by A. C. Bextor
Handing me the helmet I had her wear, she pauses before confusing me, “I didn’t think you’d remember.”
“Remember what?”
“You gave me a ride on yours as my high school graduation present.”
Embarrassed by my shitty memory, I’m pissed at myself for not thinking of it.
“I guess I forgot about that. I recall now that you didn’t ride well then, either.”
“I didn’t,” she agrees, but then accuses, “You promised you wouldn’t go fast.”
“Em, you were holding on for dear life and we were only going thirty-five.”
Narrowing her eyes, she replies, “You’re a liar. You knew you were scaring me.”
I’m not lying. We truly were only going thirty-five. Emma was important to me even then, and I wouldn’t have jeopardized her in any way. I can also admit I remember her arms being wrapped tightly around me. I loved every minute of it.
“Maybe,” I concede for her pride’s sake. “But you survived.”
“I never thought I’d be on the back of your Harley again.”
Holding her hand as she gets off the bike, I squeeze it gently when I notice it shaking. She lets it go and fixes her hair, pulling it over her light jacket.
“You bring a lot of girls here, don’t you?”
Looking out into the distance, the mountains are enveloped in low-hanging clouds, but their strong, powerful shapes are distinct. The colors of the setting sun bounce off the tops and create a glow of vibrant hues between them.
“Just you,” I tell her honestly. “I’ve never brought anyone here.”
Las Vegas evenings in November feel cooler from where we’re standing. She tightens her jacket at the neck and shivers. My arm wraps around her shoulders and I pull her in to me. She refuses at first then relaxes at my side.
“It’s peaceful here. I can see why you’d come.”
“It is,” I agree.
I spent a lot of time here in the days after Marie died. I was exhausted and was getting nowhere on the leads I was given. There were a few times I stood on the edge of the peak and thought about letting myself fall. I was in a dark place back then. I don’t voice these memories to Emma. She’s dealt with enough loss already.
Laying her head on my shoulder, she questions, “Do you think Casey will ever get to see something like this?”
Turning her around in my arms, I hold her still, forcing her to face me. She looks lost and so unsure. “We’ll bring her here together.”
“You sound so certain, Max,” she whispers, her hand touching my jaw as her fingers rest on my cheek.
“I’m not certain of a lot of things. Sometimes, you can’t look too closely at a situation or you get lost in its power, which can make you doubt what you’re doing.”
“I know that feeling,” she mumbles, dropping her hand from my face. “Do you doubt what we’re doing for Casey?” she asks with obvious hesitation.
“We?” I ask, lifting my eyebrow to relay my annoyance.
“You know what I mean.”
“No, Em. I don’t doubt it.”
As far as I’m concerned, my involvement with Casey was sealed the moment I saw her small face. She has a life to live for, and I’m going to help free her so she can.
Looking at Em standing next to me, she’s another reason I’m doing this. She deserves as much happiness as Casey.
“Do you love him?” I ask, in reference to her husband.
Stepping away, she moves to sit on the ground near my feet. Her knees draw up to her chest, and she places her hands flat so her chin can rest on top of them.
She doesn’t look at me when she says, “I know I did once. Greg was so much more than this place and the people in it. I thought I was looking for something I needed rather than realizing it wasn’t what I wanted.”
Positioning myself next to her, I stretch my legs out and cross them at the ankles. My hands rest in my lap. “I think I know what you’re saying. Go on,” I prod.
“It wasn’t until we were married that I reached deeper into our relationship. I wanted kids, he didn’t. I wanted a life surrounded by family and friends, he didn’t.”
“It doesn’t sound like he knew you very well before he married you,” I note.
“It wasn’t his fault. I was aware of his career and that it came first.” Exhaling and looking to the trees above us, she tells me, “I sound like a spoiled child. That’s not it at all. I’ve let myself believe it’ll get better and I won’t want as much as I did before. All I ever wanted was a life like my mom and dad had.”
