by Huss, JA
“You can tell me, Ash. I’ll understand, no matter what it is.”
“I know you will. I know that.” She chews on her lower lip as she weighs her options.
“Is it a matter of trust? Or fear? You can keep it to yourself, too. If you want. I’m good with denial when it’s necessary.”
“OK,” she says in her Sweet Ashleigh voice. “I’m gonna hold the rest in for now. Just one more day, that’s all that’s left. In a few hours, all this uncertainty will be over.” She looks over at me again. “And that’s it. The end.”
“The end of who? Us? Or you and Tony?” This question makes her fight the tears again. I reach over and take her hand. “It’s OK, Ashleigh. You can keep that to yourself too.”
She fights the emotion and her face scrunches up as she swallows down the bad shit. “I need to for now. It’s so close, ya know. Why rush it?”
“God, that’s the truth.” I squeeze her hand again and she squeezes back this time. I’m not a hand-holder. I held her hand last night because that was her special request. But I’m not about to let go of her hand right now. This one’s for me. I want to keep a hold of her for as long as I can.
We drive like that for a while. Just silent. Kate is passed out in the back. Every time I check on her in the rear-view her little mouth is open and her head pressed up against the head support thing. Ashleigh messes with my phone as she makes a playlist, then plugs it into the cassette player. The sad music comes on, that same stuff that had her walking off in the Middle of Nowhere, Utah two days ago. “The Naked and the Famous,” I say absently. She looks over at me, waiting to see if I’ll protest. “It’s your day, Ash. You can listen to whatever you want. Today is all about you.”
She smiles at that but her mood is somber.
“Where do you live? I mean, here, in So Cal, where do you normally live when you’re here?” I need to get something out of her before we get to LA, otherwise she might slip away.
She tilts her head, like she’s thinking about this for a moment, then shrugs. “We don’t have any houses in LA right now. But there’s a condo in downtown San Diego and the family house in Rancho Santa Fe.”
I raise my eyebrows at her. “That’s swanky.”
“Where’s your house?”
“Bel Air.”
“Very swanky,” she says back. “I think Bel Air trumps El Rancho.”
“Did you go to school there?”
“No, a day school in La Jolla.”
“Swankier.”
She laughs at this. “I went where I was put, so it’s not like I had a choice.”
I don’t know what to say after that. The whole Tony thing is just hanging in the air between us. Even Ashleigh seems a little bit uncomfortable. We pass by Barstow, blow through Victorville, make our way through the hills they call mountains out here, and then suddenly LA is looming in the distance. The gray haze of smog that lingers over the tall buildings looks even more ominous with the overcast sky and the traffic begins to slow considerably as we approach the 10. Californians freak out on the freeway if the weather changes. A little rain is a big deal, so I hope the fuck we get off the freeway before it starts pouring. “Westwood, right?” I ask Ashleigh.
“Yes,” she whispers.
“You have an intersection, or an address you can put into the phone GPS?”
“Just take me to Strathmore and Kelton.”
“Kelton, huh? Not sure where that is. Strathmore is over by UCLA, right? Do you have an address?”
“Strathmore and Veteran. Just take the 405 up to Wilshire. That’s close enough.”
“So you won’t give me an address?”
“It’s my day, remember?” She turns her head away a little more, essentially ending the conversation.
The traffic is horrific so it takes a good hour to get over on the west side of town. I get off at Sepulveda and head towards the hills, because the traffic getting on the 405 is a nightmare waiting to happen. “My house is not far, Ashleigh. You sure you don’t want to go there first, rest up a little and then make a plan?”
“No,” Sweet Ashleigh says. “I’m good. Just take me there now.”
I fight the street traffic for a few miles, then turn on Wilshire and take it up to Veteran. Ashleigh gives directions. Left, straight, right, left again. “Stop,” she says.
“Where?” I ask, slowing down. There’s no parking here, the place is a clusterfuck of cars and apartment buildings.
“Just pull over here.”
I go up a half a block and then whip a bitch and pull into a red zone.
We sit.
