From the Embers

by Aly Martinez

  “Evelyn,” I called, coming unstuck.

  She quickly came around the corner as though she hadn’t been far—wisely so. Searching his face for permission, I took Luna from his arms and then passed her off to Evelyn. “Can you do me a favor and take the kids outside for a little bit?”

  “Of course,” she replied.

  “That’s not necessary,” he said, reaching for his daughter. “I just need to get her stuff so we can get out of here. I have a lot to do today.” His tone became increasingly agitated. “I don’t have time to—”

  I stepped between him and Evelyn. “Eason, stop.”

  “I can’t stop. I can’t stop any of this,” he snapped. “Look, I’ve got a buddy waiting in the car, I just need to get her stuff.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” I whispered. “You and Luna are going to stay here for a while. In the pool house. It’s what Rob would have wanted.”

  “Yeah, well. Rob’s dead, right? Lets you off the hook there.”

  My back shot straight. It was a fact, yet it still felt like a punch to the stomach. “That’s not fair.”

  “And what part of this is fair?”

  With a chin jerk, I signaled for Evelyn to go, and without further objections from Eason, she hurried Luna from the room.

  We stood in silence until I heard the back door close. “You need to take a deep breath and relax. I know you’re hurting but—”

  “Hurting?” he laughed. “Having my arms torn off would be hurting compared to the shit that is happening inside me right now. I can’t fucking close my eyes without those flames consuming me again. I can’t eat or sleep.” He lifted a trembling hand out in front of him. “I just fucking shake all the time, like my soul is trying to tear free from my body. And sometimes I wish it would, even if that meant I went with it. But then there’s Luna and I know she needs me, but how do I look that little girl in the face knowing I let her mother die?”

  I swallowed hard. “You didn’t let—”

  “Bullshit,” he hissed. “Don’t you dare stand there and act like you don’t blame me for this. Rob wouldn’t have left me in that house, right? Isn’t that what you said? This was all my fault, right, Bree?” He took a long stride toward me, crowding me in the otherwise empty foyer. “You already said it once. Seeing how I haven’t heard one fucking word from you, I’m not guessing your opinion has changed all that much since then.”

  Guilt swelled in my chest, but I stood there with my mouth clamped shut, unable to argue the truth.

  “Right,” he whispered. “So, thanks, but no, thanks. I already blame myself enough without staying here, knowing you blame me too.”

  He turned on a toe and marched toward the back door.

  Jesus, what was happening?

  Rob and Jessica would have hated us arguing like this.

  In the wake of tragedy, it’s easy to withdraw into yourself. After all, you can’t fathom how anyone else could adequately understand the misery you’re going through.

  But Eason did. We filtered our pain in our own ways. Our hearts would work their way through the stages of grief differently. But whether we liked it or not, with every step, Eason was beside me on that same trip through hell.

  The realization that I wasn’t completely alone in this eased the pressure in my chest in unimaginable ways.

  “You thought I was Jessica,” I told his back.

  He froze mid-step.

  “I saw your face that night. You were devastated that it was me you’d carried out. And honestly, I don’t blame you for that.”

  “Bree,” he whispered, slowly turning around, his face pale and filled with shame.

  “It’s okay to hate me for not being her.”

  “I don’t hate you. I’m just so fucking—”

  “Mad,” I finished for him, a tear sliding down my cheek. “Bitter. Terrified. Heartbroken. Lost. Confused.”

  He slanted his head, pained understanding crinkling his forehead. “Yeah. All of it.”

  “Me too.” A heart-wrenching sob I could no longer contain ravaged my body, but in the next beat, I was in his arms.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his strong arms wrapping around me. “I’m so fucking sorry. I wish I could have saved all of you.”

  He had nothing to apologize for. Rationally, I knew that. Getting to a place of acceptance would be a ways off though. Much like him finding a way to look at me without the regret of that night devouring him.

  But I was willing to try if he was.

  “Please stay here with us,” I cried into his chest. “Just until you get on your feet. You can hate me and I’ll hate you, but we can do it together, okay?”

