3. Amber
3
AMBER
T he bubbling laughter and intermittent screams of seven-year-old children racing around my small two-bedroom apartment made me giddy. Vera and Parker turned seven on Friday. I took the day off work to spend with them, but we waited until today, Saturday afternoon, to host a birthday party.
“Woah! Slow down, speedy,” Mom chided, patting Parker on the head as he raced past. The living room just wasn’t quite large enough for games of tag or roughhousing. With the chunky furniture and so many little ones, it felt cramped.
“My gosh, they have so much energy,” Shelby sighed. She turned to me with a smile and an armful of wrapping paper she’d collected from the floor. Her own child, Nicky, was Parker’s best friend, and was also engaged in the high-energy playtime. Cake and ice cream were a mother’s nemesis.
“Oh, you can put that over there.” I pointed to a large cardboard box in the kitchen designated for recycling. “Thank you…”
Shelby waltzed off as I scanned the room and spotted Vera with her friends. They were much calmer, clustered in a corner with their Barbie dolls playing pretend. She offered a sneer of disdain at Parker when he ran up to her with fingers curled up like claws and growled at her. I chuckled at their play. Turning seven was only fun if your twin left you alone to enjoy your own friend group. One day they’d appreciate this more.
“It was really nice of Mr. Price to come help,” Mom said as she started to collect the plates and cups from cake time. I stooped over the table and helped her. There were half-eaten slices of cake, and most of the plastic cups had milk in them still. At my salary I couldn’t afford to throw this much food away, but I didn’t want the twins filling their bellies with junk all the time.
“Yeah, he’s class dad.” I smiled at her as I poured one cup into another to make carrying them out easier. “He goes everywhere.” I glanced at Mr. Price who had finally wrangled the boys and had them in a dogpile on the ground wrestling. It was better than running I supposed. He was older than me too, by several years.
I found that a lot. So far, I was the youngest mother in the class every year, or I appeared to be. I never asked the parents their ages, but most seemed to be in their mid to late thirties. At twenty-nine with a set of seven-year-old twins, I got strange looks. A lot of times I was asked if I was their older sister, which wasn’t bad as a compliment.
“Well, it was nice of him.” Mom smiled at me as Shelby approached.
“I think Nicky and I have to head out soon. He has to get his insulin. I forgot to bring it with me.” Shelby was my lifeline to a normal adult life. I spent so much time with children, I forgot what it was like to have friends and go out. If it wasn’t for her friendship here and at work, I would feel like an island of my own.
“Thank you so much for coming…I’m so sorry to spring all that on you.” I frowned as I remembered asking such a huge favor of her. After what happened at work while I was out, I was left in a tricky situation. Jacob promised to stop by and pick up the cake, but he and Erin weren’t returning my calls.
“It’s not a problem…” Shelby looked a bit concerned, her forehead creased with worry. “You think the rumor is true?”
I didn’t know if it was or wasn’t. Everything I heard came from her. She said people at work were talking about Jacob having had a heart attack, but Erin would have called me…Wouldn’t she?
“Gossip starts a fire that burns the whole house down, ladies.” Mom eyed me and Shelby before turning to carry her armload of paper plates to the trash.
“Thanks, Mona,” Shelby said, rolling her eyes. She chuckled and patted my arm. “I know he’s like a father to you. I hope we get answers soon. Maybe he just fainted.” Her comforting smile was aimed at helping my heart feel settled but I was still nervous. With Erin being out of touch, it only made the unsettled feeling of fear worse. Jacob really had been like a father to me, and after putting my own father in the ground, the idea of losing him terrified me.
Someone knocked on the door just as Shelby turned to scream over her shoulder for Nicky to get his coat. I floated that way, not knowing what to expect. My neighbors probably hated the noise from the party, though I doubted it was one of them complaining. And I wasn’t expecting any other guests yet, or parents here to retrieve children.
