Always Emily

by Mary Sullivan

  Thinking of her amazing father and uncles, and of her brother, Cody, she said, “But that’s just some men. Others are real gems. Like your father. He just doesn’t know how to relate to a teenage girl.”

  Aiyana shrugged and Emily knew she’d gotten as far as she would on that point.

  Ten minutes later, fingers crossed and heart pumping, she watched Aiyana walk out the door with Salem to drive off to school.

  * * *

  SALEM WAITED FOR Aiyana to enter the school before heading inside himself, guessing she wouldn’t want to walk in with her dad.

  After Salem explained the problem, the principal expressed his concern and assured him he would take care of it.

  Salem drove to the Center because he needed to do something active to expend his nervous energy. There was always work to be done even on his off days, sorting artifacts, changing exhibits, restoring old pieces, paperwork.

  This had been his life’s work for twenty years, but with the Center firmly established, he had already achieved his goals of preserving Native American heritage and making it available to the public. His passion now was architecture. Recently, Salem had completed his major paper in his quest to be an architect. In a few weeks, he would graduate and start a new career, the culmination of years of part-time studies.

  He couldn’t stand to be indoors today. He needed to be outside, to sweat away his tension so he wouldn’t go after that kid again.

  Salem worked around the outside of the Cathedral. He cleaned up the grounds, making his way out from the building, trimming bushes that sat flush with the foundation. They’d become too big and unruly over the winter.

  With late-May sunlight warming his back and a light breeze cooling his face, he cleared branches that had come down in a windstorm a couple of weeks ago. He loved physical work. Like academics, it carried him outside of himself. Today, it took his mind away from his daughter’s troubles and eased his terrible worry for her while she was at school and he could do nothing for her. Physical labor calmed his nerves and brought order to his universe.

  Other than that bit of trimming and clearing, he allowed the surroundings to go natural, just the way he liked them.

  Cleaning crews worked regularly around the country club and on the land, but Salem preferred to maintain his slice of heaven on his own.

  The land might belong to Emily’s father, but the pride of ownership Salem felt in the Heritage Center and its immediate surroundings motivated him to keep it looking good.

  When he finished in the clearing, he walked the perimeter and spotted something out of place—a trowel hanging against a tree trunk, on the broken stub of a branch.

  What was this doing here? Any and all equipment used on the small archeological digs the center conducted was supposed to be stored in the toolshed after use.

  Before Emily’s father had built the resort, he’d had to bring together Native American scholars and local elders. More than a century ago, this land had been part of migratory routes. When a tribal member had died, he or she had been buried on the trail.

  Once it had been determined that the routes had not come through or near this section of the land, both the resort and the Heritage Center had been built.

  Nick Jordan had allowed Salem the incomparable honor of giving input to the architect on what Salem wanted the Heritage Center to look like. Then he’d given the Center to Salem to run. Over the years, Salem had worked hard to make sure Nick Jordan’s confidence in him as an untried, but determined eighteen-year-old had been justified. Nick had seen something in Salem, and Salem had since lived up to his potential. He would be grateful to Nick for the rest of his life for his faith in him.

  One of the concessions Nick had granted to Salem’s people was a small cemetery on the land. Every year, digs were held to uncover artifacts for the museum. A female body had been discovered and reinterred in the cemetery with a beautiful service.

  One of the boys Salem had grown up with on the reservation had learned through DNA testing that the woman had been his ancestor. That information had filled Salem with satisfaction and peace.

  This was why he had devoted his life to this work—to link the youth on the reservation to their heritage and to instill in them a sense of wonder, connection and pride.

  So why couldn’t he get his own daughters to revel in that connection? The shoemaker’s children...

  He grasped the trowel. The carelessness of tools being left out to rust angered him. Hell, his budget didn’t allow him to replace these things often.

  And why was it even here, so far from the dig?

  He turned to leave with it, to carry it back to the shed to clean off the rust and dirt and to store it properly, when he was struck by an image. A memory. The night Emily had shown up sick, she’d had dirt and mud on her hands.

  He studied the ground beneath where the trowel had hung. Had it been left as a place marking? The earth had been disturbed recently. Maybe his ancestors had been trackers. Maybe it was in his blood or genes, because the configuration of tree branches and leaves on the ground looked false. The ground had been dug up and then covered to hide that fact.

  He shoved aside a large rock that had been dragged into place. He kicked at the debris and scuffed it out of the way. Using the trowel, he dug until he hit a small package, something wrapped in plastic.

  He wiped away the dirt. If this was Emily’s work, at least she’d dug deeply enough that Sunday night’s heavy rain hadn’t penetrated.

  Maybe he should feel guilty about butting into Emily’s private business, but she was hiding something. Why? She’d made the mistake of burying her secret on his land. Again, why?

  Carefully, he opened the package, unwrapping the layers of protective plastic to reveal a small book. He didn’t understand the language, but the text looked Middle Eastern. His instincts kicked in. He’d handled enough artifacts to know this was ancient. And precious. What the hell was Emily doing with it and why had she buried it in Colorado?