  “Yeah,” he rumbled through an onslaught of emotion. He gathered me closer, his chest vibrating with silent tears of his own. “I can do that.”

  We didn’t say anything else.

  Eason and I stood in the foyer, crying together for what felt like an eternity. Two people who had lost everything finding solace in familiarity.

  When he finally released me, I didn’t feel better. Having company in hell didn’t change the fact that you were still actually in hell.

  Then again, I didn’t feel worse, either. And that in and of itself was progress.

  EASON

  We buried Jessica ten days after the fire. It could have been a thousand days after and I wouldn’t have been ready. Her funeral was small—only about fifty people in attendance. A few of her family members had made the trek from Florida, her father notably missing even after I’d sent him money for a plane ticket.

  Despite the gaping hole in my chest, I did everything I could to make that day as special as Jessica deserved. Orange roses, the kind she’d carried at our wedding, covered her ivory casket and a huge memorial of hundreds of photos I’d painstakingly constructed from the cloud storage on our old cell phones created the backdrop to say goodbye to my wife.

  A preacher who had never met her spoke about celebrating her life and honoring her memory.

  Bree attempted to tell the story of how they met, but she broke down about halfway through and had to be ushered back to her seat.

  I played the Rolling Stone’s “Wild Horses” on the guitar. There were supposed to be lyrics, but it was all I could do to find the right chords.

  Through it all, Evelyn stood in the corner, bouncing my fussy daughter, who would never remember her mother.

  I hugged people I didn’t know.

  Caught up with old friends I hadn’t seen in years.

  Consoled family members she’d hated.

  Bree was generous enough to open her house for lunch after the funeral. It was a kind and thoughtful gesture, especially since the wasteland that had once been my home was still roped off with police tape.

  By the end of the day, as I retreated to the pool house with Luna, I was so physically and emotionally exhausted that I somehow managed to actually sleep. Which was amazing, considering first thing the next morning, I had to wake up and do it all over again.

  “Does Dad have to wear work clothes in heaven?”

  Squatting in front of Asher, I stopped buttoning his shirt and looked him in the eye. “What?”

  “Like suits and stuff. Does he have to wear those or can he wear weekend clothes?”

  My throat got thick. “It’s heaven. I guess your dad can wear whatever he wants.”

  He half smiled. “He’ll probably wear weekend clothes, then. He had this one shirt he wore all the time with a hole under the arm. Mom hated it, so she used to poke her finger in it and tell him to go change.” He slanted his head. Everything from his straight, dark brown hair to his expressive eyebrows looked just like a younger version of Rob. “I wonder if he took that shirt with him.”

  Familiar pain wrenched my stomach. Madison and Luna were one thing. They were too young to truly understand what had happened to Jessica and Rob, but Asher was a vortex of curiosity. In the span of a week, he’d gone from a wild child to a Jeopardy contestant stuck on the category
Afterlife. I couldn’t blame him though. Death was an abstract concept even to adults, much less a five-year-old.

  I didn’t know how Bree did it. I could barely talk to Luna about Jessica and she was usually slapping me in the face and blowing spit bubbles through the majority of our conversations.

  “I don’t think he got to take anything with him, buddy. But maybe you can keep the shirt. You can wear it anytime you’re missing him.”

  His eyes flared comically wide. “Is that what you do with Aunt Jessica’s clothes?”

  The laugh sprang from my throat before my constant state of misery had the chance to tamp it down. If I’d given it a second to really sink in, it would have been a bullet through my heart. I didn’t have any of Jessica’s clothes. Nothing to cling to on the darkest nights. Nothing to pass down to Luna. Short of the photos I’d recovered, nothing from our lives together had been salvageable after the fire.

  However, right then, as I stared at a brave little boy getting dressed for his father’s funeral, I lived in the moment.

  “What? You don’t think I’d look good in one of her outfits?”

  He shrugged. “Not really.”

  “I’ll have you know that I look spectacular in a crop top.”

  “A crop what?” He curled his lip—again, just like Rob.

