He grabbed the wireless card he’d bought on the way home and yanked open the plastic, tossing the remnants on the floor. He shoved the card in the slot and waited for his computer to hum to life.
Get the story down. Use the energy to imbed passion into the words and finish what he came here to do. Write the story and seal his career.
It didn’t matter that with every angry punch of the RETURN button, he’d envisioned his father’s face bruised and battered underneath it.
“Take the job offer, Ethan. You’re wasting your life with that tabloid crap. God knows your mother put that ridiculous shit in your head,” his father chastised over the phone.
“I don’t want the job,” Ethan roared back, his maroon graduation gown still clinging on his sleeve. “This ‘tabloid shit’ is what I want to do. And Mom knew writing is what I loved. You would know that if you hadn’t left us in that one-room shack without a dollar in Mom’s pocket.”
“If you want something from me, boy, this is it. The opportunity of a lifetime that could change your life for the better.”
“Don’t call me ‘boy.’ And I have changed my life for the better.
You’re
not in it.”
“Then you chose the wrong line of work.”
Ethan crushed the phone closed, along with the banking “opportunity” and any claim he had to his father’s life.
No matter how many times Ethan pounded the Delete or Return button, his father’s face still sneered back at him.
Less than an hour later the writing was done. His anger spent and fingers cramped, he hovered over the Send button on his email. The mouse cursor blinked at him, daring him to push it and give Bose the article he wanted. The article of his career, and the death warrant on Audrey Allen’s election.
All it would take was one little push. And New York would be in his grasp.
Then Audrey would hate him forever.
Suddenly, Ethan couldn’t breath. Couldn’t swallow. Guilt gripped him by the throat and an emptiness deeper than the Mariana Trench split him in two.
He didn’t deserve her. Why did he cling to this unfathomable hope of a life with a woman of impeccable reputation? Greener pastures, maybe.
Which is exactly why she was better off without him. He’d never be satisfied. In the end, he’d behave just like his father and leave the perfect woman in ruin.
But Audrey was strong. She could bounce back from this. She was the queen—no, the empress—of overcoming adversity. She had the ideas for a brighter future, and the support to pull it off. Audrey would make a difference. Unlike Ethan.
So hit the Send button and move on.
Ethan clamped his eyes shut and clicked the button. Audrey’s sparkling eyes, plush lips and truffle hair drifted into his mind, a desolate tear gracing her alabaster cheek.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jack’s pictures littered the Davises’ small living room, his charming adolescent eyes and Sinatra smile surrounded Audrey with the past she was condemned with. But was it the reminder of Jack in every corner, or his mother’s tired and worn face smiling at her from the couch that hurt more?
All of the moisture had been drawn from her mouth and relocated to her eyes. No matter how many times she blinked them away, the water always refilled her tear ducts.
Keep it together, Audrey.
She had turned countless tough rooms in her career, each audience more brutal than the next. Each issue more important and daunting than before. But all of her finesse and tough-as-diamonds arguments couldn’t help her now.
“We’ve been watching you on the news,” Claire started after a sip from her powder blue coffee mug. “It’s wonderful to see how far you’ve come, Audrey.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Davis.” Audrey gripped the handle of her mug, willing herself not to cry. Though Jack was the carbon copy of his father, the smile belonged to his mother. Thin upper lip slightly overlapping a fuller bottom lip, rosy and always set in a smile.
“Please, call me Claire. And this Crisis Center you keep mentioning…how long has it been running?”
“Actually…” Audrey cleared her throat. “We just received the funding for it this week, so it should open by Christmas. Hopefully.”
“Where is this?” Carl interjected, stepping into the room carrying his own mug of tea and sitting in the brown leather armchair next to Audrey.
“East Dallas.”
“What kinds of services will it provide?” Claire asked, the genuine interest in her voice sounding so similar to Jack, it nearly caught Audrey’s breath.
“It’s geared to help single mothers without an income, battered women, and homeless women.” Morphing into her pre-written elevator sales pitch was second nature. She’d said it so often over the last six months it had become part of her subconscious. “Relocation assistance including their children, therapy, and job placement services. Eventually we’ll offer classes on interviewing skills, computer programs, and parenting instruction. Daycare service while they’re in school or on interviews. It will be the largest all-in-one assistance location for pregnant teens or runaways who are on their own.” Audrey stopped. This wasn’t a campaign speech or selling point. And by the sympathetic frowns on both Davises’ faces, she’d struck a nerve. Both theirs and hers.
