by L. B. Dunbar
“Rita?” My name draws my attention to May standing before my desk. Her eyes fall to the to-go coffee cup and then drift to the artistic piece. “What’s this?”
Her fingers reach forward but don’t actually touch the artwork. There’s really no other way to describe the fixture before me.
“I don’t know. It was on my porch along with the coffee this morning.”
She’s still smiling, but tears blur my vision once again. I should have tossed the coffee, but that’s a waste of perfectly good liquid gold.
As I reach for a tissue, May clears her throat and lowers for the chair opposite my desk.
“I’m assuming the tears are heartbreak and not excellent nookie,” she assesses of the sudden swipe to my eyes. “What happened?”
May’s soft voice opens the fountain, and I explain the events of the past forty-eight hours. I tell her what Scarlett did and how Jake responded when I confronted him.
“First, let me ask if you are okay? Did you drink?” Moments like these could certainly push someone off the proverbial wagon.
“I’d considered it for all of three seconds. Then I called Meredith.” Meredith had been my sponsor from the start. As a fellow lawyer, she took me on when I decided I needed help and wanted a professional women-only AA group. Talking amongst peers felt like the right course of action in attempts to keep my law practice afloat while I tried to navigate my emotions.
“But you didn’t drink?” May confirms, and I nod. “Okay. Next, he didn’t hurt you, right?”
My head pops up, and I stare at my young friend. “Jake isn’t violent.”
“Right,” she states. “Broken heart, not broken body.” May pauses again. Her mouth opens and shuts as her hands clasp together on her lap.
“Just speak your thoughts, cookie,” I weakly demand.
“Is it possible he’s telling the truth?”
“He was found guilty,” I state, reminding May of Jake’s circumstance.
“Yes, but . . .” She waves, her eyes drifting to the unusual lamp on my desk. “We both know there is fault in the system sometimes. Who was his lawyer? Maybe we can contact him or find the old case report.”
“I have it,” I mutter, lowering my eyes to the law school invite on my desk.
“You have the report? Have you read it?”
My lids close, and I shake my head. “I can’t bring myself to do it.” The declaration makes me sound like a coward. I feel like a coward, but I just cannot read the document and remain impartial to the details. This isn’t a case study with random persons but my former fiancé in the file.
“Let me read it,” May states. “I’ll pull out questions if I find any.”
“May, it won’t matter. What’s done is done. He went to jail for setting a fire. He’s served the time for the crime.”
May sighs. “You remember my friend, Jude, right?”
“The silent, broody one?” I’ve met the entire Shipley clan and their friends on a few occasions.
“Yes, the one who came to live at the farm for a while. He’s also in recovery for narcotics.” I stare at May, waiting on her point. “He was convicted of a crime and served time for it as well, but it was later proven he didn’t do it. He was exonerated.”
I recall the details of the crooked police chief and his son’s untimely death.
“That’s a wonderful story, cookie, but what does it have to do with Jake?” My tongue swells on his name, and my hand lowers for my chest, where I ache inside like I’ve only ever hurt one time before.
“I just think you need to do your own investigation into the case. Find out why he set the fire, if he set the fire.”
May’s right. I shouldn’t accept the hearsay of Scarlett’s research, and I hadn’t listened long enough to Jake to allow him an explanation other than the basics.
“I don’t know if I can,” I admit, hating once again the defeat in my tone and lack of will in my drive. Then I admit my greater concern. “I don’t know if I can be with a man who burned down a building. It was a crime, the very thing I defend against. For a moment, forget Ian in the equation. I’ve been so wrapped up in lust with Jake that I’ve ignored the fact he committed a crime,” I reiterate. “Holding people accountable for their actions is important to me. It’s the essence of our restorative program in Building Buddies, yet I’ve been blindsided by a sexy smirk and pretty eyes.”
May weakly grins. “We’ve all been duped by lust at one time or another. You’re raw today, Rita, but for your own peace of mind, you need answers. Maybe not today, tomorrow, or even next month, but soon you’ll want to know the truth. Your curiosity will best you, my friend.”
She’s absolutely right. My desire for facts and details, and justice to be served, will prevail.
I’ll want to know more.
Just not today.
Probably not tomorrow either.
Maybe not even next month.
But soon, I’ll want the truth.
17
Jake
For a week, Rita avoids the building site, and every day I wait on her at the Bean in hopes she’ll show somewhere neutral so we can talk. It’s torture, and by Friday, I’ve decided I’m waiting on false hope. I’m ready to leave the Busy Bean, taking the last dregs of a second cup of coffee I shouldn’t have so late in the day when Rita enters. She does a double-take at me as I sit on the plush peach couch where my attraction to her started. Where she cussed me out for taking her spot, and lust filled my thoughts about taking her on this sofa. Now, my emotions are so much more than lust. Was I in love with her? I’d almost said as much to Nolan, but that might have been a rash declaration after such a short time. However, I’m old enough to recognize how I feel, and what I felt was honest and real.
I watch as Rita places her order, waits on her mug, and then crosses the distance to stand before the couch. She glances at the emptiness beside me.
“Is this seat taken?” The vulnerability in her voice is everything opposite what I know of her.
