From the Embers

by Aly Martinez

  Jillian nodded, her orthopedic shoes squeaking against the wood floor as she backed out of the door. “Well, if you need anything, just give me a holler.”

  “Will do,” I once again lied. Accepting help was still a foreign concept to me.

  Rob had been an amazing husband, but he’d worked a lot. I couldn’t fault him for trying to take care of his family. The majority of the time, it was just me and the kids. That was my job. A job I’d picked. A job I’d dearly loved. A job I should have been able to do without relying on everyone around me. I understood the whole it takes a village concept, and when someone was in need, I was the first one to offer a helping hand. But being on the receiving end of that help was a slightly harder pill for me to swallow.

  People meant well; I knew they did. But letting go of that kind of control did not give me comfort. Especially since it felt like every portion of my life lately was up in the air, flying around in a state of upheaval. I needed to grab on to anything I could and rein it in. Even if at that moment all the help I needed was something as simple as asking Eason or Jillian to watch the kids for a few minutes so I could actually get work done. I just couldn’t do it.

  With the click of the door, Jillian disappeared, leaving me alone, the way I feared I would always be.

  “Asher, stop!” I whisper-yelled as my son dragged a six-foot-long paperclip chain across the floor.

  Madison squealed with delight as she crawled after it like a baby Olympian. Using my foot, I lifted it out of her reach before she had the chance to grab it—and no doubt put it into her mouth.

  “Hey!” Asher objected—which I would like to note was not a whisper-yell. Half of Prism’s employees must have heard it.

  “Mr. Winters?” A man’s voice finally came through the line.

  I quickly switched the phone to my other ear, nearly dropping it in my frenzy. “Yes. I’m here. Well, I’m not Mr. Winters. But I am his wife.” I cut my gaze to Asher. He had already moved on to shredding the paper I’d given him to color on. Damn Eason and that syrup. Giving him my back as if it could shield him from the truth, I finished, “My husband passed away last month.” The slice through my heart was just as sharp as ever.

  “Rob? Really? What happened?”

  None of your fucking business.

  “An accident.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that. Rob was a good man. But I can’t help you with this order, Mrs. Winters. I’m going to need to speak with someone at Prism.”

  This had been the general consensus of everyone I’d spoken to that day. And it was all I could do not to lose my ever-loving mind each and every time I heard it.

  I’d built that business from the ground up. Rob had taken over as CEO, but I had hardly fallen off the face of the Earth in the five-ish years since then. I still attended board meetings and maintained final approval when it came to creative control. Sure, most of these decisions were cast over dinner or on the sofa with a glass of wine at night after the kids had gone to bed, but I was still very much a part of the company.

  “Then you’re in luck. I’m the owner. And I need those purchase orders emailed over by the end of day.”

  “Uhhhh…” he drawled.

  But I did not have time to paint the man a damn flowchart of Prism’s leadership team. Especially not when I turned around and saw Madison sitting at Asher’s feet as he removed the top off a crystal decanter Rob had kept in his Mad Men-esque corner bar.

  Snapping twice to get his attention, I hissed, “Put that down.”

  Being the obedient child he very seldomly was, he immediately set it down—directly in front of his sister.

  “No!” I shouted, abandoning the phone altogether as she knocked it over, causing it to shatter all over the mahogany floor.

  Madison screamed as I raced over, but it wasn’t until I saw the blood drip from my baby’s palm that the adrenaline hit me.

  The cut was small. But the wave of panic that slammed into me was towering.

  It was too much. Too familiar. Too consuming.

  An onslaught of raw emotion stormed the gates of my brain. With trembling hands, I scooped her up and then hooked Asher around the hips, carrying him away from the glass before depositing them both on to the leather loveseat. My head spun as I dropped to my knees in front of them and tried unsuccessfully to slow my breathing.

  Three drops of blood.

  A wound so tiny that it barely required a Band-Aid.

