Nice or Kind

1

The silence was louder than Simon expected.

The road narrowed the deeper he drove, lined with evergreens leaning inward as if they knew secrets and weren’t sure whether to keep them. Here and there, the first red-gold leaves of late September clung stubbornly to the branches.

His grip on the steering wheel was steady, though his knuckles had gone white.

In a decade, no one was calling his name like a loaded question.

He shifted in the seat, the ache in his side flaring where an old bruise had bloomed just before he left. Some part of him flinched when the wind rattled the branches too suddenly or when his phone vibrated before he knew who was on the line.

Not that he had anyone left in his contacts. Liam had made sure of that.

The house appeared just past a crooked bend, tucked among pine and birch like it had grown there.

It hadn’t changed much since he was a kid.

The same sloping roof. The wraparound porch crowded with terra cotta pots and wind chimes. The old swing he used to escape to after dinner cleanup.

Then he saw the sign.

Hale’s Half Acre.

For a moment he sat there with the engine off, letting the hush settle over him.

This quiet was different from the one he had learned to live with. That silence had been cold and weaponized, the kind that filled a room like smoke until you choked on it.

This one was patient.

He reached for the door handle, then paused to adjust the red hoodie bunched on the passenger seat.

It was more symbolic than practical now, too thin for fall. But he wore it anyway.

Liam had given it to him.

A beautiful thing.

Like the promises.

Funny how beautiful things strangle you slow.

The front door opened.

“Well don’t just sit there like a haint,” a voice called. “Get in here before you catch cold.”

Simon’s throat tightened.

He was thirty-three years old. In that moment he felt eight again. Small, startled, and completely seen.

He stepped out of the car.

“Hi, Grandma.”

Nora Hale stood in the doorway with a hand on her hip. Her silver hair was braided down her back, and her pale gray eyes narrowed as she took him in.

Then she opened her arms.

Simon crossed the yard and folded into her embrace like a man trying to remember what home felt like.

She held him tight for a moment before pulling back.

“You look like a scarecrow.”

“Thanks,” he said, hefting his duffel.

“You sleep at all on the drive?”

“A bit.”

“That’s a lie, but I’ll let it pass.” She stepped aside. “Come on before you let the ghost in.”

The house smelled like lemon oil and dried lavender. Clean and old in a way that comforted rather than stifled.

The living room still held the same mismatched furniture. Deep red armchairs. A blue velvet loveseat. Walls crowded with framed photographs.

Simon lingered in the entryway.

Nora watched him with her hands tucked into the back pockets of her jeans.

“Your room’s ready,” she said. “Take your bag up, then come sit. I made tea. And soup.”

“I’m not really hungry.”

“You will be once you stop running.”

The words landed. Not hard, but not gentle either.

He swallowed.

“I thought you’d…”

“What?” She snorted. “Judge you? Please. I’ve done worse things for stupider reasons. All I care about is that you’re here. And breathing.”

Simon hesitated.

“I wasn’t sure if I could come.”

“Well that was a stupid thought,” she said, already heading toward the kitchen. “Get moving before you fall down.”

Ten minutes later Simon sat at the worn kitchen table, his hands wrapped around a mug of tea. Nora placed a bowl of chicken and wild rice soup in front of him and said nothing while he stared into it.

“You don’t have to talk,” she said eventually.

Simon nodded.

“But you should know that man called.”

He stiffened.

“How?”

“I didn’t answer. What he said on the machine was enough.”

Simon looked down.

“He never said your name,” Nora continued. “Just asked if you were here. Then he hung up.”

“He always that nice in polite company?” she asked after a moment.

Simon gave a small shrug.

“Everyone says he’s nice.”

“But not kind.”

“No,” Simon said quietly. “Not kind.”

Nora leaned back in her chair.

“I didn’t like him from the start. All charm and back-pats. One of those mediocre men in polished shoes who build their lives stealing shine from people who actually have it.”

Simon stared at the floor.

“I really thought he loved me.”

“Of course you did,” she said, not unkindly. “That’s how they get in.”

She studied him for a long moment.

His shoulders had curled inward like he was still bracing for something.

Like he was waiting for the axe to fall.

They had warned him all his life about wolves in the woods.

No one warned him about the ones who smiled.

Nora reached across the table and placed her hand over his.

“You’re safe now,” she said quietly. “These woods don’t scare me, and they shouldn’t scare you either.”

Simon nodded but said nothing.

“You’ve got nothing to prove here,” she continued. “Nothing to be. Just heal.”

He stared into his tea.

“How do you do that?”

The question slipped out before he could stop it.

“How do you start again when you don’t even know who you are without them?”

Nora smiled gently.

“You sit,” she said. “You breathe. You let the world go quiet long enough for you to come back.”

Simon nodded slowly.

Outside, the wind sighed through the trees.

After a while Nora stood and gathered his bowl.

“You’ve got two days of road stink hanging off you,” she said. “Upstairs. Bath. Now.”

Simon cracked a small smile.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Clean towel’s on the chair. Fresh sheets on the bed.”

He paused at the foot of the stairs.

“You didn’t have to go through all that trouble.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“I’m not putting you up in a spider den and letting you smell like a boot and gas station coffee. Go.”

Simon huffed a laugh and headed upstairs.

The hallway smelled like cedar and sun-dried linen.