  Disappointment twisted through him. Emily? Smuggling artifacts out of their native countries?

  Could she really have changed so much?

  The short answer was no.

  There had to be a logical explanation for her having this. What he didn’t understand was why she had buried it.

  He tucked the artifact inside his jacket, because he couldn’t bring himself to put it back into the ground. He filled the hole then covered it with the debris he’d brushed away. Last, he pushed the rock back into place.

  He put the trowel back where he’d found it, and walked away satisfied that everything looked exactly the same.

  Behind the Heritage Center, he tossed the plastic into the recycling bin. Inside, he climbed the stairs to his office and slid the book into his office drawer with all of the reverence it deserved. Then he locked it.

  Let Emily stew. Let her panic. Let her freak out. She should have explained the situation to him. He would have helped her, even if he didn’t believe she was here to stay.

  She should have trusted him to help her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AIYANA COULDN’T DO THIS.

  She stood in front of the doors of the school with her breakfast, four spoonfuls of oatmeal, scooting up into her throat. She swallowed it down and opened the door.

  Emily told her she had to be strong and to face down her demons. Why did it have to be so hard? Why did her chest ache as if she was having a heart attack? As though her heart was going to crack right in two?

  She was late and walked through empty hallways. Now she would have to walk into the classroom alone.

  At least the door was at the back of the room.

  She peeked through the door’s window. Mrs. Montgomery was writing on the blackboard with her back to the room, so Aiyana opened the door and stepped inside, clo
sing it with the softest click behind her.

  She crept to her seat in the last row, sat down and put her books on the desk then looked up...into Justin’s eyes, and his smirk that said, gotcha.

  While he watched her over his shoulder, with his foot, he nudged the girl beside him, Melanie, who whispered something and laughed. Mel passed a note to Grant in front of her, who read it then turned to look at Aiyana. He smiled, but it was mean, as though he believed Justin’s lies about her.

  She hated him.

  Never before in her life had she hated anyone. She was a good person. She liked people. But she hated Grant and Melanie. She hated Justin. She hated everyone in this classroom.

  Justin shouldn’t even be in her class, she thought, resentment burning a hole in her. He should be finishing high school this year, but he wouldn’t work or hand in assignments, and Mrs. Montgomery had failed him for three years, despite the pressure from the principal and Sheriff White. The rumor Aiyana had heard was that Mrs. M. said she wasn’t a teacher who rewarded laziness. Good for her, but it meant that Justin had ended up in Aiyana’s class, and he took out his unhappiness with the situation on everyone around him.

  As the whispering grew into a buzz, Mrs. Montgomery turned around from the blackboard. “What’s all the noise about?”

  Nobody said anything, but the teacher glimpsed Brittany handing off a note to Russell.

  Mrs. Montgomery approached and held out her hand. She opened the note and read it. Her gaze flew to Aiyana in the back row, but she said to Brittany, “I’ll see you after class.” She sounded super stern.

  When Mrs. M. walked back to the front of the room, Brittany sent Aiyana a venomous look behind the teacher’s back.

  Aiyana squirmed. What did the note say? Her face burned as fiercely as the sun and she wondered if she looked like she was on fire. Her face, neck, chest, everything got hot. She hated feeling like this. She wanted to wake up as the way she was last week, happy. She wished she’d never met Justin.

  The phone at the front of the room rang. Mrs. M. answered, listened and then hung up.

  “Justin, you are to report to the office immediately.”

  He left the room with a scowl.

  As soon as the bell rang, Aiyana flew out the door into the busy hallway. She wanted to go home and never come back here, but she had a test this afternoon in math. She’d forgotten about it this morning.

  In the lunchroom, she sat alone, as though she had the plague. A shadow fell across the table. Grant sat down across from her. “Hey, Aiyana.”

  She didn’t answer him. He’d never given her the time of day before, let alone sat down with her in the caf.

  “Cat got your tongue?” he asked, all smoothlike, as if he was some kind of great playboy. Really? Using a lame old line like that?

  “Go away,” she mumbled.

  “What’s wrong? I’m just being friendly. You want to go out one night? Friday night? My parents will be away for the weekend. We can have the house all to ourselves.”

  She glared at him, at his stupid freckles and his weird cowlick and his crooked front tooth. She knew what he thought, and what he wanted from her.

  “Go to hell,” she said. She’d never before told a person to do that, but it felt good. Great. Awesome.

  He frowned. “You go to hell, bitch.”

  He stomped away and she was alone again. She wished her friend Alyx hadn’t gone away with her family last week. Aiyana really needed someone here with her today.

  She bombed on the math test, because her mind wouldn’t settle, wouldn’t let her concentrate, wouldn’t let the numbers make sense. Numbers had always made sense, but right now they looked like hieroglyphics jumping around on the page.

  When it was over, the teacher sent her to the office.

  She found out she had an appointment with the school counselor. By the time she finished talking to her, she felt better. Apparently, when Justin had been called to the office, it had been about the stuff he’d put on the internet. Dad had come into school this morning to report him to Principal Nevins. Aiyana couldn’t hold back her relief. She hoped Nevins told Justin to go to hell.

