The Age of Embers Page 3

“I remember when that body used to do something for me,” she says.

  “And does it still?”

  She just looks at me, wordless, giving me nothing.

  Wow.

  “You’ve been gone eight months and three days.”

  That’s her answer.

  “Trust me,” I say. “I know.”

  “I used to count the days until you could come home,” she says, folding her arms over her breasts. “That used to do something for me. It used to give me hope in us. Now you do nothing for me. I’ve lost that hope.”

  I dry my hair and wrap the towel around me. She’s still here. Still glaring at me.

  “I’m filing divorce papers,” she says.

  The admission is a blow to my heart, one that hurts far worse than anything I dealt with last night.

  “As much as it upsets me to hear that,” I say, fighting to keep my calm, “and as surprised as I am to hear you won’t even attempt to help fix this, I’ve got bigger problems than the state of our marriage right now.”

  “Such as?”

  “I think I blew my cover last night.”

  “Unbelievable,” she says, again. “I’m going to see about Brooklyn. Try not to cement in the Father of the Year award with her by being you.”

  “Where’s Orlando?” I call out.

  “At a friend’s house,” she replies on the way out of the room. “Why don’t you open up your ears? I told you that already.”

  Damn. Yeah, she did. In Adeline’s defense, she’s a good mother and was, at times, an amazing wife. But this job of mine, honestly, it’s sucking the very light of life from me. Jobs like this make you not only lament your life and the world you live in, it forces you to question the very worth of your existence.

  I wish I could just leave it.

  But I can’t.

  Not with the mortgage, and not with my limited range of work experience in life. I’ve only been in law enforcement. So what am I going to do at this point? Sell houses? Work construction? Drive for Uber?

  Screw that. That ship’s sailed already.

  Wiping the moisture from the vanity mirror, appraising my reflection, I will admit, it’s pretty frightening. This is not me. I’m not me. This buzzing in my head, this anxiousness that sits in my chest like a hunk of lead, it’s all agitating the hell out of me. Even worse now. I hold my gaze, hold it with the all distaste a man feels for himself when considering his failures.

  I see myself punching my reflection, splintering the mirror, cutting open my knuckles. But I won’t do that. I won’t be that guy.

  Adeline loves this house.

  It’s the place I used to call home.

  My nostrils flare, darkness floods my eyes, my jaw sets almost on its own. Then the phone beeps. Not mine, hers.

  Unable to take one more thing without snapping, I stalk to the other side of the bed, fish her phone out of her purse, look at it.

  My heart not only sinks, it damn near drowns in the sorrow that’s become my life.

  Caelin Boyle.

  The philanthropist billionaire? Caelin Boyle the playboy?

  I open the text, read it. The risk of doing this isn’t lost on me. Reading Adeline’s texts? Yeah, this will be the final nail in the coffin that is our marriage.

  But still…

  THAT WAS SOME NIGHT LAST NIGHT.

  The ten ounce non-functioning slab of meat in my chest, this broken heart of mine, it jumps to a start. It begins to really hammer the hell out of my ribcage. Inside, my world is spinning out of control. Spiraling downward. Caving in. Everyone knows Caelin is an angel investor, a snake, a male whore.

  Another text comes in.

  THAT KISS…

  My angry hand begins to squeeze her phone. I’m grinding my teeth again. Seeing red. I’m about to comb through more of her texts when a third comes in.

  WE BOTH HAVE FAILED MARRIAGES. PERHAPS WE CUT OUR LOSSES AND GIVE US A TRY? I MEAN, YOUR HUBBY IS A NEANDERTHAL IN A GO-NOWHERE JOB. LET ME GIVE YOU THE WORLD.

  Us? Neanderthal? Go-nowhere job?

  Outside the window, in the cloudy gray Chicago sky, a murder of crows bursts from the trees. I hate this city (love it), I hate my wife (love her) and I hate every single choice I made in this life that’s gotten me right here, to this moment, looking at this damn phone.