“Only by you,” I admit, giving her a weak smile that falls short when she doesn’t smile back. I clear my throat as Rita lowers for the velvety cushion but doesn’t relax into the couch. Watching her lift the mug for her lips—lips I’ve missed kissing—I stare as she sips and swallows the warm brew. I miss her tongue wrestling with mine. I miss her arms around me. I miss her body against me.
“Did you like my gift?” I ask, finding it difficult to know where to start.
“It was very interesting,” she states. “A lamp is . . . different.” Uncertain how to read her impression of the piece, I don’t press. Rita remains quiet.
“I didn’t do it,” I start, but when Rita’s eyes close, I realize I need to start at the beginning. “I was driving home that night from an investigation. There had been a series of unexplained fires in the area. Vacant warehouses. Three in total. I was completely baffled by them. There was no connection between the warehouses, only their vacancy. Normally, a string of fires has a link. A disgruntled employee, perhaps. Even faulty wiring could have been linked back to a similar manufacturer or a poor electrician, but it wasn’t that either. I prided myself on assessing situations easily and efficiently. I understand fire—its pathways and how it moves—but these blazes made no sense to me.”
Fire to me was like a dance. It thrived on oxygen and followed a pattern of movement. It was almost sensual how it could lick and lap along on an object before bursting to life. I’d been very good at my job, decoding fire’s motive and movement.
Rubbing my hands against my thighs, I glance around us. We’re rather secluded where we sit, and other than a woman at a table typing away at her laptop, the Bean is empty. Still, I keep my voice low as I continue.
“I was almost home. I’d been living with my brother again as my ex-wife and I were separated. Passing the school was on my way. I noticed the blaze immediately upon rounding the corner and pulled into the parking lot. My nephew and a group of his friends were present, just w
atching the building burn.”
I pause, swallowing around the lump in my throat as Rita closes her eyes again.
“When I confronted the boys, they took off, but I chased Rory.” I follow with his explanation about the fireworks and the boys smoking behind a maintenance shed. There’s no reason to keep the details from Rita. She deserves to know the truth, and I never believed my nephew was guilty.
“I decided to investigate, rounding the building, looking for open doors. It was stupid, actually. Everyone knows you don’t enter a burning building.” Licking my lips, I decide to skip the next details about the blast. Glass shattering. Windows exploding. The heat of flames pouring from the school. “Video surveillance of the schoolyard caught me walking away from a side door I checked for entrance and around the back of the building, but I swear on my life I never entered that building that night.”
Rita continues to hold her coffee mug with both hands, eyes forward as I speak to the side of her face. Her red-framed glasses hide her eyes, and I desperately want her to look at me.
“Rory thought he and his friends set the fire.” Rita finally faces me. “He thought a firework gone wrong might have broken through a window, but it just didn’t add up. And when the investigation discovered the fire alarm had been dismantled—”
“The fire alarm was dismantled,” Rita repeats, her voice quiet and low, processing what I’ve said, before adding, “I don’t recall hearing about fireworks.”
“I told the boys not to mention it.”
Rita stares at me. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“Because Rory was only seventeen. I didn’t need him admitting to something out of fear or guilt. He was almost eighteen and would have been tried as an adult, even if it was an accident. His chances of pre-law would be ruined.”
“Ruined,” Rita echoes under her breath.
“It didn’t make sense that a stray firework started the blaze.” I pause for a moment, recalling my own doubts about the possibility of a firework setting the building on fire. It wasn’t an impossibility. We’d heard of it in the department, but it was rare unless the explosive was already within the building. Rory admitted a few of the explosives the kids used were self-made, which was all kinds of dangerous in its own right, but it still didn’t explain if one fired into the school. He was adamant they had aimed all the fireworks away from the structure. Still, a loose cannon is a loose cannon.
“When Nolan was injured in the fire—”
“Nolan?” Rita questions, shifting slightly on the cushion to face me better.
“My brother was one of the first responders. The second floor collapsed and narrowly missed killing him. Remember I told you he injured his back.”
“Yes, but you said he was injured in a building . . .” Rita lets the rest of her statement drift. The building was a school. I guess I hadn’t specified.
“While my brother was still in a medically induced coma because of severe burns and his injuries, I was arrested. I never believed Rory and his friends did it, but I also couldn’t even hint at the suggestion. The prosecutor was looking for a fall guy, and I couldn’t risk Rory being taken from Nolan on a possibility rather than fact. My brother needed his son.” I couldn’t risk separating them on suspicion. Nolan had already lived without a father. Rory would not suffer the same.
Rita’s eyes widen. Her brows lift. “You withheld information.”
“A firework didn’t start that blaze,” I repeat.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” It was my job to understand fire, and a firework did not do the damage caused by that blaze. “The investigation said faulty wiring started the fire, but was it an accident or tampering? The blaze started in the chemistry lab where chemicals aided in the explosion.”
“I don’t understand how you were accused, then,” Rita emphasizes a word I don’t mistake, and her eyes narrow at me.
