CHAPTER 43
*PRESENT*
“Our bodies still intertwined”
Maya
I called my secretary just when I got home, letting her know my decision. I should have let her know beforehand, but my boss caught me by surprise, and I wanted to get it over with already. She forgave me.
“How’s Lucas doing?”
I asked her.
“Haven’t you heard? she asked. “You’re going to be very proud. So, he told me what happened that made him hit that little punk, and when a couple of days ago, his family told him that they were pressing charges, I showed him the evidence that we had, and they dropped everything.”
“What happened at the party?” I asked.
“That’s for him to tell, but don’t worry. No one got injured, but he tried.”
“You two make an amazing team. Well done!”
I laughed. I needed the good news more than I realized.
I found Aaron deep in conversation on a call, and I decided to wait for him, watching a movie. I wasn’t a big fan of television in general, only watching the news when I had time.
I put on an old rom-com and got up more times than usual, making sure my husband was still safe and sound.
The tenth time that he found me looking at him from the corridor, he raised an eyebrow and hung up.
“You can still talk with whoever it was,”
I said. “It seemed important.”
He lifted me with just one hand and sat me on his lap on the sofa.
“What are we watching?”
he asked, kissing my neck.
“Aaron, I truly don’t mind. People need you. They rely on you.”
He nodded.
He kissed my neck again, and I pushed myself against his lap, earning a delicious moan.
I turned around and started kissing his jaw, his cheeks, his neck, everywhere that I could while my husband’s hands roamed my body.
I started to unbutton his shirt, more of his skin showing little by little. Once I had undone every single one, I tugged off his shirt, throwing it somewhere behind me.
Aaron laughed against my cheek.
“It was in the way,”
I explained.
Strong hands grabbed me under my legs, and Aaron started to go to our bedroom with me in his arms.
I took advantage of the situation, kissing him everywhere I could get.
A firm mattress found my back, and my husband laid on top of me with just the perfect pressure.
Clothes flew everywhere until we were just skin to skin, losing myself in my husband’s mouth. His lips were wet from my desire, his hair messy from my hands. His pupils were so dilated that the blue in his eyes was only a small circle.
My nails scratched his back, trying to hold tight to it, while he punished me with a demanding rhythm.
It was maddening. It was delicious.
I came with his name on my lips. He followed me soon after.
Soon after, sleep caught up to us.
Our bodies were still intertwined.
***
I woke up in the middle of the night and turned on my computer. I printed the archive filled with text between my parents over the years.
I clicked on the last document that had been sent by the detective. An archive of notes that my mom wrote for herself.
I heard my husband’s footsteps and felt his arms around me while we read every single one of them.
My husband was anchoring me to the present, letting me know he would be here for me always, as I would always be here for him.
Tears soaked into the freshly printed sheets.
They had reunited over the years, over and over again.
In the house that we had helped my mom buy.
In our old house.
They had never stopped the contact, not really.
At the end, my dad never was able to get better.
It was my mom who lost her life next to him.
I found some peace on it.
I burned the pages.
I hugged my husband tight, and when the first lights of sun started to paint the sky, we went to the cemetery to say goodbye to them.
For me.
***
“Aaron, I need to visit them,”
I said after crying in my husband’s arms, my eyes still in the ashes created by the burned paper.
He nodded and kissed my forehead. It was just a touch but a balm to my beaten-up soul.
We walked side by side, with our hands grabbed, in complete silence.
The houses were changing, the paint on the fronts of the houses chipped, and kids were playing on the pavement. It was just a chilly afternoon for them.
We passed the trailer camp, so changed since I lived there that it didn’t seem the same. My childhood home gone.
When the sun was changing colors, we got in front of my parent’s tombstones.
Callahan Amery.
Grace Rose Amery.
My fingertips touching their names, feeling every dent in the stone.
My fingers dirted.
No one has taken care of them.
I was the only one left of the Amery’s.
Their legacy ends with me.
I started to remove the weeds next to them.
One by one.
Tears falling from my face.
My husband kneeling next to me, helping me clean the mess surrounding them.
Memories were coming back, and this time I didn’t suppress them. I remembered everything.
The good. The bad. The ugly.
The betrayals. The feeling of never being enough. Never chosen by my mom.
The angriness at him for not getting better, not on time.
The knowledge that I would never get the whole truth, never would be able to ask why.
The hopes that I had for the future. A future that would never be.
The fleeting dream that I had was that we could ever be a whole family again. A dream I haven’t wanted to say out loud, ashamed that I dreamt of it after everything.
The forgiveness.
The mornings of pancakes and laughter.
Playing with my dad, trying to get more answers than him.
My mom’s tired face, always there to listen my rant about everything and anything.
We both were sweaty, dirty and had streaks of tears in our faces, but with Aaron’s help, I cleaned my parents’ tombstone and decorated it with my mom’s favorite flowers.