  I need to go, just get in my car and leave right now. I can’t be here. Not with this temper. Not now.

  With Adeline’s phone clutched in a death grip, I stalk upstairs. Anything wise and sane that’s left in me is now screaming for me to turn around, to get in that piece of crap car of mine and go, to head to Xavier’s and just turn myself in (bury the bodies, kill Paco Loco).

  I’m not listening though.

  There’s a rush of white noise in my ears, a river of rage that needs to feed (think of Brooklyn, think of Orlando), to lash out, to release this cesspool of agitation (you’re about to throw your entire life away).

  I get all the way to my daughter’s bedroom door, which is only open a crack, and that’s when I hear Brooklyn’s grief-stricken voice. The charge in me stalls at the sound of her choked and failing voice.

  “I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer,” Brooklyn cries. “Why didn’t you answer?”

  “I was in a meeting,” Adeline says, hesitancy in her voice.

  “You’re always in meetings these days. Dad’s gone and you’re unavailable…”

  “Who did this to you, sweetheart?”

  My heart is now singing a different tune, beating with something nauseating and concerned, a feeling that’s now writhing low in my stomach. I feel sick. First Adeline, now Brooklyn? I am desperate to peek my head into the room, see what happened to my daughter, but I harness that last bit of restraint and willfully disregard my paternal instincts.

  Still, teeming with wrath over these texts, spoiling for the kind of career-ending, life-ending fight that will surely land me in jail, this part of me that wants to burst into the room and confront Adeline persists.

  “Three boys,” Brooklyn manages to choke out.

  There’s a stuffiness to her nose that lets me know she’s been crying. Deeper still is the anger in her voice. This tells me Brooklyn’s hurt has turned to resentment, which has now turned to the start of fury.

  “Three boys, what?” Adeline asks, her tone changing. “Did they…beat you up?”

  Brooklyn remains silent. She’s so quiet, I feel my blood pulsing in my neck. My God, I can’t take the suspense! Looking down, seeing my hand literally trying to crush Adeline’s phone, I feel my insides tunneling, like I can’t take one more thing before everything in my world spirals south so bad, I kick the dirt over any options I might have left (you have none) and just eat a bullet (now you want to be some sad, former cop cliché?—pathetic).

  When Brooklyn doesn’t speak, the noise in my head becomes pure, horrified silence.

  “Worse?” Adeline asks, a tremor in her voice.

  “They…they…” and that’s the most she can say because the sobbing takes over.

  This is it. I’ve reached my limit. My hand opens and Adeline’s cell phone falls to the carpeted floor as I walk away. I put on my clothes, walk downstairs, blow through the first floor kitchen and walk out back. I look at this stupid, purple car. I hate this thing.

  This Plymouth…

  I get in the muscle car, fire it up, sit here listening to the big Hemi cough and rumble. On the aftermarket CD player, Slayer is playing. The disc was in there when I was given this heap. This isn’t my taste in music, but if you listen to it long enough, as I have (the FM radio barely works), you get to know the words, and every so often find yourself singing along. There’s something about thrash metal that feels fitting for this rickety life I’m living.

  After cooling down a bit, thinking my wife made some bad decisions (I don’t blame her), I twist the key and shut this beater down.

  I left our life.

  I chose my job over her.

  Getting out of the
car, I tell myself I can’t think like this. I can’t think about putting this broken thing between us back together. Not with three bodies in the trunk. Not with whatever happened to Brooklyn.

  I walk around to the back of the car, insert the key into the locked trunk and turn. The lid opens and the stink hits me. Coagulated blood and violence. So much of it.

  The three corpses are stacked in there like firewood. Two of them are looking up at me. Their eyes are glassy. Their faces pulped. Flashes of last night crash through me. The violence was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. What they did to me. All the things I did to them.

  I spit into the trunk, the loogie splattering one and landing on another.

  “What the hell is this?” I hear.

  Adeline.

