Ember

by Emma Renshaw

  Normal.

  What a fucking joke. My life hadn’t been normal for ten years. And it was straying further and further away from normal. I was going to chemo with my mom today. That wasn’t fucking normal. It wasn’t normal to watch the one person you had left being hooked up to tubes that would pump poison into her body.

  Poison.

  Goddamn fucking poison.

  My throat clogged with emotion, and the muscles in my neck tightened even more.

  I stood up and walked into the en-suite bathroom and flicked on the cold water from the sink. I splashed water on my face and looked in the mirror. My eyes had never looked so dark before. My dark brown hair was even messier than usual and was slicked with sweat and in knots from tossing and turning.

  I planned to be at Mom’s early today to take her to chemo, but I wasn’t going to drive over there right now. I was going to run. A six-and-a-half-mile run was exactly what my body needed. My mind too. Hopefully, the echo of my feet hitting the pavement would drown out the noise in my head.

  I threw some clothes into a bag, so I could shower over at her place. No point in doing it now, I would only be getting sweaty again. I dressed for a run, laced up my running shoes, and headed out the door. I stuck my earbuds in my ears and cranked the volume as loud as I could stand.

  And I took off. With every thought of my mom and Declan that entered my mind, I stepped up my pace, as if I could outrun Declan’s dead eyes and the fear that I wouldn’t be able to save my mother. That I would lose her too.

  The street lights lining Main Street were dimming as the sun rose higher in the sky. A few early fishermen were sitting on the far bank of the lake on the edge of town. I lifted a hand in greeting and flicked my fingers as I passed each of them. As each returned the hello, Declan’s dead eyes stared at me through theirs.

  I picked up my pace again. And again, as I passed the cemetery.

  By the time I’d made it to Mom’s, my shirt was soaked through and my body vibrated like I’d run twelve miles instead of six. I slowly walked up her driveway on jelly legs and knocked on the door. It seemed nothing could raise my spirits.

  And once again, she proved me wrong. When everything felt like it could crush me at any moment, she could always bring a smile to my face. Mom opened the door and immediately pinched her nose and waved a hand in front of it.

  “Think you could shower next time?”

  “I ran here.”

  “Go. You’re going to make my whole house smell, and it’ll take a week before I can get the stench out.”

  I laughed and bent to kiss her cheek. “I’ll be ten minutes.”

  16

  Delilah

  Grease popped from the pan of sizzling chopped bacon. A low, sultry country voice sang through the speakers of the radio, barely heard over the sounds of a busy kitchen prepping for the dinner service. My phone burned a hole in my pocket with the message I’d read over and over again but had yet to reply to.

  Today was Mom’s day to pick up Tuck from school, and within a few minutes of pick-up time, she’d sent the message. I could tell from the carefully chosen words she’d been hesitant to ask, but she’d done it anyway. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Tuck had a busier social calendar than I’d ever had. Since the day at the arcade, I’d kept him close and had made up excuse after excuse to keep him home instead of going to his friends’ houses, the park, and the movies.

  I didn’t want Shayla to pop up and con one of his friends’ families into thinking she had any rights to him. My knife clattered as I dropped it next to the cutting board. Sweat beaded along my brow, and my heart thundered a furious beat.

  How many more excuses could I make up to keep Tuck near me and in my line of sight before he suspected something? He wanted to spend the night at his friend Calvin’s house tonight. If I said no, I knew he would start asking questions. He was smart and inquisitive, and I hardly ever denied him an opportunity to socialize. My phone vibrated in my pocket and I took it out. It was Mom. Again.

  Mom: Instead of spending the night at Calvin’s, maybe the boys can stay with us? I’ll bribe him with candied apples. Carol said she was bringing a few crates’ worth. Save a few for us.

  The tension that’d been stiffening my shoulders evaporated. My mom was a true gift. She had everyone’s back. I didn’t grow up here, but as soon as Mom had arrived in town, she’d quickly become known as the person to call. She could arrange a dinner party at the drop of a hat, lend an ear to someone in need, and change the oil in a car in just a few hours. I’m not even joking. She’d done it. She was Superwoman.

