After Life Lessons (Book One)

by Laila Blake

  “We were starting to worry about you with those snowstorms,” Bill said, after a few minutes, clapping Aaron on the back.

  He smiled and shook his head.

  “I stayed hunkered down for the most part. Found these two the first day I finally ventured back out, actually.”

  “Half-starved and frozen,” Emily supplied and dared a smile at him, and he returned it, small with his gaze dropping almost immediately. She looked at her cookie, still not touching it even though she felt the saliva coating the underside of her tongue with the wet taste of longing. But then she pushed it at Song when he’d finished his.

  “You look like you’re doing better,” Myra said, winking at Song, who was much less cautious with his second cookie, cramming the majority of it in his mouth at once.

  “I like the company,” Aaron said, almost quietly, lifting his coffee to his lips.

  Emily fought against a sudden obstruction in her throat and nipped at her coffee even though she’d always preferred tea. Sullivan had been the coffee fiend, and it was his face that hovered in her mind as she inhaled the scent of the steam. Laughing, his cigarette hanging off the corner of his mouth, gesticulating as he explained and illustrated one of his stories. She shivered, closed her eyes tightly and tried to push the image away for some other time when she was alone.

  Myra continued feeding Song cookies, without much in the way of protest from the little boy who, apparently, could be bought with food. Eventually Aaron went out to get their things, Emily’s backpack and box, Song’s pile of blankets. There was an unspoken invitation to bed there, in one of the many empty rooms that had once contained children and grandchildren.

  It was when Aaron was away that, shy and stumbling, Emily asked to charge her mp3 player in her British way, offering three different explanations as to why Myra might and was utterly in her right to refuse, before the woman waved it off.

  “Is it for listening to music, dear?” Myra asked, eying the tiny and still rather shiny device, that Emily always kept at the bottom of her bag. Emily nodded, cradling it, her treasure.

  “I... my partner was a musician,” she whispered and that was all the explanation she had to give before Myra ushered her to the next outlet.

  In the upstairs bedrooms, Aaron picked the one that had housed a boy for Song and Emily, with clouds on the walls and a box of dusty Matchbox cars on the desk, and dropped his duffle in the room he’d occupied the last time he visited the McKellys, a simple one with a narrow bed.

  He was quiet as he went downstairs, watching the four of them in the kitchen. He knew Myra and Bill would take to them; the turn of Emily’s shoulders was familiar, and he was surprised he noticed, that he could read her, and he rubbed his hair in thought before Bill noticed him again.

  “Song was telling me about a zombie attack?” he asked, keeping his voice cheerful, but he raised his eyebrows at Aaron.

  “We were lucky,” Emily supplied, “Aaron’s a really good shot.”

  He could only see her profile, and, for a second, he was taken aback, and whatever emotions hit him at once were too much to process just then. He sat at the table with Bill, and Song, who, having been stuffed full of sugar, was happier to talk.

  “Emily helped. We just... knew we had to deal with it.”

  Emily cast a glance at her son, and then pulled him against her.

  “And it was fine; so no need to worry, okay?” She nuzzled against his hair in a familiar gesture, then her eyes darted to the mp3 player in the corner of the room, then to Aaron, wordlessly begging him to wait with those discussions until the sugar that made Song so awake now, would make him all but keel over on the table within the next hour.

  Aaron nodded, and the look Bill gave him showed he understood as well: the McKellys had grandchildren, children, and Aaron knew they were decent people.

  “Song’s been good at helping us pack the van,” he said, instead. “He’s gettin’ awful strong.”

  This made Song beam with pride.

  “I can carry a whole box all by myself!” he boasted and Emily looked away with a grin.

  “It’s true,” Aaron agreed. “I'm gettin’ old, I need the help.”

  Of course, Myra swatted him with a dishtowel and he grinned. “I’m glad you got someone to keep you from going nuts out there. You know you could just stay here.”

  He shook his head. “I got all this stuff that people need. You know I appreciate it, though.”

  Emily’s head snapped up, maybe a hint too fast—too fast for Aaron to avoid her glance—full of questions about her unsure and shaky future. She made herself look away, breathed and gave Myra a smile as wide as she could make it.

