Tunnels 04, Closer

he said out loud, his face split by a broad smile. "I'm really home," he said even more loudly.
    He saw someone behind the mottled glass of the front door -- a shifting human outline.
    He felt as though he was going to explode.
    The door opened and his mother stood there, drying her hands on a tea towel.
    Chester stared at her, so overcome with emotion he was unable to speak.
    "Yes, what can I do for you?" Mrs. Rawls asked, glancing him over casually.
    "Mu..." he managed to squeeze through his quivering lips as the tears began to fill his eyes. She looked exactly the same -- her dark brown hair cut very short, and the reading glasses she was always mislaying balanced on top of her head. "Mu..." Chester tried to say again, drinking in her face, which was exactly how he'd pictured it during all those weeks and moths he'd been underground. Perhaps it was a little older than the last time he had seen it, with recently acquired worry lines around the eyes, but Chester didn't notice these because it was the face of someone he loved like no one else. He raised his arms, wanting to throw them around her and hug her.
    But she didn't show any reaction, except for her brows, which lowered in a frown. "Yes?" Mrs. Rawls repeated, giving him one of those askance looks he'd seen her give people in the street who asked for money. Then, even more unbelievably, she took a step back from the doorway. "Oh, I know -- you've come for the clothes, haven't you?" she announced crisply. "It's all ready for you to take." She gestured at a white plastic bag behind the milk bottles in the corner of the porch. It was full and there was a name printed on it, but Chester couldn't read it because his eyes were flooding with tears.
    "Who is it?" Mr. Rawls called from inside.
    "Dad," Chester swallowed.
    Mrs. Rawls had been too distracted to hear him. "Just someone from the charity to collect our old clothes," she shouted back down the hallway.
    "I hope you haven't tried to chuck out my favorite cardigan again," came the rejoinder from inside, followed by a loud chuckle. The chuckle was all but drowned out by a sudden burst of music. Chester had been right; his father, a creature of habit, was watching television in the sitting room. And, ironically, the music sounded like a marching band playing a bombastic homecoming tune.
    By now, Mrs. Rawls had noticed that Chester was crying. He took half a step toward her, but she sidled defensively behind the front door, which she began to close.
    "You are from the charity, aren't you?" Mrs. Rawls asked, becoming suspicious.
    Chester found his voice. "Mum!" It came out in rather an ugly croak. "It's me!"
    But she still didn't show any sign that she recognized him. If anything, the concern on her face became more pronounced.
    "You haven't come to collect the clothes at all, have you?" Mrs. Rawls decided, now set on closing the door.
    Not knowing what else to do, Chester stuck his foot inside the threshold to block it open. "What's wrong, Mum? Don't you recognize me?" he demanded.
    "Jeff," Mrs. Rawls said weakly, her voice choked with panic as she called her husband.
    "But it's me -- Chester!" Chester exhorted her.
    For a moment anger supplanted fear, and Mrs. Rawls' face flushed red. "Go away!" she snapped. She put her weight against the door, but Chester pushed back, resisting her efforts to shut it.
    "Mum, I can't have changed that much," he whined. "Can't you see who I am? It's me -- your son."
    As Mrs. Rawls swore at him, the sheer insanity of the situation was too much for Chester, and something snapped in his head. "Let me in," he growled, shouldering the door all the way open. His mother was thrown back as far as the kitchen entrance, where she caught hold of the jamb to regain her balance.
    Chester strode into the hallway and shut thrust his finger at a large photograph on the wall. He hadn't seen it before -- it was from the very last family outing they'd gone on, in the weeks before Chester had disappeared.
    In the photograph they were standing together in a pod on the London Eye, Big Ben visible behind them. He remembered how a Japanese tourist had taken the photograph of the three of them using his father's camera. The outing had been a special treat for him, his parents picking him up straight after school. And there he was in the picture, still wearing his uniform.
    "Look -- that's me! With you and Dad!" Chester shouted. "What's wrong with you?"
    "Get... out... of... my... house!" Mrs. Rawls said,