And then she’s a blur of motion. She’s out of the car and walking back to the cargo area. I get out as she opens the tailgate and pulls out the stroller and then throws the diaper bag and her purse in the bottom area where there’s room for baby supplies. I just stand there, not quite accepting what’s happening. “Ashleigh, where are you going?”
She ignores me, just unbuckles Kate’s seat and hauls it over to the stroller. She fits it on top of it somehow, like it locks into place, and then folds the canopy over Kate’s eyes because a few drops of rain are falling. When all that’s settled she finally looks up to me. “Thank you, Ford. I am so, so happy that I met you. We’ll have to get together again sometime—”
“Whoa. Hold on. You’re just taking off? No address or phone number?”
“I’ll give you my number, call me later, we can make plans.” I fish out my phone and place it in her waiting hand and she types in some numbers.
“What’s this number go to, Ashleigh?”
“My cell,” she says, like this phone actually exists. “I don’t have it on me, I need to get another one. I’ll probably do that right after I take care of stuff. So just call me later.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Do you want me to wait? Just in case?”
She shakes her head. “No, Ford. I’m sorry it’s so rushed, I just need to go.” And then she grips her stroller and walks up the sidewalk to one of the apartment buildings. I watch her for a few seconds because I’m actually unable to move.
She just walks away.
When she gets to the door she grabs the handle and pulls, but it’s locked. She glances nervously over her shoulder at me and waves. Then someone comes out the door and they hold it open for her.
I stand there like an idiot.
She just fucking left.
I get back in the truck and stare at the dashboard. I look over at the apartment building door and strain to see inside, but it’s the wrong angle from here. A cop car pulls up next to me and rolls down the passenger window. I roll mine down as well, and a few raindrops hit my arm as I wait to see what they want. “You can’t park here,” one of the officers inside says.
“I’m leaving,” I tell them. “Just get out of my way, I’m leaving.” They pull up a few cars and then stop again, waiting to see if I pull out. I do. I whip a bitch and go the other way. If they are conscientious cops they should probably pull me over for that little move. Check out why the fuck I’d do something like that right in front of them. Maybe threaten me a little, write me a ticket. But they don’t. I check the rear-view and they’re already gone before I get to a little curve in the road, so I whip another bitch and pull over again.
“What the fuck just happened?” I just spent a week with a girl and her baby. Everything was awesome and now… she just walks away? I grab my phone and call the number she put in.
Errr-reeee-eeeeet. The number you have dialed is not in service. Please hang up and try your—
Fucking figured that much. The girl lives in Japan, she has no LA area code number.
I let out a long breath and shake my head. “Fuck!” I look down at the building again. I can’t see shit, too many trees. And I’m just about to pull out and go see if I can get inside and somehow figure out where Tony lives when I see the stroller going down the road towards Strathmore. I watch and wait and when she gets there, she crosses that street and then continues do
wn Strathmore towards Veteran.
I pull out and drive slowly after her. Where the fuck is she going?
I pull back into the red zone I just left and park the truck, then jump out and walk after her. This is a fairly quiet neighborhood, so there’s no one around. When I get down to Strathmore and look for her, she’s already walking around the corner of Veteran. I jog after her because obviously this was not the building where Tony lives. She gave me the wrong address so I wouldn’t know where she was going.
When I get to the corner I almost expect her to be gone, disappeared like a ghost. But she’s still walking. And if the clouds weren’t black with the threat of a storm, she’d look like just another mother out for an afternoon stroll with her baby. I follow, staying back quite a ways, and she goes past a slew of apartment buildings. I jog a little to catch up and she crosses another driveway leading into the one of the large complexes that line one whole side of the street. I’m just about to give up being stealthy when she stops, looks both ways, and crosses Veteran. I keep walking, my eyes glued to her small body as she maneuvers the stroller over the curb and then approaches a gate in the long wrought-iron fence that lines that side of the street.
Oh.
Fuck.
No.
My heart crashes as she turns the handle and pulls the gate open, props it against her hip, and pushes the stroller through.
I want to drop to the ground, that’s how much this hurts me. My chest is one gaping hole right now, and I don’t even know how to process what I’m seeing.