  I stood up and patted my stomach. “A crop top. It’s a shirt that shows off your stomach. Surely you’ve seen my abs.”

  “No, but I’ve seen your chicken nugget chest hair.”

  I barked a laugh that I swear traveled through my entire body.

  Well, hello there, Endorphins. So nice of you to join me again.

  “What’s going on in here?” Bree asked.

  I spun like a kid caught with my hand in the cookie jar and found her standing in a long, black dress, her wavy, brown hair pinned back and her makeup flawless—such was her personal brand of excellence.

  “Oh, hey,” I greeted with an awkward grin.

  Things with Bree were still, um, for lack of better terms, fucking weird. I mostly kept to myself in the pool house. However, with food being dropped off by the truckload, Bree had set an open invitation for dinner. Okay, so it wasn’t so much of an invitation as a demand.

  “Dinner will be ready at six. Be there so I know you haven’t gone off the deep end and drunk yourself into a coma, leaving me with three children under six and another funeral to plan.”

  Oh, that woman had a way with words. And to think, I was the songwriter. Then again, her harsh words were just how she was coping, and her brash honesty was at least something normal in my chaotic existence.

  The first night, we ate in silence. Well, eating was a bit of a stretch. I fed Luna a bottle while staring at a pasta dish Rob’s secretary had delivered. Bree sat in front of Madison’s highchair, feeding her from an untouched plate.

  Night two, she silently cried through dinner, swirling around the kitchen and making any and every excuse to avoid Asher’s scrutinizing gaze. I attempted to distract him with questions about his birthday, which was three months away. It seemed to work. He wanted an Iron Man cake and a piñata. Oh, and for his dad to come back from heaven for the day, which immediately sent Bree up to her room to grab her phone charger—for twenty minutes.

  For two people who still couldn’t decide if we liked each other or not, we quickly became tag-team champions with the kids.

  If I was having a bad day—like, say, when Jessica’s mom called to ask if she could pick up a check for half of Jessica’s life insurance from me at the funeral (a policy my wife did not have, and even if she had, I sure as hell wasn’t giving a portion of it to that woman)—Bree would come outside and, without a word, pluck Luna from the blanket on the grass, leaving me to cuss and rage in private.

  Then, on the day Rob’s mother with Alzheimer’s called looking for her son and Bree was forced to tell her for the fifth time that he had passed away, she’d walked out to the pool house, delivered the kids without so much as a request, and then left for over an hour. Asher and I were tight, so that was easy, but Madison wasn’t quite as fond of ole Uncle Eason. Luckily the mini chocolate chips plucked off some cookies had seemed to do the trick—as long as Bree didn’t find out.

  Bree smiled warmly at Asher. “Something funny?”

  He tugged at the neck of his white dress shirt. “Uncle Eason wears crop tops when he misses Aunt Jessica.”

  Her eyebrows shot up her forehead as she turned a suspicious gaze on me.

  I quickly waved him off. “No. We were kidding. It was a whole story. You had to be there.” I bumped Asher with my hip, sending him stumbling to the side. He laughed before retaliating with a kick to my ankle. Ignoring the Karate Kid, I looked at Bree. “Anyway. You almost ready to go?”

  She hadn’t been smiling, but somehow, her face still fell. “No.”

  And just like that, anguish washed over me again. “Me either.”

  Drawing in a deep breath, she rolled her shoulders back and lifted her chin. “But if we don’t leave soon, we’ll be late.”

  “Right, of course.”

  “Get your socks and shoes on, Ash. You’ve got five minutes.”

  “Five minutes!” he whined, though I had no idea why. The kid had no concept of time. He’d once told me he hated mashed potatoes because it took an hour to chew them.

  Leaning over, I grabbed his navy socks off the floor and chucked them at him before following Bree into the hall.

  “You’re not wearing a tie,” she said, more of a statement than a question.

  I looked down at my black suit and white button-down with the top button left open. My clothing options were limited to what I’d picked up on my two-hour sprint through the mall during Luna’s afternoon nap. It was literally the exact thing I’d worn to Jessica’s funeral the day before and Bree hadn’t said a peep about a tie then. “I wasn’t planning on it. You think I need one?”

