Saving Emma

by Banks, R. R.

  Honestly, I've never been to a funeral reception. When my mother died, I was too young to truly understand what was going on. I certainly had no part in planning her funeral or the reception after the services. I remember sitting in a corner by myself, drinking soda and reading a book. People stayed far away from me – like I had the plague or something. They'd look at me from afar and give sympathetic smiles, but nobody dared approach me.

  I drain the last of my glass and sigh, knowing I have to go back in there and face all of those people. At least, until I get a refill and escape out here again. I'm not a little girl anymore, so I doubt people are going to give me the wide berth they did when I was a kid. Though, part of me secretly hopes they do.

  I mean, I know they all mean well. They just want to express their heartfelt sympathies. But, deep down, I know they are just following society’s protocol of what is expected from them. There is something so inherently artificial about funerals. They feel so fake and contrived to me.

  It's not that I think people are being purposefully disingenuous or anything. I just think it's all too stilted and forced. Or, maybe I'm just screwed up in the head and not thinking straight – which is a definite possibility at this point.

  My dad's death is hitting me hard. Mostly, because it was so out of the blue and unexpected. I talk – talked – to my dad at least once a week. We are – were – always really close. He just ran a 5k two weeks ago and was getting ready to run another one. As far as I knew, he was in perfect health – unlike my mom, who had a lengthy battle with cancer.

  My dad was so active. He loved coaching and teaching more than life itself, I think. He reveled in the chance to be a positive influence in the lives of the kids he taught.

  My dad lived his life with a passion and vigor most people don't seem able to muster. He really believed in living for the moment and the power of chasing our hearts and our dreams. If there's one lesson that's stuck with me out of the millions he taught me – it's that we only have one life to live, and none of us are guaranteed time in this world.

  He always liked to say, we have no idea when our ticket is going to be called, so it was important to make every day count.

  It's a lesson I always carry with me and remember.

  “Emma, I'm so sorry. This is all so – unexpected.”

  I give a woman I've never seen before a polite if forced, smile. “Very unexpected,” I say. “But, thank you.”

  “How are you coping?” she asked.

  I give her a wry smile and hold up my wine glass. “Numbing it all, right now.”

  She puts a hand on my arm and gives it a gentle squeeze. “You know, I belong to a women's group down at the church, and I –”

  “If you'll excuse me,” I say, removing myself from her grasp. “I need a refill. But, thank you so much for coming today.”

  I quickly hustle away from her and make my way over to the bar, where I promptly ask for a refill on the wine – and when I see my brother and Brice walk through the doors, order a shot of tequila along with it.

  I know I shouldn't be mixing and should probably try to stay as sober as possible, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And I really need something to steady my nerves.

  “Emma.”

  I turn as my Aunt Jeannie throws her arms around me, squeezing me tight. I let her hug me for a long moment, feeling her body shake as she softly cries. My dad was her younger brother – she never expected to be the one burying him.

  “I miss him so much already,” she says, her voice trembling.

  A couple of tears sneak out of the corners of my eyes and roll down my cheeks. “So do I,” I croak. “I miss him too.”

  From the corner of my eye, I spy Tyler and Brice heading this way. I grab Jeannie's hand and give it a squeeze.

  “I'll be right back,” I say.

  She nods absently and turns, allowing Tyler to pull her into a tight embrace. Brice is standing behind them, but his eyes are fixed on me. I grab the shot glass, down it one swallow, then grab my glass of wine, turn, and walk away, leaving him there to stare after me.

  I make my way back outside, walking through the garden, out to the gazebo that's in the center. It's partially shielded by tall, flowering bushes, making it feel like I have a little privacy. Which frankly, is all I want right now. I sit down, drinking a mouthful of my wine – already feeling lightheaded from the shot. I lean back in the gazebo and listen to the sound of birds flitting between the trees and bushes all around me.

  I close my eyes and attempt to control my emotions, as well as the spinning that's starting up in my head, as I try to find a sense of balance and peace. A peace that somehow keeps being interrupted by the face of one man – Brice Kelly.

  What is he doing here? After all these years, why did he pick now to show his face again? I hate him. I've always hated him. He's smug, arrogant, and acts like he's better than everyone else. He's always been like that. It's one of the things that bothers me the most about him. Just because Brice came from money, he has a huge superiority complex. He looks down at those who didn’t have the money or advantages he did growing up. The advantages he made sure to rub in all our faces.

  Well, until he went off to school, got even richer, and more famous. Then, he just ghosted the rest of us, like the class act he is.

  The last memory I have of him is from when I was about ten or eleven, I guess. He was at USC – the starting quarterback and a budding NFL star. I remember that Tyler was really excited to go to the game and grab some dinner with him afterward.

  The two hadn't seen each other in a while, so, they planned on getting together after the game. Tyler let me tag along, and I remember, at the time, having a massive crush on Brice. Yeah, I knew it was stupid and that it wasn't going to lead anywhere – but, I let myself crush on him anyway. Which, I now know, was monumentally stupid.

