The Road To Price

by Justine Elvira

  Chapter Twelve

  7 months earlier

  “Rise and shine,” I said brightly as I placed a kiss on his forehead.

  Miles was slowly starting to stir from his deep sleep. His rocket ship bedding was pushed to the foot of the bed where his head currently was. He had one leg hanging over the side of his twin bed and the other leg bent to his stomach.

  From the day I brought him home from the hospital, he could never stay still in his sleep. It was one of the reasons I insisted on him not sleeping in my bed. It wasn’t because I didn’t want him in there; it was because I was never able to sleep with his body constantly moving around.

  Miles would come home from kindergarten, telling me how his friends got to sleep in their parent’s beds at night. It was a constant battle in our house, a battle I was going to win. Sure, I felt bad telling him no all the time, but what Miles didn’t realize is Mommy needed sleep, too!

  “Mommy,” he said groggily as he was squinting his eyes to look up at me. “Why do I have to wake up so early?”

  His facial expression was so cute. I absolutely adored my little boy. How anyone could look at a child and not see what a miracle that child was, baffled me. This six-year-old, fifty-five pound little boy was the love of my life.

  “Miles, you’ve got to get up. Charlie is going to be here soon to take you to breakfast and get you off to school.”

  His face brightened at my words. He loved his mornings with Charlie. It was what Miles called his “man time.”

  Charlie had been dating my mom for the past four years. She really loved him and when he moved in with her a couple months after they started dating, he became instant family. He took a real liking to Miles, too. I was glad Miles had a male figure in his life.

  Charlie worked at the local factory, the one that Kyle used to work at. Kyle should be thanking the Lord he's in prison because if he weren’t, I could guarantee Charlie would kill him.

  “Yes! Breakfast with Grandpa Charlie is the best,” Miles shouted as he jumped out of his bed. “Do you think he'll let me order off the adult menu and get steak and eggs again?”

  Miles walked over to his dresser where I had placed his outfit for the day.

  “I don’t know, buddy. I’m sure if you ask him really nicely you might get your way,” I winked.

  I didn’t know why Miles even asked me that. He knew he had Charlie wrapped around his finger. I don’t think the man had ever told Miles no.

  I walked over to the dresser to help Miles get dressed. He was wearing a pair of carpenter jeans and his favorite top, an Atlanta Braves t-shirt. They were his favorite baseball team. We had gone to a game last summer and Charlie had bought him this t-shirt after they won. Miles would wear it every day if he could.

  The doorbell rang and I heard the front door open. “Where is my favorite six-year-old?” Charlie’s voice echoed through my small ranch.

  Miles took off without finishing putting his socks on. I followed after him into the hallway where Miles had jumped into Charlie’s waiting arms.

  “You ready for breakfast, buddy? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” Charlie said as he patted his stomach with his free hand.

  “I’m starving, too, Grandpa Charlie, I just have to brush my teeth-"

  I cut him off mid-sentence, “First, you need to finish putting on your socks.”

  He laughed in Charlie’s arms, “Oh, yeah, I can’t go to school missing a sock,” Miles replied as he jumped out of Charlie’s arms and grabbed his white sock out of my hand.

  I walked into the kitchen while Miles finished getting ready. I went to the fridge and grabbed out our lunches for the day. I placed his lunch box in his backpack and put it by the front door. Then I grabbed my lunch, purse, and suit jacket and walked over to the front door to wait. Charlie and Miles came a few seconds later. We were ready to go.

  Miles and Charlie walked out of the house and I followed after locking up. I ran over to Charlie’s car to give Miles a hug and a kiss goodbye. “I’ll see you after school, okay? If you're good to Charlie we can stop for ice cream on our way home tonight.”

  “Okay, Mom. Love you!”

  “I love you, too,” I said as I moved away and shut the door. I walked over to the driver’s side where Charlie was already seated with the window down. “Thanks again for doing this. I hate when I have these early morning team meetings. I learn nothing and it takes a morning away from my son.”

  “Don’t worry about it, kiddo. You know I love my time with Miles. He’s like the son I never had. You go enjoy your meeting and we’ll eat some extra pancakes for you,” he chuckled at me.

  Charlie started to back away as I heard Miles say from the back seat, “I don’t want pancakes.” I laughed at his response and waved as their car drove down the street.

  I walked over to my car and got in the driver’s seat, placing my lunch and purse in the passenger seat. I started it up and checked my make-up in the rearview mirror. I turned my radio on to my favorite classic rock station and backed out of my driveway.

  I drove in the opposite direction of Charlie. My meeting for work was twenty minutes outside of town. We were going to be implementing a new system for online banking. So as a manager, I had to sit down and figure out a training schedule for my staff. Why I couldn’t just do this at my branch was beyond me.

  Traffic wasn’t too bad on the roads and I made it to our corporate office with a few minutes to spare. Not one to waste time, I went into the building and headed straight up to the third floor. The conference rooms were to the left of the elevators. When the elevator chimed, I walked out and veered to the right towards the kitchen. I needed a cup of coffee before this meeting so I would stay awake.

  Jonathon, a branch manager from a different location, was already pouring himself a cup of coffee from the industrial size coffee maker. He was the first person I met when I started working here and he was a good friend, probably my only real friend.

  I didn’t share a lot of my personal life with him, but I still considered him a close friend. He was my partner in crime at these meetings and always made me laugh.

  He looked up from his cup of coffee and spotted me.

  “Mia,” he exclaimed as he walked over to me and kissed my cheeks as if we were French. This was his greeting for me every time we saw each other. “I was going to text you to see if you wanted to get lunch after the meeting.”