“The evidence was circumstantial. My appearance on camera, along with my presence as the first on the scene, perpetuated potential. Plus, my knowledge of fire, all the way down to my skill with electrical wiring, caused probability. I could have done it, had I entered the building, had I had intent, which I didn’t on both counts.”
“Your nephew could have been an alibi. Maybe he saw something or someone else.”
“He didn’t.” The boys were too busy getting high behind the maintenance shed and reveling in their fireworks to notice someone sneaking in or out of the building. Plus, I didn’t want Rory linked in any way to that fire. “The judge concluded that the circumstances of the fire department at the time warranted additional motivation.”
“What circumstances?”
“The State didn’t think an arson investigator was necessary. Some departments were being shut down. Others were being consolidated. Cutbacks in paid positions occurred, which included job loss for chiefs and increased the need for volunteers.”
Nolan had been up for a chief position. He was just as upset as I was when the State’s discussions dwindled to us. I’d be losing my job. He’d be losing a chance at a promotion. “I still don’t understand.”
“The judge felt I had intent. He’d seen it before where firemen started fires to save jobs.”
“That’s absurd. This isn’t . . . Backdraft.” She snorts in that manner she does as she mentions an old movie where this same action occurred in fictional terms.
“It’s the same thing you accused of me,” I remind her, recalling how she seemed to agree with the judgment that I had a reason to start a fire, causing potential harm to fellow firepersons, destroying any possibility to retain my job. Rita has the wherewithal to look chagrined for a moment.
“None of it mattered. I couldn’t prove my own innocence because the investigation wouldn’t allow me to investigate my case. My career was ruined.”
“Ruined,” Rita repeats, the word choking her as it did the first time she repeated it.
“I’m sorry again for your loss, Rita. I’m truly sorry. I didn’t know . . . your fiancé . . . but Rory did, and he said he had the highest respect for him. I think all the kids did.” Despite the school being in a state of disrepair and the summer break allowing students time away, the funeral attendance was something never seen before. Kids from five communities gathered to give their condolences and pay their respects. My stomach flips as I imagine Rita in the receiving line and eventually hovering at the grave site.
“You ruined everything for me,” Rita states incredulously, keeping her voice low.
“Rita, I just explained—” Her hand in the air stops my speech.
“My fiancé was taken from me, but I’d come to terms with that loss a long time ago. A reckless act resulted in his death. I’m not talking about Ian. I’m talking about the fact that after years of recovery and counseling to adjust to his loss, I’d finally found myself in a good place. I dedicate myself to helping others through AA and Building Buddies. I have my practice. I refurbished my parents’ home, and then I met you. You ruined me, not because of what you did or didn’t do in the past, but because of what we did together. I gave myself to you, and it felt so different. Even . . . more than what I had with Ian.” Rita chokes around the admission, and her eyes blink rapidly.
“You didn’t trust me with the truth. If you had only told me . . .” She takes a gulping breath. “I don’t know how I’ll go back to who I was or rather move forward.”
She looks around us, rubbing her hand on the cushion next to her thigh. Confusion fills her expression for a second, and she quietly speaks. “You’ve even ruined this couch for me.”
Next, tears fill her eyes. “But I always recover,” she says to the velvety material.
Slowly, she stands and exits the Bean. Carrying a Busy Bean coffee mug in her hand, she takes my heart with her. I stare after her, knowing nothing I say will bring her back to me. Even the truth won’t set me free because the truth is still out in the elusive there. I’ll never know what happened that night. I only know
I’ve lost a woman who has ruined me just as she feels I ruined her.
18
Rita
The following morning, I meet Scarlett at the Busy Bean Café. I couldn’t keep ignoring her, and I needed to apologize for reacting as I had to the information she shared a week ago. She was only looking out for me as a friend. Also, I needed a baby Harley fix.
“You sure you’re okay with this?” Scarlett questions as she greets me outside the café. She knows how I feel about the location and the couch I accused Jake of hogging.
“I’m not going to hide,” I tell myself as much as reassuring my friend. When Ian passed, I’d fallen into a slump, allowing myself a month to wallow and wane over his loss. Then I picked myself up, or so I thought, returning to work with drinks on the regular when I clocked out for the day and wine before bedtime. By the time I’d made the horrible mistake of throwing myself at a man I can hardly remember and finding myself on the floor of my place, I realized I was still hiding behind a bottle in the shape of Tanqueray or a good red.
Scarlett opens an arm for me, and I step into a side hug from her while she jostles Harley on her other hip.
“Give him to me,” I coo, wiggling my fingers for the little man, and Scarlett passes the growing baby into my arms. As I enter the café, I hadn’t realized I was using Harley as a shield until I let out a huge sigh of relief that Jake is not present on the favored couch. Taking Harley with me to said sofa, Scarlett steps up to the counter to greet Roderick and a new worker behind the counter.
Once seated on the plush peach fabric, I focus on the baby on my lap, inhaling his sticky, sweet scent. My eyes prickle with a reminder of all I’ll never have, but I rapidly blink back the threat of tears. I don’t want to cry anymore.
“Tell me everything,” Scarlett says as she comes to sit beside me, holding two steamy mugs in her hands. I break into what I’d learned only the night before in this same spot, telling her everything right down to the strange lamp he’d given me.