Fuel the Fire

by Krista Ritchie

  I freeze at the much larger declaration than I anticipated hearing. I’d think someone spiked everyone’s drinks, but no one has taken a sip yet.

  Ryke looks to Daisy, and tears crest her eyes. She whispers in his ear, and he nods.

  They both stand together.

  If someone asked me what makes me—a volcanic, fiery blaze of hell—shed tears and cry as though I’m a pathetic two-minute rainfall, I’d say my sisters growing up, my husband in his rare vulnerability, my baby at random immeasurable moments, and the title screen of Titanic.

  Somewhere between all of those, this singular part of time exists, and it hits me hard. With glasses raised in the air, with all of us unified around a decorated table, cake in the center—I accept a powerful, unbending realization as a warm, heartfelt truth.

  All of our children will be raised without hatred. Bad blood will be washed away and feuds finally put aside. They’ll have the sharpest, sturdiest tools to fight enemies that will not be in their own homes but miles and miles away.

  Our children will have the best chance at life because we’re standing together. Because we all have the capacity to love, no matter what form or shape it may come in. Because in the end, we each remain unbroken, so their lives can begin.

  I inhale powerfully, and Connor wraps his arm around my shoulder.

  Loren raises his glass higher. “To Rose and Connor, for helping us realize the importance of family and the difference a good friend can make.” It’s not often that other people tell us this—that we’ve impacted them. I can’t help but smile.

  “To Rose and Connor,” everyone says in unison.

  Connor captures my gaze with his deep, glimmering blues, and together, we drink to us.

  [ 63 ]

  CONNOR COBALT

  “It was just a little fall, my gremlin.” Rose squats in five-inch heels and blows on Jane’s reddened palms. She tries to console our daughter who cries in Claude Monet’s garden, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited in France. The lush, floral scenery is hardly tainted, in my mind, by Jane’s tears. I watch as Rose wipes our daughter’s rosy cheek, and Jane sniffs, realizing her stumble on the pavement didn’t hurt as much as she thought it did.

  Jane reaches out for Rose to pick her up, but then she whips her head, not noticing me towering above her. “Daddy!” she starts to cry again.

  Rose rolls her eyes. “Your daddy is six-feet-and-four-inches of superiority, and his head is lost in the clouds.”

  I bend down next to Rose. “On the contrary, darling, my head is in the stars.” Our daughter relaxes as soon as she sees me again.

  Rose’s yellow-green eyes bore straight through me, and my pulse pounds. “It’s daylight.”

  “It’s a meta—”

  She covers my mouth with her palm, and my burgeoning grin peeks through her fingers. I know what a metaphor is, Richard, I read her expression. She huffs, eyes blazed and flitting across my features, chest rising and falling. How someone can be so alive by words—it makes me come alive with her.

  Jane mumbles a string of noises and we both break our gaze. I brush a tear-streak from Jane’s cheek, and she sniffs again.

  Rose asks me, “Do you think we’ll make it the whole day?” She fixes Jane’s white sun hat that fell off during her stumble.

  “Maybe fifteen more minutes, and then she’ll probably have enough.” We’ve been traveling around northern France most of the afternoon. It’s June 22nd, so we plan to spend the rest of our anniversary at our hotel with Jane.

  Rose lets go of Jane’s fingers and asks her, “Who do you want to carry you?”

  Our daughter stares between us before reaching out for her mom.

  “Good choice,” I tell Jane.

  Rose’s lips begin to rise as she collects Jane in her arms, and we both stand together. I hear the snap snap of cameras, but I do my best to tune them out.

  People stare. People take photographs, and our security team stands twenty feet behind us. I don’t mind the constant, unwavering gaze from onlookers, as long as we can have a day like this—no fear of harassment or of being enclosed by paparazzi.

  I rest a hand on Rose’s lower back, and we leisurely walk towards the wooden bridge that oversees a lily pond. Purple wisteria blossoms drape and hang, roots twisting around the railing, and rich green plants crawl and canopy the bridge. It’s like stepping into Monet’s painting, experiencing a piece of art up close.

