Freed by Fire (2 page)

Something she had always said to me growing up.

“
We don’t say goodbye, Emery. It’s always, “till later”
.” Was one of her sayings.

“
I know I’m a woman. I don’t need boobs to still be one.
” Was something else she said. To the doctor at one of her many appointments. The cancer was rampant, and it had been time to take them.

***

Saturday, June 22
— 10:45 am

I sat, sipping tea on the deck at the back of our house, when my best friend Maggie stepped out onto the wooden platform and sat down beside me.

“Sorry I’m late. Damn cab took forever getting here.”

I smiled, happy to see her. “I told you I would have picked you up.”

“And I told you that I wasn’t sure when the plane was going to land so I didn’t want you waiting around all day.” Maggie had come straight from a business trip in Kentucky. She sighed. “It’s stupid to ask but, how are you?”

“I’m okay, I guess. I don’t know, Mags, it’s weird. I feel…numb. Ya know?”

I knew she didn’t know, but she smiled sympathetically anyway.

“Where’s Matt?” she asked, pushing her blonde bangs out of her eyes and taking my mug from my hand, sipping my tea.

“Golfing.”

“Golfing? Oh, Em…he’s such a dickhead.”

I actually giggled. “Mags!”

“Well! He should be here. I feel like a complete shit because I wasn’t until today. I should have been there on Monday, too.”

“I’m just happy you’re here now.”

I’ve known Maggie longer than I’ve know anyone. We grew up right across the street from one another in Belleville, up until we both left for college, but only I returned to town. Maggie moved to Chicago and laid roots, working in a big marketing firm.

“Tell me more about Chicago, take my mind off everything.” I smiled, taking my mug back and frowning when I realized she drained it.

“Sorry,” she said, giggling. “Well, where do I start? It’s crazy. I didn’t even take a cleansing breath until I stepped out of the plane here. I really wish you would come and visit, I think you would like it. It’s definitely no Belleville.”

Of course it’s not Belleville. We don’t even have fifty thousand people here. I can’t exactly wrap my mind around somewhere with over two million.

“What do you want to do today, Em?” she asked, standing and stretching. “Feel up to anything?”

“Actually, I need to buy some floral arrangements.”

Maggie stuck out her bottom lip.

“We don’t have to now, though. I can go later.”

“Em, no. I’m not frowning because I don’t want to go with you. I’ll go anywhere with you, you know that. I’m just sad that we’re actually doing this. That you’re only twenty-three and we’re going to bury your mom on Monday.”

Tears prickled my eyes as I stood to hug her. “What would I do without you?” I sure as shit don’t have Matt to help me with any of this. I’m blessed to have Maggie.

We climbed in my blue Corolla and drove to Hettie’s Floral Shop. Belleville was buzzing, and there were kids everywhere. School was out, summer vacation had begun, and the last thing I really wanted to do was be surrounded by smiling and perky people. Except for Maggie, of course. Her smile got me out of the car and into the flower shop.

“Emery! Hello, dear. I was going to call you this afternoon,” Hettie Clark said as she walked around the counter and held her arms out to me. “Oh, sweetheart.”

I hugged her. “Hi, Mrs. Clark.”

“That’s not Margaret O’Halloran…no! It can’t be. Oh my word, come here and let me hug you too!”

Maggie smiled and wrapped her arms around the both of us. “Good to see you, Mrs. Clark. I know, it’s been far too long.”

Hettie Clark had been our guidance counsellor in high school, she retired the year we graduated. However, only one year into retirement, she decided staying at home was torture and opened her own flower shop. It just happened to be right next door to the bank my mother managed, so Hettie saw her nearly every day when she dropped off her daily deposits.

“Emery, I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Amelia was…well, she was very special. I want you to pick out anything in here, anything at all. Okay?”

I nodded and smiled, wiping a tear from my cheek. “Thank you.”

Maggie and I stepped into the cooled room behind the front counter and looked at the countless arrangements and sprays of flowers. Colors almost bursting through the space, the smell was intoxicating. I wandered quietly around the cooler, running my fingers over the delicate petals of each flower, smiling absently, forgetting for the moment why I was really in there.

“I like these ones. What do you think, Em?” Maggie said, pointing to a bunch of dahlias.

“They’re pretty. Tulips were her favorite though.”

“Okay, let’s get her some tulips.” Maggie smiled and turned to Hettie. “Tulips?”

“Right over here,” Hettie said, walking toward the back of the room. “I think the classic white, maybe some soft pink or yellow…Emery?”

“They’re perfect.”

Hettie refused to let me pay for any of the flowers. I don’t know much about the market on floral arrangements, but I do know that they probably retailed well over five hundred bucks.