When he opened the bedroom door at the end it creaked just like it always had.

The room was familiar enough to steal the air from his lungs.

The furniture had been rearranged. The comforter was new, navy and charcoal instead of his old plaid. But the bookshelf still leaned slightly left. The window still looked out over the trees. His old lamp, crack and all, sat on the nightstand.

A version of him still lived here.

He crossed the room slowly and turned toward the bathroom.

The claw-foot tub stood in the corner, porcelain chipped in a few places. Steam began to rise as he turned the taps.

He peeled off his hoodie, then his shirt.

That was when he caught sight of himself in the mirror.

Faint bruises lingered along his ribs, purple fading to yellow.

A flash of memory surfaced.

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

He never knew.

Simon pressed a hand over the bruise and forced himself to breathe.

The bath filled. Steam fogged the edges of the mirror.

He stepped into the water slowly, letting the heat climb his legs, his spine, his shoulders.

Outside the rain began to fall.

Soft at first.

Then steadier.

Simon leaned back against the tub and closed his eyes.

The water held him.

Even when he didn’t think he deserved it.

Even when the voice in his head insisted peace was something earned.

Still the water stayed warm.

Still the rain kept singing.

Simon opened his eyes and watched droplets race down the window above him.

“I’m still here,” he whispered.

The words disappeared into the quiet.

But the silence didn’t last.

The memory came without asking.

He had been sick. Just a cold, but enough to knock him sideways. He had curled up on the couch with tea and a blanket, trying to stay out of the way.

Liam came home early.

Not to check on him.

“You didn’t vacuum,” Liam said, toeing the edge of the carpet. “This place is disgusting.”

Simon had kept the apartment like a museum.

“I’ll do it after I—”

“After you what?”

“I’m sick, Liam.”

“Don’t pull that martyr shit with me.”

Liam yanked the blanket away.

“You want rest? Earn it.”

So Simon got up and grabbed the vacuum.

Days later, he woke in a hospital bed after collapsing in the bathroom. Lungs full of fluid. Skin clammy with fever.

When he opened his eyes Liam stood at the foot of the bed.

Annoyed.

And the first word out of Simon’s mouth had been:

“Sorry.”

Simon dragged himself back to the present.

To the bath.

To the rain.

His heartbeat beneath his ribs.

Still there.

Still steady.

Then another memory surfaced.

Older. Softer.

He was seven, maybe eight, sitting in a pile of fallen sheets after a failed attempt at building a blanket fort.

He had started to cry from frustration.

Nora had walked in, looked at the mess, and said:

“Well hell. Looks like we’ve got ourselves a ghost problem.”

Simon blinked up at her.

She grinned.

“No way someone as clever as you could mess this up that bad.”

Then she sat beside him and untangled the knots.

When they rebuilt the fort together, it stayed up.

Back in the present Simon sank deeper into the bathwater.

One memory taught him that care had to be earned.

The other reminded him that love sometimes just stayed.

He wasn’t sure he believed that yet.

But maybe he wanted to try.

After he finished, Simon dressed in warm sweats and padded back downstairs. Nora was sitting in the living room, the fireplace crackling softly.

“I figured you’d pickled yourself up there,” she said, her crochet needle flashing in the firelight. She nodded toward the cup and pot of tea waiting on the table.

“Nope,” Simon replied, walking over to the hearth. “Just making sure no potatoes were growing behind my ears.”

He opened the small wooden box on the mantel, took a handful of dried lavender, and tossed it into the flames.

Nora chuckled. “I knew you’d go straight to that box. My mama—God rest her and her traditions—would be smiling right now.”

Big Nan, as everyone had called her, had once told Simon that if you ever had troubles, you could throw a handful of lavender into the fire and watch them burn away with the smoke.

“Yeah,” Simon said quietly, taking a seat and pouring himself a cup of tea. “I started thinking about that box somewhere in Kentucky.”

He looked around the room, then pointed toward a painting on the wall. “I can’t believe you still have that.”

“Of course I do,” Nora said, patting his knee. “I’ve kept everything you’ve ever given me, baby.” She paused, eyes still on her work. “Well, except for one.”

“Which one?” he asked, curious.

“That painting of Lake Lydian, the one you won the scholarship on.”

Simon frowned a little. “What happened to it? Grandpa really loved that piece.”

“I know,” she said, setting her granny square aside and smiling. “But I had a friend who admired it something fierce, and they helped me out once. I figured they’d earned it. Don’t worry, babydoll, it’s in good hands.”

The mischievous twinkle in her eye made Simon give her a suspicious look, which sent her into a fit of laughter, and he couldn’t help but join her.

When the laughter faded, they sat in companionable silence, watching the lavender smoke curl up the chimney.

After a while, Simon asked softly, “Do you think he’d be ashamed of me?”

The question cracked something small and tender in Nora’s heart. She reached for him, bundling him close.

“Of course not, Simon. He always said you were the strongest person he’d ever known. We love you to the moon and back, you hear me?”

Simon nodded, his eyes fixed on the fire.

“Simon Hale,” she said, taking his face in her hands, her voice firm but trembling. “You did nothing more than share your heart with someone. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing, you hear me?”

He managed a small smile. “Yeah, I hear you, Grandma.”

They spent the rest of the evening catching up on Winters gossip, the fire snapping and sighing beside them.