  “Of course I’m terrifically little help,” she said, raising her bandaged arm with a sheepish expression. “He still keeps me around, though.”

  “You’re a pair,” Aaron said, completely without hesitation, lifting his coffee cup to his lips again.

  Song wiggled in his seat. “Do you have horses?”

  Bill shook his head. “Not anymore, we haven’t had ‘em in years. We do have chickens, though, you wanna see 'em?”

  Song was a city boy through and through, and his eyes went wide as saucers just before he nodded, hard enough it looked as though his neck might snap. “Please, Emmy?” he asked, looking up at her with his pleading expression.

  “Of course, Ducky...” she whispered. “Do you wanna go with Bill, or do you want me to go with you, too?”

  “Go with me.” Song was still not quite able to let her very far out of his sight, and he seized her hand again and rubbed it against his cheek.

  “I wouldn’t mind going,” Aaron added, rubbing his hand over his hair again, over the back of his neck. “Don’t want to leave Myra with all the cleanin’ though.”

  The older woman shook her head. “You bring back any eggs they’ve dropped,” she said, instead.

  Emily smiled and pulled Song up with her, holding his hand tightly. Aaron guessed that she wouldn't have let him out of her sight anyway, not really, not for long.

  “I’d like to see chickens,” she smiled at Song, then at Bill. “Maybe we can learn something, huh, Duck?”

  “I just wanna see the chickens,” he chided her, hopping to his feet. Bill was slower to move, and Aaron waited for the lot of them to start heading out of the kitchen before he followed along.

  There was, indeed, a coop out back of the house, in the snow, but the chickens didn’t seem to mind it. They were pecking and clucking, and Song rushed ahead to stand at the wire mesh covering it, making soft noises at the animals. It made Emily’s heart feel a little heavy as though she had been keeping something from him. Maybe this was the kind of place where he should have been growing up—with quasi-grandparents to feed him cookies and where he could pet chickens and be a child. She rubbed her face and walked up behind him, resting her hands on his shoulders.

  “How do you get them to lay eggs?” she asked Bill. She was smiling at the man, a little sheepishly but not without warmth, and Bill was clearly flattered.

  “It’s not hard, you feed’em, keep’em warm in their coop, make sure no wild animals get’em. And they reward you with eggs.”

  “For pancakes!” Song shouted and the chickens went scattering away from him. He pouted and started his soft clucking noises again.

  Bill showed them the old barn, where, he reported, their kids used to swing from the rafters on an old rope, and the stable where the horses had lived, now occupied by a family of feral cats. The farm was old, and not much of a farm anymore, but it still had dormant garden beds near the coop, and a big cellar, he said, full of root vegetables and canned goods. They’d been pretty well stocked before everything fell apart.

  Aaron walked behind them, quiet, watching the back of Emily’s head as if he could discern her thoughts from the way her hair moved. She didn’t look at him, but she was being polite to Bill, and, back inside the house, dinner was made and served, and Song helped with the dishes, Myra praising
him all along. It was the first calm whiff of normality any of them had had in a while. They soaked it up like little sponges until Song’s cheeks were red and his eyes sleepy, and until Emily and Aaron could almost forget the strangeness between them when everything around them was conversation and food and smiles.

  Chapter Eight

  The room was dark; pitch-black almost, except for the tiny blue LED display. Words scrolled across the small device cradled in Emily’s hands. She was sitting on the floor in a corner, huddled in her blanket, making herself as small as she possibly could. Song was sleeping in the bed, calm and with a full stomach, but Emily couldn’t. Not when she had her treasure.

  Tears ran down her cheeks unchecked, but she tried not to make a sound—just listened. Sullivan’s voice, like a ghost—somewhere in a myriad of ones and zeroes, in infinitesimal little wires and soldering points, was still alive. It rose from behind his guitar in the familiar shades, wavering, warm and gentle. Hers were the demo versions, unpolished and without the band's noise distorting him. Just Sullivan and his songs; she could hear him breathing in between lyrics, could hear the squeaks of the guitar strings where his fingers changed chords, the beauty of imperfection that would be eradicated in the studio version. Her Sullivan, alive. Just in this tiny little rounded box, he was still breathing, still singing the songs he wrote for her, still believing in their strange and fucked up love story.