  I’m not sure I could’ve survived the first few years of Tuck’s life without her. Since he was a baby, I’d leaned on my mom. She took the reins every time I was at a breaking point, but she never made me feel like I couldn’t do it. If the world had a few more Gayle Morelands, it would be a better place.

  I tapped out a quick reply and tucked my phone away again. The back kitchen entrance popped open as I scrubbed my hands before returning to prepping the dinner menu. Fridays were always crazy. A live band played on the back lawn next to the faux wood dance floor we’d laid out underneath the fairy lights. The inn’s restaurant had become one of the hot spots in town for a date, family celebration, or just a good time.

  On top of the crazy rush, every other Friday was a delivery day for my clients that I meal prepped for. Tonight I had to deliver to four clients. Usually, I could hire a driver, but both girls I trusted with the job were prepping for their SATs tomorrow morning. That meant I had to leave my kitchen staff after prep.

  Wind gusted through one of the back doors, which was propped open by a gnome dressed in a chef’s outfit. When my parents had purchased this property, my mom had gone crazy with kitschy trinkets, including a family of gnomes dressed for different jobs. The chef gnome’s long salt-and-pepper beard covered his face except for a bulbous nose. He wore a “kiss the chef” hat, and his long, skinny legs were dressed in black and white checkered pants. He bounced around the kitchen, held open doors, and had become something of a good luck charm. The staff poked his nose before every shift.

  Carol, a sweet woman Mom had taken under her wing, came through the back door. Her arms were weighed down by two wooden crates stuffed to the brim with luscious apples.

  “Those are gorgeous.” I stepped forward and took the crates from Carol’s arms. She gave me a smile, and while it was warmer than the first time I’d met her, I could still see the pain and loneliness behind her eyes. I didn’t know her story and I never pried.

  The Perry farm down the road had hired her a few days a week to help out with various chores, and she often brought over fruits and vegetables from their property. Sometimes she helped in my kitchen, and other times she dropped the food on the counter and ushered herself through the door as quickly as she’d come in.

  I snagged a few of the apples from the top and placed them next to the backsplash, ready for whenever Mom came by to grab them. I picked up another apple and brought it to my nose and inhaled the sweet scent. “These will be great in pie, don’t you think?”

  “Sure will.” Carol picked up one of the apples to smell. “I could peel some if you want.”

  “That would be great.” I rubbed her shoulder with my free hand. She leaned into the touch slightly, and a ghost of a smile tipped up the edges of her mouth.

  “How’s Tucker?”

  My chest squeezed with anxiety. I felt as if the blade of a guillotine was hanging above my head, following me with each movement, ready to end my life as I knew it at any moment. The force of the smile I plastered on my face hurt my cheeks.

  “He’s great. If you stay for dinner, which Mom would love, you’ll see him running around. He’s having a friend over tonight.”

  “Maybe…maybe I will stay for dinner.”

  I knocked my shoulder into hers as I watched her wash her hands. “That would be great. We love having you here.”

  “If you ever need someone to watch
Tuck, I’d be happy to. I have a lot of free time.” She grabbed a knife from the block and began peeling. I watched the long, curled ribbon of apple flesh fall. “You know we have a peeler?”

  “I like this better. It’s soothing, don’t you think?”

  “Carol, you just may take the spot as my favorite person. First, you offer to watch Tuck if I ever need it, and now you find peace when peeling apples.”

  Carol chuckled and picked up the next apple. “I’ll leave you to it,” I said before walking back to my station. On a night like this one, every minute counted.

  17

  Gunner

  Throughout the drive home I glanced at Mom every ten seconds. I couldn’t stop myself. I wasn’t sure if it was real or if I simply imagined that she looked worse after the chemo. It was as if those few hours had taken even more years off her life, taken pounds from her body, and added gray to her hair. I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my fingers were numb from lack of blood flow by the time we pulled up to her house.