“You still talk to your parents? Do they know about Dee Dee?”
Em’s parents are good people. Her mother works in a bakery downtown and her father retired from the post office years ago. Tommy filled me in after I came back around the same time he told me Em was asking about me.
“I talk to them, yes. But when I mention Dee Dee, I’m told she’s gone. They don’t acknowledge her. After she started stealing from them, they cast her out. It was like she died.”
Em’s eyes look at me in panic after hearing herself compare Dee Dee to death. Her guilt over Marie’s isn’t hers to feel.
“It’s all right, Em.”
“I shouldn’t have said it like that.”
“It’s okay.”
She starts again, “After Casey was born, Dee Dee didn’t let them see her. She wasn’t married and had no idea who Casey’s father was.”
“I wondered that myself,” I admit. There hasn’t been a word about the father, other than he’s one of the many possible inside Satan’s Creed.
“Maybe the pain and disappointment was too much and my parents couldn’t handle it. To them, Dee Dee is dead.”
“People deal with loss in different ways, Em,” I advise.
“You still haven’t dealt with yours,” she returns.
“I’m workin’ on it.”
“You still miss her,” she remarks in regards to Marie.
Looking out toward the mountains ahead of us, I confess, “Every day, Em. I think about her and it still hurts.”
“I see that.”
Looking directly at her, I smile with my question. “Am I so transparent?”
She smiles back, but it’s not real. “You don’t look transparent. You look lost.”
Moving the windblown hair from her face, I position it behind her ear, giving me an unobstructed view of her face. “I’m sorry about Greg. If anyone in this town deserves happiness, it’s you.”
Emma leans toward me, putting her head on my shoulder. On instinct, I wrap my arm around her again and we sit in silence for a few minutes.
I feel the evening’s clock ticking as the sun starts to hide behind the mountain vista in front of us. I hate knowing I’ve got to take her back to a house she once lived in with her husband. That’s not what I want. I’m finding myself aching to spend more time with her, to be closer to her than I ever thought was possible, throughout all the distance and years between us.
“I don’t want to go home,” she whispers my thoughts out loud and on a longing sigh.
Shifting my body, I signal her to stand. Taking her hand in mine, I help her up then she dusts off her clothes carefully.
Looking up at me, her eyes shine in the light of the moon. “I really don’t want to go home,” she drawls again, this time on an even smaller breath.
My hands reach for her face, framing it to memory, hoping to remember her in this moment as mine.
But, as it always is, the harsh truth of the situation is suffocating.
“You’re married, Em,” I whisper.
“Max,” she says my name as her face inches closer to mine. I can smell the beer she consumed at the bar.
Recalling the relief I felt as she walked into O’Malley’s and stopped to talk to those who know and love her, spurs my reaction.
My lips touch hers briefly before my tongue slides into her mouth. She’s soft, warm, and welcoming. Everything I would imagine a home with
her could be.
Her arms slide under my jacket to my back, and she holds me against her. I continue the kiss then suck her bottom lip into my mouth before letting it go.
Behind us, a tree branch cracks with the wind, startling us both and bringing us back to a reality we don’t want to admit still looms.
Looking down on her, I say just as she did, “I don’t want you to go home.”
She smiles softly. It doesn’t reach her eyes, but it’s genuine nevertheless. “I always wondered what it’d be like if I were the one kissing you.”
“Em,” I reply, bringing my forehead to hers after the sweetest kiss I’ve ever tasted.
“I used to be so jealous of Dee Dee,” she tells me, making it harder to let her go. “She always went after what she wanted.”
“Stop,” I return, pulling her into my side and forcing her in the direction of my bike. “I won’t make you an adulterous woman.”
“Maybe in another life, you could make me yours,” she says in a soft voice, which sounds so determined I have to force my hand to grab the helmet off the seat of my bike. If given the chance, I would make her mine, and maybe someday soon I’ll have it.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” I answer, fitting the helmet on her head and feeling relief at no longer being able to see her eyes under its shield.