  The counselor said they couldn’t prove it was Justin without getting into his computer, which they couldn’t do without a warrant, but that the principal, in the counselor’s words, had “put the fear of God into him.”

  After school, she walked past a bunch of kids who snickered and hurled insults, and she didn’t even care. Justin had gotten into trouble and that was all that mattered.

  Aiyana went home feeling better than she had since Saturday night.

  * * *

  ON TUESDAY MORNING, even before Salem entered his daughter’s room, he knew something was wrong. The silence was ominous. She should have been getting ready for school. She should have been playing her favorite music.

  He slid the door open cautiously, because the last thing he wanted was to invade her privacy, but what if things hadn’t gone well at school yesterday?

  Last night, she had seemed better. When he asked if she wanted him to stay home for the evening, she had said no, but had thanked him for talking to the principal.

  So, he’d driven to Denver and had taken a couple of his favorite profs out to dinner to thank them for their support these past years. Plus, he couldn’t get enough of talking about architecture. Excitement about his new career carried away his worries.

  When he’d come home, he’d knocked on Aiyana’s door to double-check that she was okay. She’d said she was fine, and had sounded fine. He’d believed her, but now this.

  Curled into a ball under her blankets, Aiyana didn’t stir when he called her name. Salem walked around to the far side of the bed so he could see her face. Her eyes were screwed shut, ignoring him.

  “Hey,” he said, trying to ease into the conversation casually. “Where’s all of your morning music? Usually I can’t hear myself think with it blaring.” No response.

  “Come downstairs for breakfast.” Still no response.

  “We have blueberries.” She should be giving him a hard time about getting her to eat a piece of fruit to make sure she got her vitamins. He could almost always tempt her with blueberries, but not today.

  He sat down on the bed. Bad sign that she didn’t move over to accommodate him. Half his butt hung off the edge.

  “Talk to me, Aiyana,” he begged, keeping his tone soft. “Tell me what’s happening.”

  “Nothing,” she mumbled, and the emptiness, the hollow voice, shook him.

  Worry coursed raggedly through his body. His girl was hurting.

  “Did you talk to the counselor yesterday?”

  Despite nodding, she kept her eyes closed.

  “Didn’t it help? Didn’t Principal Nevins talk to Justin?”

  Again she nodded.

  “You were okay last night. What’s happened?”

  She mumbled something.

  “I can’t hear you,” he said.

  “Can I have Emily?”

  Emily. He shouldn’t feel slighted, he shouldn’t envy Emily—maybe Aiyana just needed a woman to talk to—but he wanted to be the one who rescued his daughter.

  He’d done all of the raising. He’d been the one to stick around through thick and thin, and had kissed scraped elbows and changed diapers, had brought home the food and had paid the mortgage. He’d never, ever, taken a single vacation or jaunt to an exotic country. Or anywhere.

  Popping in and out twice a year was not parenting. He was the one who had done all of the work, but Emily would get all of the glory for handling this problem.

  Man, it set his teeth on edge, even though he didn’t know what to do for his daughter to help her.

  Well, yeah. He did. The only thing he could do was to give her what she asked for.


  He rose above his pettiness and said, “I’ll go get her. Okay?”

  “Thanks, Daddy.”

  He was Daddy again. That was worth something.

  “Can you hurry?” she asked, words thick. She’d been crying. He ran for the door.

  * * *

  EMILY LAY IN BED drifting in that half state between dream and reality. While she was normally an early riser, the malaria had left her drained. Or maybe it was that mummy wrap that still tied her to Jean-Marc. It wouldn’t let her relax until she’d dealt with the prayer book.

  Until she handled that problem, she was a stranger here, in her parents’ home, drifting in life, unfamiliar with not having a direction or a goal. She needed something to—

  Her door slammed open. She startled upright.

  Salem stalked into the room.

  “While this comes close to one of my favorite fantasies,” she joked, smoothing down her T-shirt for modesty’s sake, “somehow, I don’t think you’re here for sex.”

  When she saw his face, she sobered. Something was terribly wrong. “What is it?”

  “Get up. Hurry. Please.”

  “Aiyana?”

  “She’s even worse this morning.”

  “Things didn’t go well yesterday?”

  “They went fine. I talked to the principal, who talked to Justin. She talked to the school counselor and came home feeling better.”

  “What’s happening this morning?”

  “I don’t know. She’s asking for you again.”

  She climbed out of bed, showered and dressed in record time, then followed him out the door to help his daughter.

  In Aiyana’s bedroom, she found out the meeting Justin had with the principal hadn’t made matters better, but worse. The things being said online were awful. Bastard.

  They went through a repeat of yesterday morning’s ritual, with Emily getting cuke slices from the kitchen, but with a change. Salem was colder, arctic, still wanting help for his daughter, but obviously wishing it were anyone other than Emily. He didn’t bother to hide the fact that he didn’t want her here. That was clear. He’d brought her here strictly for Aiyana. What had changed? How had his initial reluctance turned to something stronger? Resentment? She didn’t have time to dwell on it.