  Yet my body reacted as though the world were ending all over again.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Asher screamed hysterically at the sight of his sister bleeding.

  Amid the chaos, Jillian came rushing into the room. “Is everything okay?”

  No. It was safe to say everything was not okay.

  My husband was dead. My heart was broken. And I was realizing that, no matter how much I wanted to be, I would never be superwoman.

  In that moment, there was only one person who could possibly understand.

  Clearing my throat, I dragged both of my children into my lap, holding them as if they could ground me. I desperately fought back tears so I wouldn’t scare them more than they already were and asked in a shaky voice, “Could you please call Eason Maxwell for me?”

  It was cool for June in Atlanta. Pulling my cardigan around my shoulders, I sank deeper into the corner of the wicker sectional I’d had custom cushions made from my favorite blue damask after Rob had surprised me with a raised deck and firepit overlooking the pool and transforming our backyard into my own private oasis.

  “Winter and Summer. We have it all covered now,” he’d said, knowing how much I loved to spend my nights under the stars. Sometimes he’d join me, reading a book or playing on his phone, but for the most part, I’d sit outside alone, absorbing my day while planning the next.

  Yet, that night, as I stared at the lights dancing in the pool, I couldn’t find the peace I so desperately longed for.

  “You in the mood for company?” Eason asked, appearing at the end of the couch, a glass of red wine in one hand, a beer in his other.

  I couldn’t exactly say no. Not after he’d dropped everything and spent the day taking care of the kids while I’d stared into space like a robot with a dead battery.

  “Sure,” I replied, taking the glass from his hand. “Thanks.”

  He pulled two video monitors from his back pockets, passing one my way before settling on the far end of the couch. “Kids went down pretty easy. Ash had a lot of heaven questions about Rob tonight, so I thought he might need a distraction for a while. I told him he could use his flashlight to read a book until nine. He’s holding the book upside down, but I figure reading’s never a bad thing.” He took a sip of his beer while pulling the side chair in front of him, resting his bare feet in the seat. “Ahhh,” he moaned, stretching out between the two pieces of furniture, his lean muscles sagging with exhaustion.

  A pang of guilt struck me hard. Of course he was tired. Eason had enough of his own problems without shouldering mine as well.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have called you today, and then—”

  He tilted his head my way, his warm, brown eyes snapping to mine. “Yes, you should have. I’m exactly who you should have called, and I’m glad you did.”

  Jesus, why did that make the guilt grow?

  “No, it’s not okay. I’m a single mom now. I’m going to have to start figuring these things out for myself. I can’t expect everyone around me to put their lives on hold because I’m having some kind of mental breakdown.” My nose stung, but I took a sip of the wine to hide the tears.

  At what point did I get to stop crying all the damn time?

  “You’re not having a mental breakdown, Bree. You lost your husband and your best friend a month ago. Give yourself a little grace. You’re allowed to have bad days. You’re allowed to be overwhelmed. You don’t have to keep it together twenty-four-seven just because you have kids.”

  “It shouldn’t ble
ed over into your life too though. You lost your wife and your friend too. You have a child of your own to focus on. Eason, you missed the meeting for your new job because of me tonight.”

  He suddenly sat up, planting both feet on the ground. “And thank you for that. I’ve been dreading taking the job all fucking week. I hated it there when I quit ten years ago, and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to feel any differently about it now. Honest to God, I was having nightmares about playing ‘Sweet Caroline’ again.”

  “What?” I gasped. “You told me you were excited about getting back behind a piano.”

  “Bree, I’m a thirty-four-year-old man living rent-free in my best friend’s pool house—with my daughter. Beggars and choosers and all, I needed that job.”

  I set the wine on the edge of the firepit and turned to face him, curling my leg on the cushion between us, anxiety creeping into my voice. “Right. And now you don’t have it because of me.”