Audrey stared into the swirling steam of her coffee, suddenly engulfed by Jack’s presence.
“The kind of help you didn’t get.”
The words were spoken so softly, Audrey couldn’t tell who had said them. Lifting her chin to answer was harder than she could admit.
“The kind I didn’t deserve.”
A cold drop of something landed on her thumb. When she glanced down, she realized it was a tear. Hers.
Hold it back, Audrey.
Forcing a deep breath into her lungs, she looked back into Claire’s face, whose smile had finally broken. “Sweetheart, that wasn’t your fault,” the older woman nearly broke into a sob herself as she held her chest.
“No. It was,” Audrey whispered. Setting her coffee on the table in front of her, she swallowed back more sobs. She knew she was going to lose it. What she had fought so hard against the last hour. The last two days. The last ten years. “If I hadn’t been out with him that night, he would have been at home. Not out on the road to crash into a telephone pole. He’d be sitting…right…” Tears streamed down her face. “Right where I am.”
Carl’s warm palms covered her hands.
When had he moved next to me?
“I’m so sorry,” Audrey wept. “You have every right to hate me.”
“Shh, Audrey,” Carl whispered in her ear.
“Jack would have done so many great things; he deserved better than me.” She didn’t bother trying to hold back her tears now. It was useless. Finally facing the true judge and jury of her mistakes was as hard as she expected. Only the room didn’t feel full of judgment. Instead, it cradled her. “I’ve been trying so hard ever since to make up for it. To make the difference he had wanted.”
“Audrey, please look at me,” Claire’s soft and strangled voice asked. Jack’s mother knelt in front of her, her wrinkly and pale hands resting on Audrey’s knees. “We never blamed you, Audrey. We just really missed him.” She pulled a hanky from her pocket and wiped Audrey’s cheeks. “You didn’t deserve any of that backlash from the newspaper or the town. And my regret is not doing enough to stop it when it was happening. We were so caught up in our grief, I didn’t see the damage it was doing to you. To your family.”
A new wave of tears escaped, along with a flood from her nose. She blew her nose into the tissues that Claire offered. But her throat was too swollen to answer.
“Contrary to whatever rumors you heard, we loved you and thought you and Jack were a beautiful young couple. The way he spoke of you with such love and respect, and how bright and talented you were, we were so proud to have you a part of his life. And just as proud that you took his middle name as your own.”
The tears slowed as Carl wrapped his arm around her shoulder, supporting her against his side with a firm yet gentle grip.
“We have something to show you.” Claire’s voice seemed to smile through tears as she spoke. “Will you come upstairs with me?”
Audrey wiped her eyes once more and slowly followed Claire’s ginger steps upstairs. Carl followed a short distance behind, just as Jack always did. Giving her plenty of space, but never more than an arm’s length away.
The short hallway was illuminated with soft lamps and bright carpeting. Her footsteps didn’t sound or feel empty as she moved along the plush fabric beneath her feet. It was four more steps to Jack’s old bedroom, the second door on the left. Now three…two…
When Claire swung open the door, Jack’s spirit didn’t burst from the room as Audrey half expected. No icy blast of air, ghostly howl, or faint chills up her spine. Instead, just a warm light.
Sunlight filled the room between the wispy curtains. The cherry-wood furniture from Jack’s childhood was gone, along with the army posters and football trophies. Scattered across the salmon textured walls were landscape portraits and framed paintings matched perfectly to the floral bedspread on the light maple-wood four-poster.
The décor was the exact opposite of Jack’s room. Whereas she remembered a darker hunting and military theme typical for teenage boys in East Texas, the room was now a soft, country efflorescent feeling.
“What do you think?”
Audrey stumbled over the words that were slow to form in her mind from Claire’s question.
“This is gorgeous…and completely different.”
She wanted to show me their guest room?
A deep chuckle rose from behind her.