“I’ll call Martin and make the arrangements to drop them off on Sunday night.” Hettie handed me a receipt with a total of zero dollars on it. “If you need anything else, you call me. Okay?”

“I will, and thank you Mrs. Clark. I really can’t thank you enough for this.”

Outside, just before I climbed into the car, I took a glance over to the bank where my mother had worked for the last twenty years. I was tempted to run in, right into her office, sit behind her desk and spin around in her chair like I had always done as a little girl. Except if I did it today, she wouldn’t be there to push the chair for me, spinning me faster as I squealed.

“Ready?” Maggie asked, standing in the view of bank.

“Ready.” I didn’t know where we were going. I pushed the old memory of the chair out of my head and got behind the wheel. “I’m starving, Mag…what about you?”

I really hadn’t eaten since Monday. Maybe an old muffin or piece of toast. Aside from the sickly sweet cake from last night, I couldn’t recall eating anything else at all.

“I’m ravenous,” Maggie joked. “And I could use a drink.”

I didn’t have any wine at dinner/dessert last night, and now that Maggie is here, I could really go for one too. “My treat.”

“Hardly!” Maggie laughed. “Let’s to go Brew’s…for old time’s sake. Maybe Lance will be there.”

Lance Oliver was Maggie’s first…everything. First boyfriend, kiss, sex, heartbreak. He was also the owner since his father passed away from a heart attack nearly three years ago and Lance was his only child.

“Probably. I think he actually lives above the bar.” I smiled at her and threw the car in reverse.

“How convenient.” Maggie rubbed her hands together, scheming. “I’m kidding, of course. I can’t think about sex right now.”

I slowed down at the light and flipped my blinker to turn right. “Mags…is it wrong that I am? Maybe it’s just…that I want to be held. I don’t know. Never mind.”

“Remind me to buy some earplugs to use when I sleep at your place tonight, then. I don’t wanna hear Matt all…primal.”

I laughed. Hard. “Maggie! There is nothing
primal
about Matt, anyway. Believe me, he’s…lights off, pump-pump, done.”

“How the sweet fuck have you stayed married to him for so long? Oh my God, Emery! You haven’t lived.”

So long? Two years wasn’t that long. But, there was a slight truth to her words. I married my freshman year crush. I only left Belleville to go to college, and that was only two cities over, then I moved back and made a life with Matt.

“You need your hair pulled, your ass smacked…and you definitely need to fuck with the lights on for once!” Maggie flipped up her sunglasses and glared at me. “Make him watch a porno or something. Wow, he’s pathetic.”

I curled a small smile in my lips. “It hasn’t always been like that, Maggie.” I’m a big fat liar, actually, it’s always been like that.

Chapter Two

Saturday, June 22 — 3:23 pm

Not much was happening at three in the afternoon at the bar. Although, if I gave it another six or seven hours, this place would be thumping the roof off. Saturday night was always 80’s night at Brew’s.

Maggie zeroed in on Lance the moment we walked through the door. She bee-lined right over to him and jumped into his arms, her blonde curls bouncing. “Hello, Mr. Oliver.”

“Mags…still beautiful,” Lance growled as he twirled her around. “Hey, Em.”

“Hi, Lance.” I smiled at him and sat down on a stool at the bar. “Hey, guys.” I smiled at the older men sitting just a few seats down.

They smiled and one winked.

Maggie flirted and filled Lance in on her new life in Chicago, and I casually sipped on a Long Island Iced Tea while thumbing through my latest feed on GoodReads on my cellphone.

A text came in from Matt.

Hey, Em. Where are you?

Me:
At Brew’s with Maggie.

Matt:
Brad and I are on the 15
th
hole.

Be home later. Love ya.

Me:
Say hello to Brad. C U later. xo

I’m not sure how many hours had passed since we got here. What I do know is, I’m on my fifth Long Island, and it’s almost gone too. More and more people have arrived, the tables are filling and I have a stranger sitting on either side of me. One is a construction worker, his obvious dirty clothing and reflective vest gave that away, and the other is a man wearing an expensive suit and an even more lavish watch.

So many different worlds, different stories, different reasons for being here. I took a glance down at the construction workers hands. They were grease-stained, cracked around the sides of his fingers, and very strong looking. I absently drifted off thinking of what he must do for a living. Road work, maybe. Don’t know. I could ask him.

“So what brings a pretty thing like you into a place like this?”

I turned my head and glance at the suit. Darn. I didn’t want to know about him. I’m sure he’s some master of some universe, a no-nonsense business type. I have one of those at home—well, sort of.

I looked past the watch at his hands. Perfectly manicured, silken, and strong in their own way. I smiled at the stranger in the suit and pointed my straw at Maggie. Who, was still standing behind the counter chatting to Lance. “I’m with her.”