When I rose up on my tiptoes to peek through the peephole, I felt relief wash down my body. A smile formed on my lips as I turned the knob and backed away to swing the door open. It was Jacob. I could tell right away. His salt and pepper hair was partially obscured by the gray scarf he wore, and though he had his back to me, I recognized the tan overcoat.
“Jacob, I was so worried.” The words spilled from my lips in a rush, and the man turned around with a gift in hand. Except, it wasn’t Jacob. “Evan…” The breath that escaped felt like it sucked all the air out of my chest, like my lungs collapsed after I said the word.
“Hey, Amber…” His voice was soft. He stood only a few feet away. His gloved hands held a square gift wrapped in bright primary-colored paper with a ribbon on top and a card attached.
A knot formed in my throat, and I stood there staring like an idiot. He was every bit as handsome as the last day I’d seen him almost eight years ago. Except, he had a lot more salt to his pepper, and fine age lines had begun to form around his eyes. The stubble was new too. He always kept his face clean-shaven back then.
“Uh, this is from Jacob and Erin…” He held the gift out and I watched his eyes flick over my shoulder into the room where the kids were being loud again. “I’m sure you’ve heard by now…”
I licked my lips. My mouth was so dry it felt like sandpaper over wood. I hadn’t heard. I wasn’t at work. Even so, Gavin, the company’s COO, was keeping things bottled up. Need to know and all that.
“Heard?” I asked, feeling dazed. I hadn’t seen this man in eight years, and he just showed up on my doorstep. My body vibrated with so many unspoken feelings—attraction, connection, chemistry, terror. If he only knew.
“Jacob had a massive coronary, Amber. He’s in the hospital.” Evan’s eyes searched my expression as if he didn’t know me, as if we hadn’t spent hundreds of hours together talking and having sex. Or was he looking for the connection we lost when he went to Europe and came back with a woman draped on his arm?
“My God,” I breathed, unable to form more words. Shock rode over my entire body. Every cell was numb and pulsing.
“He had open-heart surgery. He barely survived it. We’re not sure if he’ll make it. It was just yesterday.” His grimace and the way his head dropped when I took the gift made my heart squeeze. I wanted to run to his arms and press his face against my chest to comfort him. But that thing between us, the one where I was his source of comfort—it was over a long time ago.
“The company though…” Was it selfish that I thought about my job? Without Jacob, I’d have no one to report to. I might not have a job to return to. It made the panic slicking through my veins even worse. My cheeks got hot as my body dumped cortisol into my bloodstream.
“I’ll handle that …”
“Erin,” I said as my thoughts went to her. She wasn’t like a mother to me, more like a sister, because I had my own mom. But she was a sweet lady. She had to be scared. “I should go to her.”
“I’m staying…” he said, and his eyes swept up to meet mine. “But that’s nice of you. She’ll appreciate the sentiment. She has way too much food, so don’t send any casseroles.” Evan’s warm chuckle lit up his face momentarily before his expression drooped again. “I’ll take care of her…She told me to let you know if you need anything you can reach out. Jacob would still want you to be cared for too. We all know how hard you took Chester’s death.”
He ran a hand over his hair and sighed. “I better run. You have a houseful.”
“Yeah,” I said as he took a step backward. “It was good to see you…”
Evan pressed his lips into a line and nodded at me before he turned and walked away, and I felt someone’s hand on my bicep squeezing. I turned to see my mom there, solemn expression on her face.
“Are you okay?” she asked, and I knew exactly what she meant.
There were three people in this world who knew everything. Mom, me, and Jacob. If the news of Jacob’s very real heart attack hadn’t hit me so hard, I’d have been tearing my hair out in fear. Mom pulled me away from the door, and I turned slowly to look down at Parker’s chubby face as he said goodbye to Nicky. He was the spitting image of his father. A man I’d kept a dark secret from for years. A secret Jacob helped me keep because he knew what it would mean for both of us.
A secret that I had a very bad feeling was about to be uncovered.
“Come on…I’ll pour you a drink,” Mom said, taking my hand as she ushered me away from the door.
Yes. A drink. That was what I needed.
A good stiff drink.