  I slam the trunk shut, see her glaring at me near the front of the car. She’s holding up her phone, giving it an angry little shake.

  “I was going to ask you the same question,” I say, going on the offense.

  “You going through my stuff?”

  “I was.”

  “You don’t have that right.”

  “You don’t have the right as a married woman to be kissing dirtbags like Caelin Boyle.”

  “I didn’t kiss him.”

  “The text says otherwise,” I say, my blood starting to boil once more.

  “He’s a donor.”

  “Sperm donor?” I ask, knowing instantly this is the wrong thing to say.

  “You know what I mean,” she barks. “A donor to the cause. He wants to put one hundred thousand into the next homeless shelter.”

  The way she stares at me like she wants to chew through my soul sends me into fits and starts. Before I realize it, the storm inside me boils over. Adeline isn’t the enemy, I remind myself. She’s not even the adversary. She’s my wife.

  My wife…

  “I’m sorry,” I manage to say. “That was the wrong thing to say.”

  “You know low, don’t you Fiyero?”

  “Don’t call me that,” I whisper. “You never call me that.”

  “Fire was a term of endearment,” she reasons. “Now you’re just Fiyero.”

  “Let’s not do this outside, please,” I say, my hands now fists at the thought of that Irish prick putting his lips on Adeline.

  “Are you going to give me the divorce?” she asks.

  “Was Brooklyn raped?” I ask.

  She looks down, then away. Our daughter; her weakness.

  “Not rape, but…maybe just as bad? I don’t know. We didn’t have to deal with this crap when we were kids.”

  Her eyes flood and all the fire and vinegar in her softens. Her hand goes to her mouth to stifle a sob and all at once she can’t meet my eyes.

  Broken hearted, the edge gone from my voice, I say, “What could you have done? What could either of us have done?”

  “Answered the phone for starters,” she says, her voice teeming with emotion, her shimmering eyes now dripping tears onto her cheeks.

  “She called me, too,” I admit.

  “Why didn’t you answer?”

  “Long story.”

  “Same here,” she says.

  “Well mine doesn’t involve infidelity.”

  “You’ve been gone nearly a year, Fire. Nearly a year!”

  “The checks keep coming though, don’t they Adeline? I’m still your husband and I’m still working to provide for this family. The least you could have done is—”

  “Xavier called a few minutes ago asking if you were here.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him you were here. He said something about your cover being blown. I thought you just were being dramatic.”

  “I’m not going to joke about something like that.”

  “I guess,” she said.

  “Did she say it was as bad as rape, or did she infer it?”

  The street behind our house is lined on both sides with large shade-bearing trees, trees that create a beautiful, natural canopy. This is one of the reasons Adeline and I love this neighborhood so much. It used to be so nice here, so quiet. Now a whirring sound draws my attention to the street. A long, nasty looking drone zips through the street about five feet off the ground. The craft is moving like a rocket ship through here.

  What the hell?

  “Who’s playing with drones that big?” I hear myself ask, my tone rising fast. The unmanned aircraft must be six feet long.

  God, the stupid things kids do these days!

  “You’re asking about drones?” she asks. “Right now?” Her arms are wrapped protectively around herself, her eyes running in streams.

  “Was she or was she not raped?!” I ask, my voice too heavy, too loud, too fraught with emotion. When she says nothing, I breeze past her, stomp upstairs, knock too hard on Brooklyn’s door.

  “Come in,” Brooklyn says, her voice unsteady.

  I open the door and the first thing I see is her black eye and bruised mouth. I hurt and hate all at once. Yeah, this failing heart of mine is now officially devastated.

  “Hello,” she says, unable to look me in the eye. “When did you get home?”

  “Last night.”

  “How come you didn’t say ‘hi?’”

  “I knocked last night,” I confess. “You said to go away.”

  “That was you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought that was Mom.”

  “If you knew it was me, would you have told me to come in?”

  She looks at me unflinching, her expression giving nothing away, just showing me how her bruised face looks a lot like my bruised face.