  As we stop in the middle of the bridge, I spin Rose towards me, facing each other, our daughter between us. It’s quiet here, the serenity filling my head with desires and clearing all doubts.

  “Stop staring at me like that,” she says, but she reflexively draws closer to me. I can feel her heart in her chest, beating against mine.

  “It frightens you—what I’m going to say?” I question. She can’t read my mind, but I must wear my wants across my face. And I want her and I want Jane. And I want many more children.

  “What are you going to say?” she asks outright.

  “When I look deeply into your eyes, I see more than just three years of our marriage,” I profess. “I see ten, thirty, fifty, sixty years with you, and I see us returning to this place. I see us old and at the end of our lifelines, staring out at this water, on this bridge—as consumed by love as we’re tragically consumed now.”

  Her hand grasps my bicep, half in threat, half to cover the fact that she’s breathless.

  “I see our children,” I say. “Many more children, Rose.”

  “There are rules,” she says pointedly. “We lost our game, and the media’s invasiveness…you said there are no alternate paths.” I haven’t been blind to her disappointment. I meet it daily when she thinks about growing our family together. I bottle my own in the face of hers, but the defeat intensifies, an untouched dream trembling to be held.

  I’ve never broken a game.

  I’ve found loopholes, but this has none.

  It’s either we go against what we’ve planned or we live an unfulfilled life.

  I’m not putting myself in any restraint. I’m tearing through every last one, even if it means taking a difficult plunge for both of us—one that has always felt like sliding down a mountainside with no traction and no way to climb back up. Even if it means that breaking the terms of what we set one time changes the way we play our games forever.

  There has to be one exception. Always.

  And this is it. “We can break our rules for our children,” I tell her. “We’ve been under the notion that having more children would be selfish, but look around us, Rose, look at her and tell me what part of this world is so unbearable that we shouldn’t give another child life?”

  Rose watches Jane lean close to the purple wisteria, big blue eyes flooded with childlike wonder, and then our daughter points curiously at the fauna canopied above us. She babbles a string of noises that sounds like, what is this?

  “It’s a dream taking flight, Jane,” I say the words to Rose, seizing her attention and gaze. She’s not convinced one-hundred percent that this is the best plan. “It’s selfish for us to live by a rule that affects another life.”

  “The media though,” she says. “How has that changed at all?” The real test wasn’t our game that we constructed with the media. The real test was afterwards, how we handled the blowback with our daughter in arm, and in my eyes, we’ve succeeded.

  I explain, “Our love trumps any cost the media can inflict. Maybe this whole time, Rose, it’s unconsciously been safe and it’s taken our belief—that we can provide love to a child, that we feel with all our hearts—to finally see it ourselves.”

  She fights tears, and I pull her as close as she can go, my hand holding her jaw and my thumb stroking her cheek. Here I am, convincing Rose of love when she’s spent so much time opening my mind to its true meaning. I will remind her every single day how much resides inside both of us.

  “There is no more doubt,” I say. “Whatever missteps our children take or mi
stakes we may make, their lives will be filled with love and passion—and our children, ours, will suck the marrow out of life and paint this gray fucking world with color.” I stare deeply into those fierce yellow-green eyes, my heart drumming in sync with hers. “Our children will be unforgettable like us. You wait and see.”

  Rose’s hand rises up to my shoulder. “This is the place where we’ve both gone mad.” She turns her head just a fraction, to the lily pads idle in the water. “Who on Earth would want to procreate with you? Eight times?” She meets my burgeoning, conceited grin. “I must be insane.”

  She’s saying a resounding, earth-shifting yes.

  I slide my arm around her waist. Winning and losing has always just been a state of mind, and I sense ours becoming sound again.

  I rest my hand on her lower stomach, expecting her to slap it away, but she lets me touch her here without complaint. Her lips try to pull upward, even when she hates to combat my grin with a smile.