  We waited and waited outside the stadium for him to come out and hang out with us. I was as excited to see him as Tyler because in my ten-year-old mind, I had somehow convinced myself that he'd see me, we’d instantly fall in love, get married, and have an amazing life together.

  But, Brice didn’t show. He never came out. I remember how disappointed Tyler was, though he refused to let it show. I'm his sister though, and I know how bad it hurt him. My father never said anything about it, but he had to have been upset. Brice had practically grown up in our house, and I knew my dad thought of him like another son. To have him ignore us like he did, hurt us all – though, none of us ever spoke of it.

  What I never told Tyler, or my dad – or anybody – was how much it had hurt me too. How badly it had broken my stupid, immature heart. I just kept that all inside, all to myself.

  After that, they didn't speak or see each other again. Oh, we knew he went on and became a big football star. We didn't keep tabs on him or anything, but we've always been a sports family, so we heard things. We also knew his career was cut short after a bad injury. After that, he just kind of fell off the radar.

  Until today. Until the prodigal son decided to return to Morro Bay.

  Over the years, my feelings about Brice goddamn Kelly have hardened to the point that they're tougher than granite. After he ghosted us – breaking my heart in the process – I began to realize what a jerk he really was. Ghosting us the way he did was just the icing on the cake, so to speak. It was the coup de grâce of his assholeness.

  We didn't have a whole lot growing up. My father didn't make much as a teacher, and what little we had went to pay my mom's medical bills. But Brice always liked to flaunt the fact that he came from money. At least, as I thought back on it, that's the way it felt to me.

  He was always talking about the things his family owned. The things they'd buy. The vacations they'd go on, and so on. The things my family could never afford to do. And to me, it always seemed like he was bragging. Trying to show us up and prove that he was better than us, just because his family was rich.

  I don't think Tyler or my dad eve
r felt that way, and they seemed to take it all in stride, but the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. The more I began to see it as a slight to my family. We didn't have much, and yeah, maybe we never got to go on fancy European holidays, but we never went without. We always had our basic needs met.

  Arnold Simmonds was a great father and the best man I've ever known. Brice goddamn Kelly can't measure up to him in any way, shape, or form. He's not even fit to be mentioned in the same breath as my dad. And the fact that he's here is bothering me to no end.

  I should get up, go into the reception hall, and demand he leave. He doesn't belong here. I drain the last of my wine, and the more I think about it, the more it becomes a good idea. The more I think that's exactly what I'm going to do.

  “Hey, there you are.”

  Startled by the sudden voice, I whip my head around so fast, I nearly give myself whiplash. Tyler is standing there, leaning against the arch of the gazebo, a bottle of beer in hand.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Didn't mean to startle you.”

  I give him a weak smile. “No, I guess I'm just a little on edge.”

  “Understandable.”

  He stands there a moment, and it hits me just how rough he looks. How much life has aged him. He's thirty-eight but looks closer to fifty. His dark hair is shot through with gray, and there are deep lines carved into his rugged face. His shoulders are slumped, and he looks like he's carrying the weight of the world on his back.

  And it breaks my heart.

  My brother's life didn't work out the way he'd been anticipating. Like Brice, he was on track to be an NFL player. He worked hard down at Texas A&M, doing everything he could to make a name for himself, and get noticed by the pro scouts. I remember how proud Dad was of him, and although we couldn't afford to go to his games down there, we always made sure to get to the games when they were close enough to drive to.

  But, my brother, like so many others before him, fell in with a bad crowd. He started drinking heavily and partying too much. The worst of it though, was when he started doing drugs. Tyler, never one to do anything halfway, got into heroin pretty early, and it wasn't long before it consumed his life.

  Once he started doing heroin, his grades fell off, he lost his scholarship, and along with it, all of his drive and passion to do anything but chase his next high.

  After he was kicked out of school, he lived on the streets in Austin for a while. I still don’t know what he was doing for money or anything during that time. He’s refused to ever talk about it. Not that I blame him. I can't imagine what he went through, and if I'd been in his place, I probably wouldn't want to talk about it either.

  Eventually, he called our dad. He convinced Tyler to come home and get some help. My brother came back, got into rehab, and slowly pulled his life back together. He worked odd jobs here and there for a while, before finding steady work doing construction. And he's been doing it ever since.

  It's not exciting work, and the salary isn’t great, but it’s enough to pay the bills, and most importantly, keep him clean. Tyler’s too tired after a day of manual labor to go chase a high. And on the days he isn't too tired, he's got a sponsor and goes to meetings.

  I'm still sad for my brother, but I'm also incredibly proud of him for picking himself up out of the gutter and getting back on his own two feet again.

  But, the life he led those few years really took a toll on him.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  I shrug. “About as well as can be expected, I guess.”

  He nods. “Yeah, I hear you.”

  I turn on the bench to face him. “What's he doing here?”

  The emphasis I put on the word “he” was intended to leave no doubt about who I was talking about.

  “An old friend of ours sent him the obit,” he replies.

  “It took some real nerve to –”

  “C'mon, Em,” he says. “Dad was important to him too.”

  “Please,” I snap. “If Dad was important to him, he would have come around.”