“I do,” she whispers quietly.
* * *
As we slowly drive down the long stretch of road leading to her house, where I don’t want to leave her, I feel her tug on the sides of my jacket.
“Stop here,” she says over my bike’s exhaust.
Realizing she’d rather walk the rest of the way, I get as close to the gate as I can to avoid the cameras. Once I shut off the ignition, she dismounts, hands me the helmet, fixes her hair, and leans into my body still sitting on the bike. Her lips on mine feel more familiar than they should. She doesn’t hold the position for long before pulling away and looking around us.
After she’s mentally cleared the area of onlookers, she turns back to me and places her hand on my thigh. “Thank you for giving me a glimpse of what I’ve always been missing. You’re everything I thought you’d be.”
“I’m that good a kisser?” I ask, tightening her jacket at the top and hoping my response passes for a joke.
“Well, not really,” she chides. “You’re that good of a person. Don’t sell yourself short,” she advises before walking away.
Sitting on my bike, the ache in my chest rises as I watch her punch in the code to the black gate and glance back at me before walking through it.
There are people here I’ve missed, places I’ve longed to see again, but always only one woman I’ve ached to touch.
And she just walked into a house I know for certain she no longer belongs in.
Chapter Sixteen
Waking up with a rabid hangover isn’t a feeling I’ve ever gotten used to. I don’t drink to excess very often, but after getting a taste of Emma last night, and thinking about her being home and alone in bed, where I wanted to join her, I was left feeling suffocated and frustrated.
My mind raced with possibilities of what a man like Greg may be driven to do in order to save his pride from the blow of a likely divorce. I asked myself what I’d do if I were in his place, how I’d react to losing her. The answer was simple—I wouldn’t fuck it up in the first place.
She doesn’t love him; I heard it in her voice. In my opinion, what she loves is the idea of him.
There are a lot of circumstances in life, which cause us to fall in love with the idea of something. Money can be a gift we all long to have¸ but if you’re alone without anyone to appreciate it with, you have truly nothing to show for it. Power is the same. A man can rule an empire, but if he’s doing it alone, without reason, then what’s the attraction?
After I had choked down a bottle of hair of the dog, I noted it was still early. I knew I didn’t have to be at work until eight.
Checking my phone as I sit outside my parents’ home, my childhood home, I see it’s only six forty-five. My bike is parked far enough away I don’t believe my dad could possibly sense my presence.
My father’s old coveralls look worn from years of use. The same red handkerchief I always remember him having hangs out his back left pocket, just as it always had before. He’s gained some weight; my dad was once a tall, thin man with dark hair like mine. I see the grey under his old, threadbare Chevy hat from where I’m parked.
Removing himself from under the hood of his beat-up red truck, he wipes his hand on the handkerchief and, even from this distance, I see his smile.
Growing up, my dad was always easy-going. He loved to talk to anyone who’d listen. He’d share old war stories, and they’d nod courteously as he continued. He used to hang at O’Malley’s before Marie died. The local customers told me after she passed he never set foot in there again. She used to safely walk from home and come get him when it was time for dinner. We didn’t have cell phones at the time, and my mom would refuse to call and bother Maggie to tell him to close up and pay the tab.
I look down, close my eyes, and try to keep the guilt I’ve felt for being gone all these years inside. I didn’t do enough to try to find Marie’s killer. Looking back, I could’ve helped the police department. I could’ve made some calls to find out if anyone had seen anything but weren’t willing to share it with the cops. But I didn’t.
I wasn’t in the right state of mind. I was grieving the loss of my kid sister. I missed her so fucking much it hurt to breathe. I was a walking heartbeat, but its rhythm was no longer constant. Instead, I did only what I thought I could do. I walked away and left my parents alone to deal with losing their beautiful daughter not days before they lost me due to my own grief.
