Chapter 18 #2
She chattered about the day, and how everyone who came into the Rose kept asking about him, and how determined his sons had been to find the men who tried to kill him, and then working so hard to clear the Kingston name.
“You made the right decision when you stayed. You are their touchstone to what a man of honor is supposed to be.” And then she smiled. “Lord knows you cannot deny them. There are visible pieces of you in all of them, right down to the black-haired, blue-eyed giants they are.”
“I am proud of them, that’s for sure,” he said.
“They are men to be proud of,” Pearl said, and then glanced at the clock. “It’s late. I’ll just put these things in the dishwasher for you. Do you need to take medicine before you go to bed?”
“No. Benny made sure of all that before he left. I get around good enough to get myself in bed. I’m getting stronger by the day. And I feel about a thousand pounds lighter now that I am no longer the devil from your past.”
Pearl’s eyes welled. “You were never that, and it’s my fault as much as yours that Brenda was able to trick the both of us.”
Jacob reached out and laid his hand over hers. “Water under the bridge, honey. Water under the bridge. She’s gone, and we’re still here.”
“Except there is no ‘we’, just me and you, and the gas station between us.”
Jacob shook his head. “Only if you choose to keep it that way. The decision will always be yours.”
Pearl blinked. “Right now, you need to get well. Put your world back together. Open the Tumbleweed so I can get your mopey domino players out of my café, and we’ll see what we shall see.”
He grinned. “Maybe I’ll build a dam under that bridge and put a stop to all that wasted water.”
She smiled back. “We shall see what we shall see,” she repeated, then cleared the table and retrieved her things.
She was putting on her coat as Jacob stood, then followed her to the back door.
The empty basket was over her arm as she looked back to make sure he was steady on his feet. “Lock up behind me,” she said.
Instead, Jacob reached for her with his good arm, tilted her chin, and kissed her soundly.
“Take care of you,” he said, and then opened the door for her.
Pearl’s mouth was still tingling. It hadn’t been used for kissing a man in a really long time, and she didn’t remember what to do. What to say. He was still standing in the doorway watching as she got into her car, and didn’t close the door until she was leaving.
She didn’t remember the drive home, or climbing the stairs to her apartment, and when she finally got to bed, she couldn’t sleep. Her thoughts were jumbled. Her priorities were in peril. Jacob Kingston had just turned her world upside down, and she wasn’t all that upset about it.
And down the road, in the back of the Tumbleweed Bar, Jacob had taken himself to bed with hopes and dreams he’d thought had already passed him by.
* * *
Asher’s first day back on the job was over.
He was driving toward his local Whole Foods to pick up a grocery order, thinking his house was going to feel empty until Nora was there to come home to, when a red Audi in the lane to his left suddenly shot across Asher’s lane, sideswiping the car in front of him, and then gunning it into the far-right lane in an attempt to exit the off ramp.
Asher slammed on the brakes, and at the same time, tried not to get rear-ended by the car behind him.
He hit the red and blue lights on his car, and managed to get into the exit lane.
Even as he was calling in the wreck, he saw the red Audi miss the ramp and go airborne, sailing out into the space between the off ramp and the elevated highway he’d just exited, before landing in the middle of traffic on the street below, causing another multicar pileup.
Ash shot down the ramp the Audi driver missed, with lights still flashing, and pulled off the highway into the parking lot of a service station, popped the trunk to grab a fire extinguisher, and started running toward the nearest smoking car.
Traffic had finally come to a standstill.
The hood of the smoking car had popped up during the wreck, and the windshield was shattered.
He could see a man and two kids inside, and victims all around crawling out of their wrecked cars, dazed and stumbling, blood dripping from their wounds.
People from neighboring businesses were running out of their shops, some of whom were also carrying fire extinguishers.
Asher emptied the fire extinguisher on the smoking car, and then ran to the driver. The man was unconscious, and the little boys in the back seat were crying and in shock.
“Hey, guys, we need to get you out of the car, okay? My name is Officer Kingston. I’m a special investigator for the state of Texas,” he said, and showed them his badge, hoping it would lend a measure of trust. He leaned in to unfasten their seat belts, then began checking them for injuries before attempting to move them.
“I know you must be scared, but can you tell me your names?”