  Before Jane arrived, I loved seeing her pregnant, watching her body grow with our baby, a part of me and a part of her. Rose had numerous fears about motherhood, but she enjoyed the majority of carrying a child. If she hated it, she’d never consider another.

  “We can’t just have more on a whim,” she reminds me. “I have to plan this out with Daisy in case she can’t have a baby.”

  “I know.” I’m assuming this means Ryke will be in the discussion as well. For every hurdle he’s faced with Daisy, for every mountain they have figuratively and literally climbed, it’d be more likely they marry today than break up tomorrow.

  Rose adjusts Jane, struggling to hold her weight for so long.

  “I’ll take her,” I say.

  Rose passes our daughter to me, and I easily hold her by the bottom, lifting her up towards my shoulder. Jane presses her cheek to my collar, her eyelids heavy.

  I look to Rose. “How many more children do you want?” Eight has been my number. It’s one she’s grown accustomed to because I repeat it often, but it’s not set in stone.

  Rose takes Jane’s crooked hat off and sets it in her Chanel diaper bag that looks more like a large purse. “I just want Jane to have a sister. We could have two kids and I’d be happy or we could have ten, as long as there are two girls somewhere.”

  We can’t plan the exact number, not when there are too many unforeseeable roadblocks, but we can try to achieve this.

  Two Cobalt girls.

  Sisters.

  “Then as soon as you have another girl, our girl”—I have to preface—“we’ll stop and that’ll be the size of our family.” I wait for this proclamation to sink into her features, and Rose’s eyes widen. She almost rocks backwards, but I clutch her hip, keeping her near.

  “Richard Connor Cobalt, you’re leaving this up to fate.” Her smile lights her eyes, filled with amusement. I’m more than satisfied to leave the number of our kids to science, and yes, to chance.

  “Your fate will be kind to me,” I tell her. “I can make anyone grow to love me in time.”

  Rose rolls her eyes. “Your fate is my fate.” I believe it. “And they don’t love you, Connor. They love the person you give them.” She pauses and says, “I love you. I’m proud of you. And I can’t imagine being anywhere but by your side.”

  Our pulses thrum again.

  I lift her chin, her gaze burning all of these truths into me. There are rare people who will fuel the fire inside of you, who will awaken a dormant passion, who will challenge you, who will push you and better you. She alone is my rarity.

  “I’m always whomever or whatever people need me to be,” I say strongly, “but you were the only one who needed me to be me.”

  She nods with tears brimming her eyes. “I can hear your heart beating.”

  My lips pull higher, and I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “It beats in equal time with yours.” I kiss the hollow of her neck and whisper, “Toujours.”

  Always.

  [ Epilogue ]

  ROSE COBALT

  One Month Later

  “They’re in here somewhere,” Lily says, hidden in the depths of her walk-in closet. She keeps sliding hangers, expecting to find two of my fur coats that she’s commandeered over the years.

  I crouch beside the rack of shoes, pretending to hunt for them. “You can keep the coats—”

  “No,” she says adamantly for the fifth time.

  “I want you to have them,” I repeat, also for the fifth time.

  “I can’t hear you,” she lies and then disappears in the darkness of Loren Hale’s black button-downs. She definitely can have them if they’ve been traitorously making camp in between his shirts.

  I let out a heavy sigh and look beneath a pile of clothes, tossing her tank top aside and then a—ew. “Lily!” I shriek, bolting upright like a feral cat.

  Lily’s head pops out between the button-downs. “Whaa…”

  I point to the stack of clothes on the floor, what appears to be men’s boxer-briefs on top. “Is this dirty?”

  She mumbles something that sounds like maybe and slips back into darkness. Motherfucking ew—I just touched Loren Hale’s dirty underwear. I stomp out of the closet and enter the bathroom, scrubbing my hands vigorously in the sink.

  I pump extra soap and lather my palms. Three minutes later, I dry my hands on a gray towel.

  “Found them,” Lily pants and holds up my two coats.

  My face falls. I was sincerely hoping she wouldn’t find them at all. “Are you sure you don’t want them?” I ask.