“She doesn’t get it, honey,” Carl noted. “Audrey, look at the walls. Notice anything familiar?”
A closer look made Audrey’s jaw fall to her chest. She recognized the paintings. Every single one.
They were hers.
The landscapes she’d painted or sketched for Jack while in high school. Some that she didn’t even know Jack knew of. The largest one framed in an ornate gold frame of a large pond glittering in the sunset—her senior class art project. One that, if she remembered correctly, she gave to her art teacher as a gift.
“We found these among Jack’s things after he passed,” Claire continued. “We fell in love with them and thought they’d be wonderful up in this room. You combine the colors so seamlessly.”
Carl swept into the room and motioned to her senior class project. “This one we found at a teacher’s garage sale and recognized your work immediately. Paid over fifty dollars for it.”
“But…” Audrey’s eyes moved from painting to painting. Her fingers twitched remembering every brush stroke, every sharpening of her pencil with each one. “Why?”
“Because they’re incredible,” Claire replied.
“The way you’ve captured Mackineer’s twilight, right by the pond…amazing skill,” Carl continued, still focusing on each painting. “And only a
teenager
.”
Looking at each piece after all this time filled Audrey’s heart with the same joy she experienced when she made them. The light in the room was perfect and brought out each one’s unique details.
“I’m glad you found use for them,” Audrey muttered.
“You had such promise. But life blitzes people sometimes.” Carl caught her attention with serious eyes. “One minute you’re on one path, the next second you’re throwing a Hail Mary pass fighting just to stay on your feet.”
Audrey’s heart ached with his words, though she couldn’t stop the smirk from the football analogies.
“Your plans for art school were fumbled. But you’ve made an incredible comeback and we’re so proud of you.” Claire cradled Audrey’s hands in her own. “If this election is what you really want, we’re more than happy to support you. But as long as it’s
your
dream. We want you to live
your
life, not Jack’s.”
The denials came to her brain, but Audrey’s couldn’t speak. She couldn’t refute Claire’s concerns, because deep down she couldn’t schmooze her way out of this. Facing the hardest question to the ones who knew her answer better than anyone had to be the truth. No matter how long she’d buried that truth inside.
“One more thing.” Claire patted her hand as she pulled away and moved to the armoire by the window. A moment later, she returned with a small blue velvet box. “Jack wanted you to have this.”
Audrey stared at it, holding the soft cube in her fingers like the lost Grail. She opened it slowly, and stared at the simple gold band with a solitary pear-shaped diamond. Nothing flashy or extravagant. Jack knew her so well.
“The EMTs found this in Jack’s pocket that night,” Claire murmured. “He was so excited before he left…and nervous. He’d been planning it for several weeks.”
All Audrey could do was nod. There were no words, no other gesture to express her bitter happiness staring at the ring Jack had picked for her.
“It was meant for you, so it belongs nowhere else,” Carl spoke softly. “You don’t have to keep it, but it’s your choice. No matter what, you’re still a daughter to us.”
Audrey closed the box and let the renewed tears fall. She took one step and wrapped her arms around Carl, who hugged her back tightly.
“Please do what makes you happy,” he whispered. “That’s all we and Jack ever wanted for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The frigid breeze nipped at her legs as Audrey trudged the hill full of headstones. Even through her jeans, the wind was unforgiving. But the bulge in her jacket pocket warmed her palm, radiating up her arm and into her chest.
The black headstone blended well into the sunset shadows created by the swaying willow tree branches. But she didn’t have to see it to find the beacon of his grave. Audrey knelt and wiped the dead leaves from the top of his name, keeping hold of the top of his marker.
“No more apologies, Jack. You’ve heard them all over the last ten years, anyway.”
She pulled the box from her pocket and opened it once more, letting the diamond catch a few rays of light. She wasn’t a writer. But she let the feelings wash over her, leaving only the words that mattered, and then settle in her mind.
“You know I would have said yes. I’d be a completely different person. But I’ve tried to make you proud.”
She set the box on his headstone and grabbed a nearby stick. A few moments later, she’d bored a small hole in the ground, just above where she thought Jack’s heart would have been. With a kiss on the velvet fabric, she set the box into the hole and covered it with the loose dirt.