  I threw open the door, scrambled out without closing it, and jogged around the car to help her out of the passenger’s seat. I grabbed her bag, which carried enough magazines for a month, from her lap and hooked it over my shoulder before reaching in to help her stand.

  She slapped my hands away. “Gunner, honey. I’m okay. I can get out of the car by myself.”

  “I want to help.”

  I heard the frantic sound of my own voice in my ears. Her eyes met mine, and even though I towered over her at six-foot-five, all of a sudden, I felt like I was a second-grade kid, with skinned knees and elbows from trying to slide to third base on rough, gravelly dirt. Second or third grade was the last time I’d looked up at her before I surpassed her in height, and right in this moment, I was that kid again. She’d taken care of every scrape and broken bone, and she’d sat at my side as they peeled the burned skin from my body. She sat there, ignoring the smell of her son’s burned flesh. She sat there, even though I was being ravaged on the inside and outside with pain.

  She fucking sat there with me. She carried my baseball equipment countless times. She brought my glove to me when I’d left it in the car before school. She helped me get dressed when I could barely move after the fire. She sat there while I went through gruesome rehab to get back on the field, because getting back on the field was the only way to ensure that my best friend hadn’t died in vain. She sat there. Hours and hours. She sat there and helped.

  I could carry a fucking bag for her. And I would sit through every chemo treatment with her. I’d be there.

  I needed to be there. I needed to be here in Hawk Valley, permanently. Fuck. I needed to call Zeke and make sure he knew that I would accept nothing other than the Austin Rattlers with a no-trade clause.

  She brought her hand up to the side of my face and cupped my cheek. “I did something right with you. I’m okay,” she whispered.

  I closed my eyes and shook away the dream from that morning, when I’d heard her screaming from a coffin.

  “You’ve done everything for me my whole life. Let me repay that now.”

  She patted my cheek, dipped down to grab her purse from the floorboard, and dug inside it for her house keys. Once she’d pulled them out, she handed them to me and in a dry, sarcastic tone said, “Please, son of mine, open the door because I couldn’t possibly turn a key in my state.”

  “Do you need me to carry you?” I asked deadpan.

  She tried to swat the back of my head, but I moved out of her way. I winked and said, “Tall people perks.”

  “Oh, hush. Let’s get inside.”

  We walked inside the house, and I started arranging everything she would need. She sat on her small loveseat in her tiny living room in front of her small TV. I shook my head. I could never live here, just based on the TV alone.

  When my contract with the Rattlers was settled and I started to look for a place, the first things on my list would be a TV that took up an entire wall and a couch that could swallow me whole.

  Outside, gravel crunched underneath tires. I set down the pills I was doling out on a napkin and pulled back the curtain above the sink.

  “Are you expecting anyone?” I asked Mom. I looked over my shoulder at her. Her head was tilted, with her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open. She’d done a better job hiding her fatigue in the car than I’d thought. I could see the exhaustion setting in in her features; she was unable to hide it anymore. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “A little queasy and a little tired. Nothing out of the ordinary, just par for the course.”

  “Hit on the diamond.” I was never sure if what I said made sense, but when I could, I used baseball metaphors.

  Someone knocked at the door. I took two long strides to the door and opened it, blocking the entrance with my body. I knew my mom. She wouldn’t want many people to see how tired she looked right now.

  The honey-colored eyes and pink pillowy lips I’d been fantasizing about greeted me. Delilah and I had almost kissed before she got the emergency call about Tuck, and the next time I’d seen her, Tuck had been with us. We hadn’t gotten that close since that afternoon, but I’d been daydreaming about what it would be like to take her mouth and explore all of it. I wondered if her skin would feel as soft as it looked. Would my calloused hands send goosebumps across her flesh?

  I breathed in deeply, unable to look anywhere but at her face. She’d entrapped me in her stare, and a part of me wondered if she was just a figment of my imagination, to ease a hard day.