Because Ashleigh just walked into the Los Angeles National Cemetery.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Tony is dead.
Tony is dead.
That’s all I think about as I run back to the Bronco.
Tony is dead.
He didn’t leave her, he fucking died while serving. And she was left overseas in a foreign country, all alone, pregnant, trapped.
My hands are shaking so bad when I get to the truck I can barely push the key in the ignition. The Bronco starts up and I take a breath to calm my racing heart.
Ashleigh. I need to get to her. Now.
I pull out and almost hit a fucking UPS truck. The guy honks and screams something derogatory at me as he passes by.
Calm down, Ford. Fuck. You’re no help to her if you’re dead too.
I follow the same route I did walking, but when I get to the gate it hits me. There’s no way to get in on this side of the cemetery. I have to go all the way down to Wilshire and drive around. I try and look for Ashleigh and the stroller, but I can’t see her and pay attention to the traffic at the same time. The turn lane I need to be in on Wilshire is impossible to get to because the far right lane is also the fucking on-ramp to the 405 and it’s backed up past the street I’m currently on, so it takes me almost ten fucking minutes to make it to the cemetery entrance. I drive in cautiously, trying to decide which way to go. This place is massive—nothing but white headstones. Row after row after row of white headstones.
I decide to hit the gate where she came in and go from there. That’s just straight back from the entrance, so I drive slowly, looking out both sides as I creep along. A large thunderclap jars me for a second and then the bolt of lightning that follows send eerie shadows across the darkening sky. I get to the end of the road and it just curves around in a loop so I stop and get out, then climb on top of the truck and look out over the sea of dead soldiers.
“Fuck, Ash. Where the hell did you go?” The rain starts as the last word leaves my mouth so I jump back in and drive. I go right this time, towards a large palm tree that looks like it’s wearing the wrong uniform in a platoon of eucalyptus and scrub oaks. I follow this road as the rain pelts the roof and I can barely see anything. I slow down some more, take another road off to the left, and search both sides. I’m just about to give up and move to another part of the cemetery when I see her—way off in another section, just heading under some large trees. Another clap of thunder gets my ass in gear and I’m already heading that way when the next bolt of lightning flashes. I lose sight of her for a few seconds as I follow the road, but then the stroller pops into view again.
Ashleigh is nowhere to be found.
I panic. What the hell just happened?
I park the Bronco and jump out, heading over to the stroller at a full run. When I get there I see her, spread out on the ground in front of a headstone, lying completely still, her arms outstretched, like she’s desperately trying to hug the grave. Like she’s desperately trying to hug her dead fiancé who lies under it.
My world stops and all I see, feel, and hear is her pain.
The pelting rain competes with a screaming Kate for attention and the world starts up again.
“Ashleigh?”
She is soaked, I am soaked. Kate—I look over at her and she’s half protected from the stinging drops by the canopy, but she too is soaked.
I kneel down in the grass and touch Ashleigh’s back. “Ash?”
She takes a long gasp and lets out a wail punctuated by the crashing thunder overhead.
My heart is in pieces. I’m shattered into billions of pieces with the sight of her grief.
“Ashleigh, we need to go. It’s raining. The baby—” I look over at Kate and she is in full-on wail mode right now. “I’ll put her in the truck, OK? Stay here. OK?”
I grab the stroller and push. I try to hurry, run even, but the soggy grass is not cooperating and I just make it worse. When I get to the Bronco it takes me a few minutes to figure out how to get the fucking seat to detach from the stroller. Once that’s done I buckle Kate into the backseat and shove the unfolded stroller into the cargo area. I do not have time to decipher that bullshit.
Kate roars her complaints. Her face is turning red from the crying and her little fists are shaking as she protests everything that just happened.
Fuck. I need to get Ash, but Kate—
I look around. I’m conflicted. How bad of a parenting sin is it to leave a baby alone in a vehicle?
The rain is still coming down hard, harder, maybe. I can’t leave Ashleigh out there in the rain. She’s falling to pieces on top of her dead lover. She needs me.