“Ohh,” he said. “With her…or
with
her.”

“Not in the way you’re thinking, buddy,” I said, my voice clipped.

“Too bad,” he grumbled. “For me.”

By the looks of this man, he’s used to getting what he wants. His deep blue eyes were startling, and he did have a face sculpted by the hands of…I don’t know, someone very careful. His jaw clenched as his gaze traveled down my body, and back up to my eyes. I bet panties dropped for him left, right, and center.

“Yep, too bad for you.” I smiled sweetly and sucked the remainder of my drink. “Maggie!” I called over to her.

“Yeah, Em?” she shouted back, over the loud music. “Wanna go?”

I nodded. I was starting to feel a little tipsy, and I’m not sure I trusted myself around Suit and his polished hands.

“Lance, it was nice talking to you…briefly.” I winked at him and stood up from my stool. Slightly tripping on my own feet. The construction worker turned around and grabbed me just before I fell on my face.

“Whoa! You okay?” He asked, his deep voice rattling.

“I’m—I’m okay, thank you. Sorry.” I blushed.

“She with you?” He asked Maggie who was now at my side.

“Yeah, thanks handsome.” Maggie took my hand and helped me out of the bar. Blowing a kiss to Lance before we stepped out.

“He was cute,” I said, stepping carefully down the concrete steps.

“Who? The guy in the three-piece? Yeah, he was.”

“No,” I said, giggling. “The other one. With the hands.”

“The hands? I’m not following.”

I shook my head. “I can’t drive.”

“I know. It’s not even seven and you’re hammered. I’ll call a cab, I didn’t have as much as you, but I shouldn’t drive either.”

“I love you, Maggie.”

She hugged me and pulled out her cellphone. “Love you, too, Lush.”

The cab dropped us off, pulling into the space where Matt’s car usually parked. He wasn’t there. I would have thought he would be home by now.

“Thank you, sir.” I smiled, handing the driver a twenty.

Maggie threaded her fingers through mine as we walk up the steps to my front door and grabbed my purse to take my keys out. Unlocking the door, I stepped in and kicked off my shoes before falling back onto the couch and sighing loudly.

“Wanna watch a movie?” she asked, kicking her shoes off in the same fashion.

“Yeah, okay…”

Maggie walked over to the flat screen and turns it on. “Blu-ray or Netflix?”

“I don’t care.” I snuggled into the couch and closed my eyes.

“Party pooper.” Maggie laughed.

“Lance is still cute,” I whispered.

“Yeah he is,” Maggie said just as I fell into an iced tea coma.

***

Tuesday, April 30
— Seven weeks earlier

“Ms. Finn? The doctor will see you now.”

My mom squeezed my hand before she got up from her chair and followed the nurse into the back the office to meet with her doctor.

“I’ll come with you,” I told her.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Stay out here and read one of those ten year old National Geographic’s. I’ll be right out.” Mom smiled and followed the nurse.

I wanted to go in with her. I wanted to hear what the doctor had to say, but Mama knows best, and she probably knew I wasn’t going to handle it well. We’ve known about her cancer since December, and last month we heard the words
Stage Four
. Which meant, you’re going to die. This
is
going to kill you. We’ve taken your breasts, and now you’ll just have to wait it out. Sorry.

My mother watched my grandmother, her own mother, die from the exact same disease only fifteen years earlier. She didn’t want the same thing for me. She refused to let me clean her house, to take her to the grocery store, to cook for her…anything and everything.

“I will not be a burden to my only child, Emery. I want whatever time I have left with you, to be just as normal as it would be if I died tomorrow by some freak accident. Nothing changes, you hear me? Nothing. I love you. You love me. That’s all that matters, okay honey?”

I cried when she came out of the doctor’s office. I knew the clock was ticking, and I just wanted to tell her to let go of the reigns she had so tightly in her grasp and let me do
something
for her.

“Let’s go have a spa day? I want to spend today with my favorite girl.”

“I’m your only girl, Mom.”

“That’s right you are,” she said with a smile. “Do you want to eat first?”

I nodded and looked into her twinkling green eyes. I knew she had been crying before she came back out to the waiting room. But, she wiped those tears away before I could see them, and tossed on that mask of strength that she was never without.

“I feel like sushi,” she said.

***

Saturday, June 22 — 11:49 pm

I woke up when the lights of a car shone into the living room window. The TV was off and Maggie slept quietly on the reclining chair across the room from where I laid on the couch. I heard a car door slam, a few deep voices, then when it backed out I saw Matt stagger by the window and walk up the steps.

The door wasn’t locked, like usual. He opened the door and let out a big belch.

I sat up on the couch and wondered if he noticed me.