  “He's had his own shit to deal with, sis,” he says. “Just like all of us have. It wouldn't kill you to cut him some slack, you know.”

  I scoff and shake my head. “You have a real blind spot when it comes to Brice,” I say. “You don't see him for what he is.”

  “And what is he, Em?” he asks.

  “Arrogant. Entitled. Narcissistic,” I say. “He walks around like the world owes him something. Like he's better than all of us. He looks down his nose at us, Tyler. He always has.”

  “That's not true,” he says. “Not exactly.”

  “The hell it isn't.”

  “You don't know him like I do, Em,” he says gently. “Yeah, maybe when we were younger, he was cocky and might have had a bit of an attitude.”

  I snort. “Gee, ya think?”

  “But, I'm also in a better position to say that he's changed,” he replies.

  “Yeah, and you can tell he's made this huge change to his personality in the what, thirty minutes you've been speaking to him?”

  “You'd be amazed at what you can pick up when you actually speak to somebody.”

  I feel my irritation growing exponentially by the minute. I can't believe Tyler is defending him after what he did. After the way he'd abandoned us. How can you be okay with someone who practically grew up in your house blowing off your entire family?

  “All I'm saying is that it’s been years now, Em,” he says. “People grow. They change.”

  I roll my eyes and let out a sad excuse of a laugh. The simple passage of time doesn't guarantee that someone will change. And in my own personal experience, people as entitled and arrogant as Brice aren't the type to grow and evolve.

  “I did,” he replies calmly. “I grew up. I was at rock bottom, and I managed to put my life back together. If I can change, why can't Brice?”

  “Different situation,” I say. “You're comparing apples and oranges.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yeah, you are,” I reply, my face starting to burn with anger. “Your – situation – was totally different. You weren't an entitled little asshole.”

  “Actually, I was,” Ty says. “I thought I was the shit. I was gonna go pro. Be a big NFL star. I got used to people falling all over themselves to do things for me. People always wanted to do everything they could to make me feel good. That's how I got hooked up with that whole crowd to begin with.”

  “Still not the same.”

  He shrugs. “It's really not all that different. It's a matter of perspective.”

  One negative thing I will say about my brother is that he can be a bit too softhearted when it comes to certain people. Obviously, Brice is one of them.

  “Come on,” he says. “People are starting to leave. You should say goodbye to them.”

  I groan as I get to my feet, not particularly wanting to play the part of hostess right now. I know he's right though. I should at least muster the courtesy to thank people for coming.

  “Afterward,” Tyler says, “we're going out for a quiet drink, just –”

  “We? You don't think –”

  “Yeah, sis,” he continues. “You, me, and Brice. We were the closest to Dad of anybody. The three people who meant the most to him in the world. I want us to say goodbye to him in our own way. Together. I think he would have liked that.”

  A feeling of dread fills my belly as I follow behind my brother, wishing to God for lightning to strike me down before I have to go sit in a bar and be friendly with Brice fucking Kelly.

  Chapter Seven

  Brice

  “Do you remember that one time your dad got so pissed off during practice that he picked up the water cooler and threw it?” I laugh.

  “And it hit our assistant coach,” Tyler nods as he joins me in laughing at the shared memory. “Knocked him out cold.”

  “At least we got out of practice early that day,” I say. “I'd never seen him that mad.”

  Tyler takes a si
p of his beer, a wistful sense of nostalgia in his eyes. The broad smile on his face actually makes him look a little younger.

  “Do you remember what he was so pissed about?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “I don't. The team was probably just screwing around when we should've been working.”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  Tyler and I relive a few more stories about his dad's legendary temper on the football field. Arnold really was the nicest guy you could ever meet. The type of guy who always had a kind word, and would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.

  But, the second you put him on the football field, and his competitive nature emerged, he could rage with the best of them. He demanded the best from his players – and always got it in return. He was exactly the kind of coach you wanted – tough when needed, but full of praise and encouragement at the same time. Coach Simmonds would go to hell and back for his players, and we would have all done the same for him.

  As Tyler and I relive the past though, I notice that Emma is sitting quietly in her seat, staring down at the beer in front of her, saying absolutely nothing. She looks up and catches me staring at her, and I see a spark of anger flash through her eyes.

  “I guess I never saw that side of Dad,” she says.

  “No, I guess not,” I reply.

  “Yeah, you only saw the soft squishy side of him,” Tyler says with a chuckle.

  Silence descends over the table as we all take a sip of our beers. It feels so strange to be sitting here with them again after all these years. Not bad, necessarily, but strange nonetheless. I mean, these two were pretty much my family back when I was growing up.

  Now, I realize I know so little about them anymore. I know nothing. In a way, it's almost like sitting at a table with two complete strangers – one of whom apparently hates me.

  “So, Emma,” I say. “Ty said you're a – reporter?”

  “Yeah. I am,” she says before looking away again.

  She shoots her brother a look and lets out a long exasperated sigh. The expression on her face is one of pure irritation – whether it's because I'm asking a question, or because her brother shared information about her life, I don't know. Either way, it seems pretty clear that she doesn't want to share anything about her life with me.