Kate is upset, she’s loud with her crying, she’s turning herself red—and that scares the shit out of me.
But Ashleigh is coming to terms with something life-crushing. Ashleigh is experiencing the worst moment of her life, maybe. I stand there, the rain running down my face, undecided. I’m back on that fucking mountain in Loveland and everyone I know is buried under a sea of white.
I slam the door of the Bronco and the sounds of the wailing baby fade. Kate is safe in the truck. She’s not out in the rain. She’s upset, but she is not hurt.
I turn away and jog back over to Ashleigh. She hasn’t moved and the rainwater is starting to puddle up around her. I kneel down and put my hand on her back. “Ashleigh?”
There is nothing but sobs from her. She is face down in the grass, sopping wet, muddy, and dying of a broken heart. I lie down next to her and push my face into her neck. “Ashleigh, please.”
She turns her head and I almost wish she didn’t. Her eyes are so bloodshot they scare me. Her cheeks are covered in mud and stray pieces of grass, and her hair sticks to her skin. Long strands are wedged between her trembling lips. “I can’t do it, Ford.”
“Can’t do what, Ash?”
“Live without him. I don’t want to live without him.”
Oh. My. Fuck. “Ashleigh—”
“I have so many things I need to say and I can’t say them. There’s nothing here, Ford. I thought I’d feel him here. I thought—” She hiccups and pushes her face back into the grass, then turns back and gasps for air. “But they never even found his body. He was blown up, into tiny little pieces. In some country filled with people who would do it again and never even blink. They blew up my Tony. He was the only one who loved me. The only one. And now I have no one. And he doesn’t even know, Ford. He doesn’t even k
now I had the baby. He missed it.”
Her pain escapes as a long mourning wail.
And I have no idea what to do.
“I’d do anything, Ford. Anything, if I could just talk to him one more time. Just lie on his chest and have his arms around me one more time so I could tell him all these things he needs to know. Why can’t we get one last moment? Why can’t I have one last moment with him? I don’t understand this. I don’t understand why I had to lose him. I just need a moment. Just one moment.”
I stare at her as my mind races with possibilities, solutions to this problem I know I can solve. I have all the answers, that’s what Dallas told Ash that night. I’m the guy with the answers and she needs me.
I lie down in the grass next to her. “Come here.” I grab her upper arms and she’s like a rag doll, limp. Dead weight. Empty. I pull her on top of me and wrap my arms around her, her sobs rocking against my chest. “Tell me, Ashleigh. Tell me all those things you need him to know. I’ll make sure he gets the message.”
Her crying stops abruptly and she lifts her head to look me in the eyes. Snot is running out of her nose and she sniffs. “Did he send you, Ford? Did he send you to save me?”
I break again. All this time she was asking if her dead lover sent me to help her.
All I can do is stare and nod. Her dark eyes are filled with sadness. But for a fraction of a second there’s hope there too. Hope that I can give her what she needs. I clear my throat and find my voice. “Yes, Ashleigh. He sent me.”
She drops her forehead to my chest and cries again, but this time it has a feeling of relief. “I knew it. I knew it. I knew the moment you asked me to come in your hotel room. I knew he was there that night, looking over me. Trying desperately to stop me from making a big mistake. And he couldn’t contact me himself, so he sent you. He sent you, Ford.”
“Tell me what you need him to know, Ash. He can hear you. Tell me everything you need him to know.”
“I have so much to say, Tony. I had so much trouble with the baby before she was born. I got sick at school and they took me to the hospital and wouldn’t let me go home. I missed your last call. They kept me there, in that stupid little hospital. And then Kate was sick when she was born and they kept me even longer. I didn’t even know you were dead. I didn’t even know you were dead. I went home and I played my messages on the machine and your last call came on and you talked about happy things. Our holiday time we were planning. You said I was probably out shopping for Kate spending all kinds of money. And it made all that crap they put me through with the birth worth it. And then… and then… the message ended and there were so many more messages. All hangups. Until I got to the last message. It was a buddy of yours saying they didn’t know how to find me and I needed to call them right away…”