Chapter 9 #2
Emory mirrored his stance, tucking her hands under her arms. She shook her head.
It stung behind her eyes a bit, the mention of Byron’s late wife.
Sure, she’d known about Josie. Small details that she’d gathered up here and there.
Mostly from Mya, though, if she were honest. Jaxon had never mentioned his mother, and maybe that should have been the first red flag, but Emory had always ignored it.
But the thing with small towns is that everyone knows everybody else’s business.
So sure, after Jaxon had left, Mya had told Emory that his—and Tucker’s—mum had died when he was little, but she’d never gone into detail.
That same stinging feeling behind her eyes started up in Emory’s throat.
She should have cared more, should have been a better friend to Byron after he had shown her so much kindness all these years.
He’d always seemed so closed off, though, and she’d never been one to pry.
Didn’t stop her feeling bad about it now she could see the hurt in his eyes though.
“Tucker would have been about Clayton’s age, Jaxon a bit older,” Byron started.
Emory had never heard his voice sound so grim.
It burrowed into her until she wished she could take away his pain.
“Night before, the rain came down like nothing else. Different to now, though. It didn’t flood because the ground was already so wet, and there was no rain up north.
Josie took Tucker into town and I was fixing fucking fence posts like I do every day. ”
The next sound from Byron was inconsolable. He sank to the floor with a sob that shook Emory’s bones. She followed him down, crawling across the floor to wrap her arms over his body.
“I had Jaxon with me, and I should have told her to leave Tucker with us, too, but she took him.” Byron spoke to the ground, hugging his knees.
“They think he distracted her, and when she tried to correct her steering, she went into the ditch. If he’d been with me, she never would have lost control. ”
“It’s not your fault,” Emory whispered. Other people had probably told him the same over and over, but she had to say something.
Byron sniffed and wiped his eyes with his shirt again. As he began to compose himself, Emory slid back, unsure of what he needed.
“I know,” he said when they were no longer touching. “It took a few years of therapy, but I know. Still, if I could do something different, that would be it. I’d take Tucker with me to fix the fence.”
Emory understood then why he needed her to leave Clayton while she went to town. Maybe even why he helped with Clayton as much as he did. Byron’s hand found hers on the rough, tiled floor.
“That’s why,” he whispered. “Please.”
She squeezed his fingers and whispered back, “Okay.”
Grief was still flooding Emory’s veins as she pulled into the crowded car park at the small independent supermarket in the centre of Gardner Creek.
She wasn’t sure what it meant that Byron was opening up to her after all these years, but it seemed like everything about their relationship had changed in the kitchen this morning.
They shared something now, an understanding.
It made all the little nuances of how Byron acted around her and Clayton make so much more sense.
For a while, especially recently, Emory had been fooling herself into thinking maybe he acted the way he did because of her.
But it wasn’t that at all. He acted the way he did because he was trying to atone.
He clearly held a lot of guilt, even if he said he had moved past that, and looking after Clayton was how he made up for it. It had nothing to do with Emory at all.
She did three laps of the overflowing, tiny supermarket parking lot before giving up and pulling out onto the road.
She had more luck at the school across the street.
The kiss and go parks on the side of the road were all labelled for five minutes only, but being the Saturday before a flood came through, Emory doubted it mattered.
She wasn’t the only one; three cars pulled in behind her as she exited her car.
If the ticket inspector did care to come past, he would be chuckling.
Emory took the risk and headed for the supermarket.
Nappies, she reminded herself. And something for Clayton to do that didn’t involve reruns of Bluey and Play School.
Her basket full of Play-Doh tubs, cheap paints, a few sticker books, and a ream of paper, Emory juggled the packet of pull-up nappies under her free arm.
Clayton still needed one most nights, and although he occasionally woke up dry, Emory wasn’t ready to risk night training him just yet. That was a Future Emory problem.
Making her way through the aisles, just in case, Emory added plenty of snacks and chocolates into the bright green basket. You can never have enough snacks might as well have been her life motto, and she wasn’t about to run out while stuck at Byron’s farmhouse.
In the next aisle, she froze in her tracks.
Body wash in a thousand shades of pastel lined one side, a variety of medications on the other.
But it was the handful of small boxes in deep colours, navy blues and steel greys, that got her attention.
High on the shelf to her right, the condoms screamed at her.
Did she need them? The old her would have laughed at the thought.
But she wasn’t on the pill, and after everything between her and Byron, maybe she did.
She could still hear the way he moaned her name through the wall and see the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t looking.
Plus, there was that weird thing her heart kept doing after he opened up to her in the kitchen.
Didn’t matter what her head said, her heart was convinced it meant something.
She chose not to overthink the condoms, considering that the worst-case scenario, if she did buy them, would simply be them not getting used.
They could sit, hidden in the bottom of her suitcase, until the floodwaters receded and she moved to the city.
It wouldn’t be the end of the world. And that way, they would be there if they did need them. And God, she hoped they did.
Without pausing to check the boxes, she grabbed a pack and tossed it into her now overflowing basket. She cringed at herself and raced towards the front of the store to pay.
“Emory?”
Her heart sank. She’d recognise that voice anywhere. It was the sound of all her hopes and dreams falling through the floor. It was the crashing of her heart, breaking into a million tiny pieces. The song of solo parenting and long nights in a town that still felt far from home.