I’ll never be able to make that up to them.
Bringing my head up, I see my dad’s eyes are focused in my direction. I watch as his hand lifts, slowly and uncertain. It stops mid-chest, and he waves even slower before setting it back down and returning his handkerchief to his pocket.
Starting my bike, I coast it to the driveway. I haven’t stepped foot on this property in over twelve years. Not since the day of Marie’s funeral.
I’ve missed home. The safety and memory of it remains a strong connection. I feel the pull as I inch closer.
My dad stands tall, removing his hat, adjusting it and placing it back on his head out of nervousness. I keep my eyes to the ground and wait for him to say something.
“Max,” he greets. “Surprised to see you today,” he tells me as he looks off in the distance over my head to avoid my eyes. “Can’t say it’s the worst surprise of the day. Mom’s makin’ mac-n-cheese for lunch later. That’ll do it.”
Knowing my dad has the same personality and humor I inherited from him, coupled with the fact we’ve always agreed my mom isn’t a master in the kitchen, I smirk. He returns it with a smile.
Motioning his hand up the drive, he turns while mumbling, “Well, bring that mutt of a Harley ya got and we’ll see what she needs. Mother’s inside still sleepin’, so keep it down.”
Crawling the bike up the drive, I kill the engine and dismount.
“Law says you’re supposed to have a helmet,” he lectures. “Or are you not worried about your head layin’ open on the side of road once it’s been run over?”
“In my bag, Dad.”
“A lotta good that’s gonna do you.”
“I know, Pop.”
Dad stops walking, turns, and I notice his eyes are shining. He’s as happy to see me as I’m relieved to know he’s okay.
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t thought of my parents all these years, but the death of a loved one, especially one so young and meaningful, does something to a person. A cord snaps and if you’re not strong enough to hold tight, you lose your life’s balance and everything falls apart.
“How long have you had her?” Dad points to my bike as I stand on the other side of it. He bends and starts to wipe off the gauge vie
w and body. “Sure is pretty.”
“Dad?” I ask for his attention.
Ignoring me in sight and sound, he keeps talking, “You get your shit figured out yet?”
As though he’s talked to me the week before, Dad picks up the pieces of our last face-to-face conversation. The day he’d last seen me, I was trying to explain why I was leaving. He didn’t want to hear it, so to appease him and my mother, I told them I’d only be gone a few weeks. Time-distanced phone calls and birthday cards were all that was ever exchanged between us since that morning.
“Mother’s gonna be pleased to see you, son,” he states, standing straight once more, eyes still drawn to my bike. “She’s missed you, Max. So have I.”
“I’m . . .”
Raising his hand, Dad’s eyes are anywhere but on me. “Don’t apologize. We all deal with loss our own way. You’ve been dealin’ with it on your own for a while, I suspect.”
“Yeah, Dad, I have,” I agree.
“Thinkin’ might be time you make it to Sunday dinner. Mom’s cookin’ a ham and those goddamn mashed potatoes that taste like paper. Salt or not. Maybe I can talk her into making lasagna or something hard to kill.”
Sunday dinners were always important to our family. It was an hour of our time that was guaranteed to be spent together. Our lives would stop, and we’d all eat together and catch up on what had been happening the past week and what we were looking forward to for the next.
Covering my mouth with my hand, I hold in my smirk. My mom’s cooking is shit. We’ve all known it forever, but only talked about it when she wasn’t around. Marie had inherited the same lack of cooking skills from her. Birthday and holiday meals were tragic growing up.
“Maybe when I tell her that her boy’s home, she’ll try somethin’ new.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, your bike needs work.” He exhales. “Hard to believe you work in a bike shop, yet you can’t keep up with servicin’ your own. It needs done.”
He’s right. And the rumor mill in this town never stops turning. I do work with bikes all day, but never really minded a little wear and tear on my own.