  “I wish I could, Jonathon, but I made a lunch today.” I actually really wanted to go to lunch with him, but I couldn’t afford it. I had to save every penny I could.

  “Oh, stop,” he waved his arm at me like what I was saying was ridiculous. “You put that lunch of yours in the fridge at work and you can eat it tomorrow. I haven’t talked to you in ages and I am taking you to lunch. My treat and I won’t take no for an answer.”

  Well, when he put it that way…

  He poured a second cup of coffee before handing it over to me, “How you can drink that stuff black is beyond me.”

  Jonathon was a coffee snob. I was actually surprised he was even drinking the coffee at corporate. He usually liked to go to an expensive coffee chain, order some kind of latte, and pay a ridiculous amount of money for it. I, on the other hand, could not fathom paying five dollars for a cup of coffee.

  We walked out of the kitchen, through the hallway, and into the conference room. We took the two furthest seats from the front and planted ourselves down for the morning. The room was quickly filling up with other managers, IT personnel, and random people from corporate.

  “Hey,” Jonathon whispered. “Cameron really wants to meet you. I was thinking of having you over for dinner at my place… maybe this weekend? We can have wine, play board games, get drunk, and dance to horrible music. What do you think?” Jonathon looked really excited about the idea of me finally meeting Cameron.

  Jonathon and Cameron had been dating for the past year. It was getting pretty serious and every time we planned to finally meet, I h
ad to cancel. I was actually looking forward to meeting him.

  “Okay, well, let me talk to my mom and Charlie tonight. Maybe they can watch Miles on Saturday and I can come over.”

  I stopped speaking as my boss stood up in front of the room and started his presentation. He started with how our banking system was ancient. That our customer complaints were at an all time high. This new system was supposed to be very competitive with other financial institutions across the country.

  A few minutes in, my phone started buzzing in my purse. I ignored it and continued to pretend to listen to my boss’s presentation. The buzzing stopped and then immediately started up again.

  I reached into my purse to search for my phone. By the time I found it the buzzing had stopped. My caller ID showed two missed calls from my mother. I went to put my phone back in my purse when it started to buzz in my hand. The caller ID showed my mother again.

  She was calling for the third time so it must be urgent. I stood up, grabbed my purse, and excused myself from the room. I tapped the answer button and placed the phone to my ear as I was walking out of the room.

  “Momma, I’m in a meeting. Can I call...” I stopped speaking. I could hear my mother crying into the phone. After a few seconds of silence I spoke again, “Momma?”

  “Mia… you… you…” her voice was trembling into the phone. She was having a hard time getting her words out. “You have to…. to get down to the hospi… hospital right away. Charlie and… Miles were in an…. accident.”

  My stomach dropped. My hand started to tremble as my phone dropped to the ground. I leaned over and picked it back up off the floor and ran down the hallway. I took the stairs to the main level instead of waiting for the elevator.

  My thoughts were everywhere. Were they okay? Was Miles hurt? How bad was the accident?

  I made it to the main level and ran out the doors of the corporate offices. I spotted my car right away. I dug my keys out of my purse as I ran to my car. I opened the car door, hopped in, and sped off to the county hospital. I hung up on my mother before I got any information out of her, but county was the only hospital in a fifty-mile radius to us.

  The drive took me about fifteen minutes. I was lucky to have not run across any cops. I was speeding and running every red light.

  He was going to be okay. My mother was a very dramatic woman. She cried over everything. Miles probably didn’t even have a scratch on him. I was racing over there for nothing. I was going to go into that emergency room and see him laughing and smiling. He’d probably be talking about all the cool things the paramedics showed him.

  As I was going over all this in my head, my heart told me something different. I knew I needed to prepare myself. Call it a gut instinct, I don’t know, but I knew deep in my heart that Miles wasn’t okay.

  I felt a tear drip down my cheek and I wiped it from my face.

  Don’t cry. There is no reason to cry. He was fine. He would be fine. You are going to laugh about this later with him. Miles was going to think it was so funny that you were crying over this silly accident.

  I pulled up to the emergency room at our county hospital. I didn’t bother finding a parking space. I pulled right into the ambulance parking and jumped out of my car. I didn’t even bother turning it off and taking the keys out of the ignition.

  When I went through the automatic double doors I spotted my momma. She was sitting in the chairs against the wall on the far side of the waiting area. She was crying into a man's chest. I realized it wasn’t any man... it was Charlie.

  My knees started to shake and my eyes began to water.

  Miles wasn’t with them.

  No! This wasn't happening. This was a mistake. He was fine. Miles was fine.

  Charlie looked up and spotted me first. The look on his face said it all. It was somber, apologetic, and devastatingly heartbroken.

  My mother’s face shifted towards mine with Charlie’s movement. When her eyes connected with mine… I wanted to die. Tears continued to fall down her face as she stood up to walk over to me. My face felt wet as well, and that was when I noticed I was crying, too.

  My body was full blown trembling by the time she made it to me. I couldn’t control it and I couldn’t stop it. My momma’s arms wrapped around me and we cried together.

  I couldn’t ask her, if I asked her that would make it real. I needed it not to be real.

  She pulled away from me slightly so that we were face to face. “Mia, honey, they did everything they could,” she sniffled back her tears and continued. “The damage to his body was too severe… he’s gone, Mia. I’m… I’m so sorry, baby, but Miles is dead.”

  That was the last thing I remembered about that day. My vision blurred, my body felt week, and I was trembling. Then I blacked out.