  “You wear them more than me,” she expresses. “I want to make sure you have everything that makes you comfortable.”

  It’s the last part of me in this house. I’ve been eradicated.

  You chose this, Rose. I know. I’m moving down the street with Connor and Jane. We planned to wait longer, maybe years before we actually packed our things and left Lily and Lo and Ryke and Daisy alone. But when we came home from France—with cameras hot on our faces, accusing us of incestuous relationships that were downright vile—I think we both knew the distance would help everyone.

  It was time.

  Moving on is a bittersweet feeling. It’s saying goodbye to an era with my sisters and saying hello to an era with my husband. I’d never been ready or prepared to do this, but I am now.

  I just wish little pieces of me were still left in my sister’s closets. Like my coats. Like my high heels or a necklace I lent them. I don’t want to be eradicated. I want to be remembered.

  Off my silence, Lily says, “You’re just moving down the street.”

  I roll my eyes. “It’s the principle.” I flip my hair off my shoulder and reluctantly collect the two coats, marching out of the room with her on my side.

  “I’ll keep one,” she says. “Would you mind—”

  “Which one?” I contain my smile, though I feel it grow inside of me.

  “The brown one.”

  I pass her the soft coat and she hugs it to her chest. “I’ll meet you outside!” She runs back down the hallway to put the coat in her room.

  I descend the stairs into the living room, and I skim the back of the couch with my hand, as though saying goodbye. I stop right before the foyer, and imprint this place in my mind. It’s not empty.

  It’s just empty of me.

  I’ve spent well over a year here, the first time I’ve ever lived with Daisy and Lily together. My daughter walked for the first time in the living room. She spoke her first word in the kitchen. Endings make me sentimental the way new beginnings do, and I suppose, if I look closely, they’re one in the same.

  Lily races down the stairs with her Wampa cap on, her shoulder-length brown hair looking washed and clean. Her gangly legs move quickly beneath her, and I inhale strongly, pocketing my odd sappiness.

  “Is that it?” Lily asks me, nodding to the coat.

  “Yes,” I say, “this is the last of me.”

  Lily frowns. “Don’t say it like that. It makes me sad.”

/>   “This is sad. I’m still waiting for you to cry for me.” I open the front door.

  Lily tugs the flaps of her hat. “You said I shouldn’t cry if you’re not dying.”

  I don’t doubt I said it. I would just like a little emotion today from someone other than me. I can’t be the only one experiencing this bittersweet cocktail, can I?

  “Beep beep!” Daisy does donuts in a golf cart at the end of the driveway, a lopsided smile brightening her face.

  Yes, I am the only one in fucking mourning over myself.

  Daisy whips the golf cart up to the front of the house and turns sharply like she’s auditioning for a car commercial. “Hello there, pretty ladies. Want a ride in my vehicle?” She wags her brows and rubs the steering wheel.

  Lily laughs and I roll my eyes, choosing to sit next to her while Lily plops in the back. We bought a golf cart about the same time we purchased the house down the street. It’s just easier than jumping in a car—and walking, of course.

  “Your hickey is showing,” I tell her and fix my hair in the tiniest rearview mirror I’ve ever seen.

  “It’s a wolf bite.” She chomps with her teeth and then smiles wider, a clear red mark on her neck. Besides the hickey, she wears Ryke’s baseball cap backwards and a muscle shirt that says, Whoa thar, pirate. I want ye treasure.

  “As long as you’re happy with it, I’m happy,” I say distantly, sitting back, and she swings the golf cart towards the road. I brace myself in case Daisy whips the golf cart again, and I check on Lily. She spiders the white cushion of her seat—in fear of being flung off.

  Lily mouths to me, I’m scared.

  We’re going less than twenty-miles-an-hour, but she saw Ryke accidentally fling off Loren this morning. He was also doing donuts.

  But Daisy is driving in a straight line now.

  Before Lily volunteers to walk to my new house, I reach out and hold her arm, silently telling her that she will not fall off. And if she does, I’ll be falling with her.