  “Probably not.”

  “There’s nothing like feeling unwelcome in your own home,” I say before I can stop myself.

  “Oh, you still live here?” she asks with an awkward grin.

  “Who knows anymore,” I mumble. The rejection from Adeline is expected, but Brooklyn, too? I wonder if she knows about Caelin.

  “My face looks like yours now,” she says, pointing to my bruises. “Not just our noses.”

  “I wanted to ask you about that.”

  “I’d prefer you don’t.”

  For a second, I stand there, not sure what to say. And then I decide to go. It’s time to come clean with Xavier and deal with whatever punishment the Captain and the courts deem appropriate. My phone buzzes in my pocket. I ignore it, then I start to pull her door shut and walk away.

  “Dad, wait,” she says.

  I silence the phone, step back inside her room.

  She’s getting ready for school, about to put on her makeup, which is usually when she doesn’t want to be bothered. Truth be told, it’s getting harder and harder to control my temper with everything going on, and if she doesn’t tell me what happened, I’m going to get the truth out of Adeline one way or another, consequences be damned.

  “I tried to call you.”

  “I know.”

  “How come you didn’t call back?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Does it have anything to do with why you look like you got the crap kicked out of you?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Mom used to say you were some kind of badass,” she says, a sort of curious expectancy in her eyes.

  “What does she say now?” I ask. Now she looks away, totally shy, like she used to look when she was five rather than almost eighteen. “Do I even want to know?”

  She looks up and says, “I was attacked yesterday on the way home from school.”

  “Who did this to you?”

  She gives me the three boys’ names. I commit them to memory. I’m aching to ask for any pictures she might have of them on Instagram, or Facebook or whatever, but I don’t want to play detective with her right now as much as I’m desperate to just be her father.

  “Why did they do this?” I ask, emotion touching my voice.

  Who would want to beat up a beautiful girl like Brooklyn? Visions of her getting attacked form in my min
d and I won’t lie—my eyes are starting to flood.

  “Same reason guys beat up women. They don’t like what they hear, or how we don’t feel the same things they feel. And sometimes they want things from girls that girls like me aren’t willing to give them.”

  “What did they hear that they didn’t like?”

  “It’s what they didn’t hear.”

  “And what’s that?”

  Her eyes begin to swim, this conversation taking her right back into that scary place all over again. I don’t want to do this to her. I don’t want her reliving…whatever it was she’s now reliving.

  “My interest in them,” she says.

  “So you weren’t interested in them?” She shakes her head. Wiping my eyes, I ask, “Do you think you can tell me what happened to you? What really happened, I mean?”

  The well of tears breaks, and this has me fearing the worst. This has me knowing the worst. I look at her and she knows that I know she’s embarrassed, horrified, humiliated. She knows by the tears in my own eyes. I don’t think she’s ever seen me cry. Then again, I don’t think I’ve ever seen me cry. Not since the funerals a few years back.

  “How many of them?” I ask, my voice nearly forsaking me. “How many guys, I mean.”

  “I already told you, three.”

  “Yeah,” I say, tapping my head, thinking it took more of a beating than I first imagined.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “You look exhausted.”

  I feel myself nodding my head, my body’s way of telling my brain that it can handle this. But can it? My heart is destroyed. This just might be the final straw. A sob hits me and I jump the slightest little bit. God, this hurts. But it hurts even worse seeing my child broken as well. For her, this is a different kind of broken. This is far, far worse.

  “When you were born and we picked you up from the hospital to take you home, your mother and I were over the moon,” I say, my emotions unraveling, my voice all bumps and tremors. “You were so cute, so fragile. Your mom told me she could hardly stand to look at you she loved you that much. Women are like that. But men, we want to protect the people we love. Especially our women and our girls. I promised myself and your mother I would always protect you two, but now I’ve failed.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I should have been there,” I say, my tears still coming, everything in me more wounded and damaged than ever.