  “I didn’t lose it. I can still go fill out the paperwork tomorrow if I want.” He dropped his head but looked at me from the corner of his eye, a playful smile twitching the side of his mouth. “Or you could reward me for wrestling Madison into a pair of pajamas tonight by not kicking me out for another week so I can search for a job that doesn’t require me to play Ginuwine’s ‘Pony’ every time a bachelorette party comes through the door.” He punctuated it with a sly smile that somehow defied the laws of grief and guilt by making me laugh.

  “I’m not kicking you out.”

  “You should. I’m a terrible freeloading tenant who punched a hole in your bathroom wall last week.”

  “What!” I laughed again.

  He shrugged and took a pull of his beer before replying, “Apparently my bad days come with slightly more aggression than yours.”

  “Mmm.” I nodded with understanding. “I get those too. I just scream into my pillow.”

  “I’ll give that a try next time. Probably safer considering I’ll need two hands to play the incessant dueling of the Georgia and Georgia Tech fight songs.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t take the job, Eason. Find something you want to do. You and Luna can stay here as long as you need. Or want. Or any combination of the two.”

  “Honest to God, I don’t know how I would have made it through the last month without you.” He blew out a ragged breath. “And the kids.”

  “Well, that makes two of us.” My chest warmed as I lifted my glass in his direction.

  He met it halfway with a clink of his beer.

  Madison stirred on the screen of the monitor, momentarily stealing my attention. She had rolled to her side, fussing for a brief second before falling back asleep pressed up against the wooden slats. But that wasn’t why I leaned in close to the small screen.

  Pink-and-white-striped pajamas covered her arms, but the rest of her body was secure in a zip-up sleep sack. Her crib was empty—the blanket and two stuffed animals that were strictly for decoration had been removed, and her princess castle nightlight illuminated the corner of the room. The glow of her cool mist humidifier next to the bed let me know it had been turned on, and with a single stroke to turn up the monitor’s volume, her sound machine whooshed in the background.

  I hadn’t told Eason to do any of that. Not once had I mentioned she stripped naked at night without the sleep sack. Or how the blankets and pillows were a suffocation hazard, so I removed them every time I laid her down. I didn’t explain to him how she’d been congested recently, so I put the humidifier on to help her sleep, and the nightlight made it easy for me to check on her. Nor did I tell him that, without the sound machine, Asher woke her up in the mornings.

  While I had been sitting outside, lost in a sea of pain and reliving flashbacks of the night of the fire, Eason had done it all. He was a good dad who had a daughter of his own; it shouldn’t have been a surprise that he knew how to put a baby to bed.

  Madison wasn’t his daughter. Though he loved her and cared for her as if she were.

  I clicked the button and switched the screen to Asher’s room. He wasn’t reading. A dozen action figures surrounded him while a fireman and dinosaur fought so fiercely that it would have made Tyler Durden proud.

  He wasn’t crying that he missed his father as he’d done so many times over the last few weeks. I was unsure what questions he had asked about Rob in heaven, but whatever Eason had answered quelled his curious soul at a time when I was so distraught that I hadn’t even been able to soothe my own.

  Eason hadn’t dropped everything and raced up to Prism that day when I needed him the most out of responsibility or duty. He was there because, whether I realized it or not, Rob had been right.

  Eason was one of the best.

  I set the monitor on my lap and turned my attention to the man casually sipping his beer beside me. “What do you want to do with your life?”

  Twisting his lips, he shifted his eyes from side to side. “Is that a serious question?”

  “Completely.”

  “Music,” he stated, those two syllables lighting his entire face.

  “Yeah? I noticed you haven’t replaced your piano yet.”

  He chuckled. “Pianos aren’t cheap. Right now, I’m focused on the little details like a job, a place to live, furniture, and maybe buying more than a funeral suit, three pair of jeans, and a pack of shirts.” He pointedly smoothed down the front of his plain black tee.

  I took another sip of my wine and then twirled the stem of the glass between my fingers. “And what if I could take care of three out of four of those things for you?”