  “Up to you,” she snipped.

  “Oh-kay, let’s try that again. Do you want me to wear a tie?”

  “No. I just figured, since today is for Rob, you might try actually looking the part for once.”

  I blinked at her. What did that even mean? It was definitely an insult—there was no mistaking that. But when I had been the best man at their wedding, Rob hadn’t asked me to wear a tie. Why the hell would she think I’d wear one now?

  I raked my teeth over my bottom lip, trying and failing to dodge the verbal blow. “And what part might that be?” I clipped more roughly than I’d intended. “Because honestly, if I showed up in a tie for the first time in twenty years, there is a strong possibility Rob’s going to sit up just to see if I’ve suffered a stroke.” I regretted it before the last syllable cleared my lips. And not because it was rude and insensitive—which it absolutely was. For fuck’s sake, the woman was burying her husband and I was slinging an attitude.

  But I hated myself that much more when tears welled in her eyes.

  “If that’s all it takes to bring him back, then maybe I should wear a fucking tie too.” She turned on a toe, her heels clicking on the wood floor as she marched away.

  I had options. None of which were going to pry my foot from my mouth. Also none of which she probably wanted anything to do with.

  I could chase her down and hug her. It’d worked when she hugged me in the middle of my nervous breakdown. Though going to Rob’s funeral with her palm print across my face would likely raise more questions than I wanted to answer.

  I could apologize—for, oh, the hundredth time—because, clearly, that was working out so well for me.

  Or, because I too was a fucking mess who had the emotional bandwidth of a cinderblock that day, I could let her walk away, pissed off and fuming.

  Though only one of them would make it so Rob didn’t haunt me for the rest of my life.

  “I’m sorry!” I called after her, jogging to catch up. “I’ll put on a tie. Hell, I’ll put on three ties. I’m not trying to be a dick. Just tell me what will make to
day easier for you and I swear to God I’ll do it.”

  She stopped and dabbed at her tears, careful not to mess up her makeup. I expected more anger, a few curse words, and a lecture on God only knew what. But when she finally opened her mouth, it was a plea toppling out.

  “Then help me figure out a way so I don’t have to go.” Her desperate, green eyes collided with mine. “I can’t do this, Eason. I know I’m supposed to be strong for the kids, but I can’t do this. I’m not like you. You were amazing yesterday. Talking to everyone and thanking them for coming. I’m not built like that. He was my husband. If Tommy No-Name who went to kindergarten with him and hasn’t seen him in thirty years comes up to me crying about how much he’s going to miss him, I’m going to end up in jail.”

  “Okay, let’s not do that.”

  She dragged a large teardrop diamond back and forth on the chain at her neck. “I don’t understand why we have to do this whole circus to begin with. He would have hated it. Don’t get me wrong—yesterday was beautiful. Jessica would have loved the attention, but Rob wouldn’t have lasted five minutes before sneaking out the back to find the nearest bar. But now, because of some fucked-up social construct, I have to go stand there alone and listen to a priest who has never even met my husband talk about what an amazing human being he was.”

  She drew in a sharp breath, and always aware of her proximity to her children, she whisper-yelled, “Was! As in past tense. And then what? Let’s pretend I somehow manage to keep it together and don’t do something crazy like cry too loudly because God knows all eyes are going to be on me. But let’s just say, hypothetically, I don’t tell everyone to fuck off, what happens then? When this funeral is over, Rob is gone. Truly gone. But I’m still going to be here with no idea how to do this without him. So maybe it makes me a bad wife or just an all-around bad person, but I really just don’t want to go.” By the time she finished, she was panting with tears dripping from her chin.

  “You won’t be alone,” I vowed, clueless of what else to say.

  “I know. I know. You’ll be at the funeral too. I appreciate it. I do. I’m just overwhelmed.” Her shoulders sagged as if she’d been expecting me to pull a piece of sage wisdom out of thin air to magically quell all of her anxieties.