Emory sucked in the deepest breath her lungs would allow and pushed her shoulders back. She tipped her chin up as she turned slowly towards the man who broke her heart, but not her soul.
“Jaxon.” Her tone was firm, all pleasantries for the man having fled along with him three years ago.
“I went by the cottage, but you weren’t there.”
Jaxon reached for her then, stepping forward with an arm outstretched. Emory shied away from his touch. She didn’t need his false concern, and she didn’t want it either.
“We evacuated for the flood. After it’s all safe, I’ll go back in to remove the rest of my stuff.
” She shrugged her shoulders in a way she hoped screamed indifference.
She wasn’t sad about leaving the cottage.
In fact, she just hated that she would have to go back to clean it out. “Before the lease ends, don’t worry.”
Jaxon ignored her promise, looking around her feet. “Where’s Clayton?”
“He’s safe.” Thankfully, she didn’t add. Clayton didn’t know his father, considering Jaxon had left before he was born. She didn’t need to worry about their first meeting in the middle of a crowded supermarket when she was pressed for time. “Why are you here?”
“Same reason you are, I suppose. Stocking up before the flood.”
Emory couldn’t hold back the way her eyes rolled at how blasé he was acting. “Yes, but why are you here in town? Why are you back?”
“A guy can’t come back to his roots?” Jaxon held his arms out wide, nearly knocking over an old lady with the basket he flung around.
She scowled at him and hurried on, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
Either way, it was another good reminder for Emory that he really was a pathetic waste of space.
“Sure, but considering you’ve run away from your roots twice, it’s a little odd, don’t you think?”
He scoffed at her jab. “I have finally realised city life is not for me. And why should I waste my dime paying someone else’s mortgage in the city when I have a perfectly good house that I own right here in Gardner Creek? I’m staying at the motel until I can move back in.”
Emory could read between the lines. His money was running dry, probably from all the overseas holidays and excessive parties.
It wasn’t like she stalked him or anything, but any mother worth the title would keep an eye on what the father of her child was doing.
Mostly, she was just trying to make sure he wasn’t planning to do exactly what it was he appeared to be doing.
Coming back. The timing was gross, but if she could survive the flood, she’d head off for the city before Jaxon could try to wiggle his way into their lives.
“I thought I could meet Clayton,” Jaxon added. He dropped his arm and scuffed a foot along the floor. And Emory could at least give Jaxon credit for looking sincere, even if she didn’t believe it.
“Look, I have to go,” she said instead of answering him. “Things to do before the creek rises any higher. I’ve got a bridge to get across.”
Emory turned on her heel to head towards the checkout. Her basket flung around her, loose on her arm.
“Wait, where are you staying?” Jaxon called behind her.
“It’s not your business, Jaxon.”
“So why do you need condoms?”
Emory felt a cracking in her chest, followed by an intense heat in her cheeks.
Ants crawled through her skin as half the people in the queue for the checkout stopped to look at her.
With no gap between snacks and craft items in her basket, the deep purple box sat on top of the bags of chips, ready for them all to see.
Closing her eyes, she did her best to shut out Jaxon’s pestering question and the curious glances everyone continued to throw her way.
When she opened her eyes, Jaxon was standing right in her face. “What bridge, Emory?”
She shook her head. He knew all her tells when she lied, it wasn’t even worth trying. She opted for silence instead.
“What bridge?”
A register—self-serve, to her delight—opened up in front of her, and Emory took her escape.
Still, she felt Jaxon’s eyes on her as she scanned all her items and raced back to the car.
The back of her neck tingled as she rushed to the library.
Mya wasn’t there, no doubt already safe and sound at Tucker’s house, and Emory would have missed her if she hadn’t been so rattled.
Instead, the town’s other librarian, a greying woman with an arm of beaded bangles and a brightly knitted cardigan, helped her find a selection of toys for Clayton.
The tension in Emory’s shoulders eased a little when she walked past the new homeware store that had popped up in town just a few months ago.
It must have been where Byron bought the candle.
The thought soothed something in her, like a soft reminder that maybe he wanted all the things she wanted, too.
She ducked inside. The candle had been a lovely addition to Byron’s manly farmhouse, and she’d appreciated the subtle crackling as the wooden wick burnt down.
It would be nice to have more. There were so many scents in the store, from subtle linen to the sweetest florals.
Emory lost herself as she smelt them all and tried to decipher which one Byron would appreciate most. It shouldn’t have mattered, really.
She was buying it for her, not him. But she cared all the same.
Hastily, because she was desperate to get back now, she picked one.
Anticipation and hesitation swirled in her, never letting up until she crossed the bridge towards Byron’s farm.
As the farmhouse came into view at the end of the long driveway, something else replaced all her concerns. Thrill.
Sure, getting into bed with her ex-boyfriend’s father could get messy.
But she was leaving town soon anyway. Seeing Jaxon had stirred a long-forgotten fire in her, reminding her of how she used to go after what she wanted instead of huddling in the corner and waiting for her dreams. So, why not give in to the temptation that was spun through the house and enjoy herself while they were flooded in?
Because if nothing else, it would be fun.