing

Jeremy Bridges was clearing out the last of his office and packing up the remaining belongings that were not already in boxes. As he was emptying out his desk, he found some old photos from his second year of grad school in the bottom drawer. God that seemed like a long time ago now. Flipping through the photos, he found a picture of his sister, Missy, and her two best friends. Missy, Abby, and Tori used to be inseparable. Jeremy had plenty of his own friends growing up but nothing like their friendship. He was always secretly jealous of his sister’s friendship with the girls, he wished had even one friend he could trust that much.

Jeremy continued to look through the stack of photos until he came to one of him and Abby. He hadn’t know the picture existed. The two of them were sitting next to each other with his arm around Abby’s shoulders while he was kissing her cheek. He flushed at the memory of that night and looked up as though to see if someone was in the room with him, even though he knew he was alone in the house, before he tucked that picture into one of his books. He didn’t know why he couldn’t just throw it in the garbage but he wanted to hide it, he was embarrassed about how he had behaved that night. He sighed as he put the rest of the photos in his pocket, he’d have to bring them home to show Missy when she came back into town. He had missed his little sister since she had moved away to New York. Not that he could say much, as he had moved to North Carolina after graduating from college but now he was moving back home.

Jeremy had met Andrea six months ago while they were both attending conferences for work at the same hotel. Jeremy was there for an engineer in conference, while Andrea was there for a writing seminar. They had bumped into each other in the lobby between events and hit it off. Four months later they got married in a spur of the moment ceremony. Neither one of them had told their families, until the couple decided to move back to Jeremy’s hometown last month. Jeremy’s parents had helped them by meeting with the realtor and viewing all the houses in the area so Jeremy and Andrea could focus on tying up loose ends. They had chosen a small house a few miles from his parent’s home with 3 bedrooms and fenced in yard. Jeremy was hoping to start a family soon so they would need all the extra space they could get. Right now the couple lived in a small 2 bedroom apartment in the city. Jeremy couldn’t wait to get back to Michigan and feel connected to nature again.

Andrea on the other hand was not as excited about this move, but she loved her new husband and wanted him to be happy. She loved living in the city it gave her plenty of career opportunities and inspiration to write. When Jeremy brought up moving back home to start a family, Andrea saw how excited he was and couldn’t find it in herself to let him down. It’s not like Andrea hated the idea of moving to Michigan as much as she truly loved living in Raleigh. Plus the move would give her a chance to write the novel she had always wanted to write. The seclusion would be good for her, at least that’s what she had been telling herself.

If she was being honest the real reason she was worried about the move is that Jeremy was wanting to start a family shortly after they got settled in. As much as she loved him, they had only been together for six months now and to her it seemed a little soon to be bringing another person into their new relationship. Andrea wanted more time with her new husband but she didn’t know how to tell him that. Instead, she just kept reminding him that it could take up to a year for some couples to get pregnant once they started trying so he didn’t get his hopes up too soon.