  The twitch of her lips distracted me from her eyes and brought my gaze to her mouth. And then lower. She was holding three trays of food.

  “Shit,” I mumbled and reached forward to grab the trays from her arms. “Sorry. Come in.”

  “Thanks.” Was it just me or did she sound a little breathless? Had she been playing any fantasies of her own in her mind? Fuck. I wanted to explore every part of her, including her mind. I wanted to know what she thought about, dreamed about, fantasized about.

  “Hey, Delilah,” Mom said, completely breaking me from any dirty thoughts.

  “Hey, Jenna. How are you? Your place is so cute. I’ve never actually been inside one of these.”

  “I’m a little tired, but okay, thank you. What’d you bring for us? I know I told you anything would do. I don’t want you to have to whip up anything special. I’m not picky. And thank you. I love my little house. You should’ve seen Gunner’s face when I told him this was what I wanted and showed it to him. He’d been sending me property listings for huge mansions. What am I going to do with a mansion? And then I saw a tiny house on TV and just knew it was for me.”

  Delilah chuckled and swung her gaze back and forth between Mom and me. I’d had more than enough money to spoil her and buy her a house. Hell, I could have bought her a house and a staff to take care of it, but she was having none of it. “Smart woman, not giving in to him. I have a few things here, but some more in the car. I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll help,” I said, placing my hand on the small of Delilah’s back and following her outside.

  The back liftgate was still open, and there were several cardboard boxes with Tupperware in them. There was also a stack of tinfoil platters.

  “All of this?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. There was enough food in the back of the car to feed Mom for a month.

  She chuckled. “Not all of it. Only this box.”

  Delilah pointed to a box and I grinned. Sitting on top was a covered pie. “Is that for me?”

  “No, it’s for your mom. A little treat for when she feels better. I heard that the day of and day after chemo can be the toughest, but it depends on the patient and what type of chemo. So whenever she’s ready, she’ll have a treat.”

  “You knew she had chemo today?”

  “She told me. I brought her some chicken, rice, carrot, and kale soup. It’ll help if she has any nausea.”

  I inched closer to her even though I was denying what I want
ed to do, which was sweep her into my arms and kiss the living daylights out of her. Instead, I settled for the simple words, “Thank you.”

  Delilah nodded and picked up a brown paper sack. I picked up the box. She closed the liftgate and put the sack on top of what I was carrying. “This is for you.”

  I looked at the side of Delilah’s face. She wouldn’t meet my eyes, but her cheeks were turning a light pink. “Been thinking about me?”

  “No,” she answered. “I made up a recipe, and instead of subjecting paying customers to being my guinea pigs, I figured I’d risk poisoning you instead.”

  “I’ll risk it.” I bent my knees to grab the door handle as I balanced the box with one arm. I tilted my head, indicating Delilah should go in before me. I followed her in.

  “I brought you some soup, Jenna. It’s fresh off the stove, still warm. My mom also brewed some ginger tea she swears by for nausea. Can I make you some?”

  “Sure,” she said. My mom met my eyes as I set the box on the narrow counter. She waggled her eyebrows. “You look gorgeous, Delilah. Do you have any plans?”

  “Thank you, Jenna. That made my night. No. No plans. My date canceled on me for a better offer.”

  “You had a date?” I asked before I could stop myself. Did she have someone in her life that she hadn’t mentioned? Fuck. Did I almost kiss someone who was with another dude?

  “A better offer than you?” Mom asked. She still hadn’t stopped looking at me. I knew what she was getting at. She wanted me to settle down, have the two-point-five kids, the whole dream. I had been far too busy enjoying the life of a professional athlete to do that.

  “Tuck. He’s having a friend spend the night. They’re staying at my mom and dad’s. She’s making them candied apples that are fresh from the orchard. Once she gets her homemade caramel in front of him, I don’t think he’d be able to pick me out of a lineup.”