  His mouth tipped in a wry smile. “As nice as it sounds, I think I’m going to take a pass on more handouts. I’m all maxed out.”

  Resting my arm on the back of the cushion, I turned my upper body to fully face him. “Things at Prism are worse than I thought. Nobody knows what the hell is going on. We have no product. No reliable manufacturer. Suppliers I’d had in my back pocket before stepping down to raise the kids won’t even return my phone calls.”

  “Damn,” he breathed. “You have enough on your plate. That’s not the kind of shit you need to be dealing with right now.”

  “Actually, it’s exactly what I need to be dealing with right now. Because if I don’t, Prism is done. I need that company, Eason. My family needs that company.”

  He raked a hand over the top of his hair. His blond fuzz was still too short to style from his hospital buzzcut. “Shit. Okay, what can I do to help?”

  There it was.

  The reason why everyone I loved—Rob, Jessica, Asher, Madison, and Luna—all adored Eason Maxwell.

  “Move in,” I said bluntly.

  He started to open his mouth, probably with some smartass comment about already living there, but I cut him off.

  “Permanently. The pool house is yours. I’m going back to work full time. And if it works for you, I’d rather not hire a stranger to keep the kids, rocking their lives all over again. They could stay here with you and Luna during the day. When I get home from work, I’ll take over and keep Luna too. You can go out and play shows or just lock yourself away and write. Whatever pursuing music looks like for you, nights and weekends, and it’s all yours.”

  Quite proud of myself for thinking of a solid plan, I stared at him with a smug grin, waiting for his excitement. A hearty laugh. A celebration. Maybe another round of beer and wine.

  All I got was a dull expression that teetered on the line of annoyance and skepticism.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Don’t do that,” he rumbled. “Don’t act like you and Jessica haven’t spent years hatching plans to get me to quit playing. You used to tell my wife I needed to quit wasting my time and get a real job.”

  My back shot straight. “I…” Truthfully, I was unaware he knew about that. Dammit!

  He stood up and peered down at me, his dark gaze soulful and sad. “Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do. And if you need help with the kids, I
will never tell you no. I love them and would do anything for them. But let’s not pretend my music will ever be good enough in your eyes.”

  I shook my head vehemently. “It was never about you being good enough, Eason. You’re amazing, and not just because of the way you sing or play, but the feelings you evoke in a three-minute song blows my mind. And trust me, I’ve heard them all. Because each time you produced a new demo, Rob had it playing in our house twenty-four-seven. I was worried about her.”

  I knotted my hands in my lap. Grieving two of the most important people in my life at the same time was a constant balancing act. To be honest, Rob had been taking up the majority of my emotional spectrum for the last month. But there were times when I’d just sit and cry, wishing I could pick up the phone and call Jessica one last time. Listen to her laugh.

  I swallowed hard, a tear leaking from the corner of my eye. “Jessica had a rough life before you, and incredible talent aside, being a musician’s wife was never going to be easy. I wanted the easy for her. If I’d had my way, she’d have married an accountant.”

  He chuffed. “She would have been bored to tears. Though she would probably still be alive if she had.”

  It had been bad enough for me to think vile things of him right after the fire, but to hear him verbalize such a deprecating thought made my heart ache for him.

  He’d been there for me countless times, most recently that very day. It was my turn to be the friend he needed.

  “Maybe?” I deliberately calmed my tone and spoke to him the way I would have spoken to Jessica—the way I spoke to my friend. “But without you, there would be no Luna. She never would have given up that little girl, even knowing how it ended.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he turned away and scrubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

  After slowly rising to my feet, I moved into his space. “If we’ve learned anything recently, it’s that life is short and its impact isn’t measured in years. Buy a piano, Eason. Write the songs. Be the star. Flip the entire music industry on its head. But most of all, show Luna that if you work hard and never give up, dreams can become a reality.” I quickly wiped away the tears streaming down my cheeks. “And you know what? After this nightmare, I could really stand to see a dream come true.”