He farted.

Guess not.

“Matt?”

“Oh, shit. Sorry, Em…didn’t you know you were still awake.” He laughed quietly, waving his hand back and forth behind his ass. “When did Maggie get here?”

“Earlier. Are you drunk?”

“Maybe.” He winked.

Gross. He’s delusional if he thinks for a second I’m actually turned on.

“How did you get home? Where’s your car?”

“Maggie and I had a few drinks, I left it at Brew’s. Where’s your car?”

“Brad drove me home, he’s got it. He’ll bring it back in the morning. Do you wanna go to bed now, baby?”

Matt’s breath reeked of beer and cigarettes. And I knew he smoked whenever he drank. His eyes twinkled slightly in the dimly lit room, he looked so boyish in that moment. Playful…like the Matt I fell in love with. Minus, of course, the windy bodily noises that he graced me with when he walked through the door.

“You taste like lemons,” he said, kissing my neck.

“You taste like Marlboro’s.”

Matt snickered and nipped my earlobe with his teeth. “Shh, you’ll wake up Maggie. Let’s go to bed.”

I said a silent prayer of thanks when Matt didn’t make it all the way out of his clothes before passing out on the bed. I pulled off his khaki shorts, his socks and decided it was pointless to try and lift his body to remove his shirt. So I left him wearing the polo and his boxers.

I put on the old Northwestern shirt again and crawled into bed beside him. A small headache lingered, from the five drinks earlier, no less, and I closed my eyes and let myself fall into a dreamless sleep.

***

Sunday, June 23
— 8:41 am

“Wake up, sleepy head.” I tugged gently on a blonde curl, letting it spring back from my fingers. “Margaret May O’Halloran…wake up before I jump on you.”

“Jump me, baby,” Maggie groaned and smiled through sleepy eyes. “What time is it?”

“Nearly nine. Get up, I made your favorite for breakfast.”

“You made Channing Tatum?”

I laughed. “I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you if Channing Tatum were sitting on a plate in my kitchen. I made bacon and eggs. Get up!”

Matt sat at the kitchen table, still wearing the same polo from yesterday, but this time he had on jeans. He sipped coffee while flipping pages of the Sunday morning newspaper. “Good morning, sunshine,” he said to Maggie once she finished in the bathroom and sat down to join us.

“Hello, Matthew.” Maggie picked up a strip of bacon and stuffed it into her mouth. “Mmm, I bet Channing tastes like bacon.”

Giggling, I said, “I bet he tastes like a lot of delicious things, Mags.”

“What?” Matt asked, smirking at me.

“Nothing.” I grinned over at Maggie before picking up my steaming mug of coffee. “I thought it would be nice if we went to lunch today, at Bellissima’s…it was Mom’s favorite restaurant.”

“Yeah, that would be nice,” Matt said. “But, shit…Brad’s supposed to pick me up. We have a tee time later today.”

“What? Matt…” I sighed and looked down at my plate. “I thought he was just going to bring your car home.”

“Sorry, Em…I forgot about it until now.”

“Matt, you think you could put golf off for a day or two and focus on your wife, eh, buddy? She just lost her mother for crying out loud.” Maggie glared at him from across the table.

I could pick up the butter knife and cut the tension in the room with it. “Maggie, it’s okay…” I didn’t want her fighting my battles for me. Even though this was a typical thing, since she wasn’t Matt’s biggest fan either (something she had in common with my Mom), she always said I deserved so much more than him. Until lately, I hadn’t really believed her.

“Matt, I don’t want you to go,” I said, stabbing a fluff of egg with my fork. Partially wishing it were his eyeball.

He blinked, surprised. He muttered something into his coffee cup. I caught the words “since when”, “back bone”, “audience”, then something else I couldn’t understand. I wanted to ask him to repeat it, but I was afraid that Maggie was going to haul off and deck him, and that I was either going to flip out when she did it, or stand in line and wait for my turn to knock him one.

“I don’t want you to go. Tomorrow is the funeral. I want one more day before I have to say goodbye to the only parent I’ve ever known. Please don’t go golfing. It’s all I’m asking, Matt.” I stood my ground.

Maggie calmed her hand, which I knew was desperate to make contact with Matt’s face. “Emery, do they still have that same little deck off the one side with the cute wrought-iron tables?” She asked, changing the subject marginally.

I smiled. “Yeah. That’s where Mom and I always sat.”

“Good, can’t wait to go.” Maggie sent daggers across the table at Matt, who, didn’t say another word during breakfast.

Just after ten, Brad showed up with Matt’s car and sheepishly climbed into the back seat with Maggie when I informed him he was driving us to Brew’s to pick up my car. He just nodded and tossed the keys to Matt.