24. Ember #4
I looked up at the weatherboard cottage and the dormer windows that peeked out of the angled roof. To get to the safety of my attic bedroom, I’d have to go inside. I’d have to see the home that would never belong to me. I’d have to scurry around like a rat waiting for the exterminator to come.
Numb, I turned around and headed back down the driveway.
It was a long walk back to the bakery, but the alternative was entering that house and suffocating on my own shame.
I was so embarrassed about how I’d acted with Jack.
He must’ve known that I was besotted with him.
He could see it, and he kept sleeping with me.
Kept kissing me. Kept saying all those things about wanting and needing me.
And, idiot that I was, I fell for it.
There was still activity around the bakery, so I was accosted by a deputy who got me to make a statement.
Then Caroline plied me with baked goods that were probably delicious but I couldn’t stomach at all.
She looked at me with worried eyes, and I forced myself to take the swirling mass of toxic emotions and push it deep, deep down.
I retreated back into myself, where I was safe.
When I was sure I wouldn’t fall apart, I headed back to Jack and Darby’s house. This morning, I would’ve called it home. But now I knew the truth. I didn’t belong here. I never had.
By the time I got back, the wind had picked up and it felt like rain was on the way.
I trudged into the house and heard nothing.
The stairs creaked as I went upstairs, and both Jack and Darby’s rooms were shut.
The house felt like a malignant spirit had taken up residence and sucked out all the joy.
I thought about my dad and the way our house had felt when I was a kid.
It had felt just like this. My insides were scraped raw.
Ten seconds after I closed my bedroom door, there was a knock.
When I opened, Darby looked at me like a kicked puppy.
“I don’t even remember my mom playing the piano,” she blurted.
“I hate it, and I’m bad at it, and he won’t let me quit.
I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that part. I don’t…
I don’t know how to talk about my mom. Especially with my dad. ”
Breath whooshed out of me. I looked at the girl in front of me and saw a crumpled-up version of the bright, happy, sassy kid I’d come to love.
“Grief is strange,” I said, knowing platitudes wouldn’t help but not able to think of anything better to say.
“Your father’s trying to hold on to the woman he loved in any way he can. He shouldn’t be putting that on you.”
He was still deeply in love with Tanya. A woman who wasn’t me.
A woman who would never be me. How could I have thought I could ever be someone Jack cherished?
That door was forever closed, and it had been since his beloved wife had passed away.
I’d seen that from the start, and somehow I’d forgotten.
I’d been blinded by his charm, by the feeling of being pretty and perfect and treasured.
For someone who prided herself on being smart, I discovered I was pretty fucking dumb.
Darby blinked at me with her father’s blue eyes. “I thought he loved you.”
A sad excuse for a smile curled my lips. “I don’t think so,” I said, and I watched her creep back down the stairs with her head bowed.
JACK
I’d fucked up. I knew it in an academic sort of sense, but I couldn’t make it feel true.
First, I’d yelled at Darby. I’d only yelled at her twice before, and each time had made me sick with guilt.
And then I’d doubled down. I knew she wanted to quit piano, but I couldn’t…
I just couldn’t let her. It was the one thing that kept Tanya alive in our house.
If Darby didn’t play, it meant I’d failed to keep her mother’s memory alive.
Failed to make Darby feel connected to the woman who’d loved her so much.
Failed to honor the wife I’d married and lost.
So no matter how much I knew I’d made a mistake, it still felt justified. Darby needed to play piano. It was the one real, tangible connection we still had to Tanya.
But then there was Ember. When Ivan had held that bottle to her neck, something inside me had broken. I couldn’t go through this again. Couldn’t watch someone else die while I was helpless to do anything about it. Couldn’t entrust my heart to a woman who might take off and run with it.
In that moment, it was like a switch had flicked inside me, and all my feelings had turned dull and muffled. One moment, I’d been angry and panicked, all my thoughts turning to wordless howls. Then everything went flat, like my brain had decided it was too much and it needed to shut down.
Now I was numb. So numb I wondered if I’d ever feel like myself again.
Maybe I was myself. Maybe this was the true me. This flat, empty version of a human. I’d only been pretending before.
I should’ve known I didn’t deserve happiness. The people I loved always found a way to leave me. I drove them to it just by being me.