The little blond with curly hair wiped the snot off his upper lip with the back of his coat sleeve. “I’m Mike Abram. This is my brother, Ray.”
“Who’s oldest?” Asher asked as he began checking their pulses, and checking their heads for wounds.
“I am. I’m nine,” Mike said. “Ray is seven.”
Asher’s heart skipped. The same ages Dylan and Gunner were when Brenda committed suicide.
“Do you hurt anywhere?” he asked.
“Kind of all over,” Mike said.
“All over,” Ray echoed.
At that point, the driver began groaning and Asher’s first thought was, at least he’s still alive. “Is the driver your father?” Asher asked.
They nodded and started crying. “Is he dead?” Mike asked.
“No son, he’s not dead. What’s his name?”
“Roy Lee Abrams,” Mike said.
Asher checked the driver for a pulse. It was steady enough, but the danger of any of these cars blowing up or bursting into flames in the next five seconds was real.
“Let’s go, boys,” he said, and held out his hands.
They crawled out into his arms, still crying, and as he turned, saw firemen running through the crowd, and police and EMTs following.
“Over here!” he shouted, and waved down a pair of EMTs. “My name’s Kingston. I’m a cop with the attorney general’s office. The driver is unconscious. His name is Roy Lee Abrams. These are his sons, Mike and Ray. Where do I take them?”
They pointed to ambulances arriving and lining up along the side of the highway. It was as close as they could get. “First bus is ours. Number ten. That’s where we’ll take the father. Keep them together. It’s a nightmare for family when they wind up at different hospitals.”
“On it,” Asher said, and started weaving his way through the wrecks with both boys clinging to him, their arms clutched around his neck. “You’re both safe, okay? You’re going to ride in an ambulance with your daddy.”
Ray was sobbing. “I want Mommy.”
“The police will call her. They’ll let her know where you are, okay?”
Mike shook his head. “Mommy went to heaven today. Daddy was taking us to Grandma’s house.”
The words were a shot in the heart. Asher pulled them closer, held them tighter. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he kept saying.
When he reached the ambulance, he handed the boys over, flashed his badge, and delivered the information, but when he turned around to leave and saw the boys wrapped together in a blanket, huddled together as if they’d just been abandoned to the world, something inside of him broke.
He walked back to his car with his chest aching. His throat tight with tears as he got into his car, he then drove around to the back of the service station and took a back alley out, and away from the scene.
It was after eight before he got to Whole Foods and picked up his order, then headed home. He didn’t think. He just drove.
Forty-five minutes later, he was pulling into his garage. As soon as the door went down, he popped the trunk, gathered up the bags of groceries, and went inside.
The house was just the way he’d left it. But he would never be the same. In his line of work, some days were like that.
He put everything up, then turned on the lights in the hall as he went to his room to lock up his weapon.
He emptied his pockets on top of the dresser, then stripped where he stood and headed for the shower. His heart was pounding as he turned on the water, and only then noticed his hands were shaking. He was coming undone.
It wasn’t the weeks of stress from what happened to Jacob. It wasn’t even about that damn fool driver who’d set off a chain reaction of death and destruction. It was the little boys. They were the trigger.
All of the shock, and the sadness, and the fear he’d hidden when it had happened to them.
Then stepping into shoes too big for a child to wear just to be strong for his dad, for his little brothers.
Every side-glance they’d lived with. Every snide remark.
Every whisper of gossip. All the shame. Pretending he didn’t hear. Didn’t know. Didn’t care.
The tragedy of those little boys’ lives today had hit hard. Hard enough to bring down a wall. Hard enough to make a grown man cry.
Ash stepped beneath the steaming water and ducked his head into the spray. The tears washed away as fast as they fell, until there were no more tears to cry. Then he grabbed the bar of soap and began scrubbing and scrubbing until the shame was all gone.
He said a prayer for Roy Lee Abrams and for his sons, and for the grandma who would step into the gap, and then he turned off the water and got out, dripping all over the bathmat until he remembered that he needed a towel.
He towel-dried his hair, then himself, and walked back into his bedroom and pulled back the covers. He hadn’t eaten since morning. He didn’t want to close his eyes and relive anything. What he needed was Nora, but was glad she couldn’t see him like this.