  She rubbed her face, pressed his ring against her lips and then hugged herself tighter. She, too, needed air in her lungs, but every breath wanted to be a sob, loud and tearing through the room, through the music as though Sullivan would come out and hold her, say everything would be okay.

  But it wouldn’t be, couldn’t. The only one holding her would be Song with his warm little hands and then he would cry too, when he’d just been so happy and smiling. And so she held her breath, felt dizzy, fought for control, wondered how far from the house she'd have to walk until nobody would hear her if she screamed and screamed until she was hoarse and empty.

  The tap on the doorframe didn’t really help: she jumped and her gaze fixed on the bright strip of light that was the crack in the door and Aaron's face, shadowed against it, Aaron peeking in. Immediately, he raised his hands in apology. Emily shook her head, reigned all the feelings in—again, as always—and tugged out the ear-buds so she could hear him.

  “Just was—was checking on you.” Aaron’s eyebrows drew together, but he didn’t come in any further into the room. “Wanted to see if you were still awake.”

  She swallowed hard, but it didn't dispel the thickness in her throat, not even when she tried several times. Finally, she nodded.

  “Sorry...” she whispered as softly as she could without letting the broken sound enter her voice. She didn’t know how much he could see, but she quickly tried to wipe her eyes, tried to stem the flood, even if it was likely far too late for that.

  He shook his head. “I’m the one bothering you, right?” He stayed in the doorway, but nodded in her direction. “Just... thought I might take a look at your arm. Since we got time and all now. And good light.”

  Emily sniffed then looked down at her wrist. He was right; and she didn’t want Song to watch when they did it. She pressed the pause button, stuffed the mp3 player into her jeans pocket, and dragged herself off the ground.

  “You’re not bothering me,” she whispered, stepping out of the room.

  He didn’t reply, just gestured down the hall; the room he’d taken was right next to theirs, incidentally, but it looked like he’d hardly even sat in it, his duffle stashed in the corner and nothing removed.

  “Sit down?” The only place to sit, really, was the bed, and they ignored whatever implications that might have, avoiding each other’s gazes while Aaron went to rustle through his bag.

  She didn’t sit, not immediately. The light was switched on, a real light-bulb with the tiny, tiny whirring sound she’d never really took that much notice of before. She stepped up to the window, turned mirror against the darkness outside and wiped the sleeve of her sweater over her face and under her eyes, over her neck and chin, all the heated and sticky wet places.

  “Sorry...” she mumbled again, as though stuck on a loop with nothing else to say, and finally she did sink where he had indicated, cradling her arm.

  “You okay?” he asked, holding some cotton gauze in his hand, retrieved from the bag. He squatted down in front of her and took her arm gently, undoing the bandages before disengaging the padding around her arm.

  She watched him, not sure how to answer. In the end she just shrugged. She told herself not to look, but ignorance was a luxury anymore and so she kept her eyes on his every move, learning, internalizing. She winced at the sight of her arm—the swelling had gone down but it was still discolored and when he touched it, a sharp pain shot through her bones. She sucked a whistling breath between her teeth and immediately, tears rose to her eyes again, like a stupid kid who couldn’t handle a little pain.

  He made a sympathetic noise as he examined her bare arm in the dim light.

  “How bad is it?” he asked, very carefully spreading her fingers over his palm.

  Her eyes were shut tight and she gritted her teeth, breathing and utterly aware of the smallest touch. It hurt, but his hand was warm, too.

  “Compared to what?” she pressed and her eyes opened again, focused on his.

  “Scale of one to ten,” he said, with a sudden and sweet smile.

  The tips of her fingers moved incrementally on his skin and she pulled up one shoulder, the healthy one.

  “I...” she shook her head. If ten was hearing Sullivan sing and she did it anyway, because the pain made her feel like she wasn’t dead inside, then what was zero? Was that the empty feeling? She gave him an apologetic smile.

  “It’s okay... it’s been worse. You’ve done good.”

  “I’m not looking for a compliment,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “I want to know if you’re feeling okay.”

  Her eyes widened, still red and puffy, and new tears rolled down her cheeks, for no good reason she could fathom. She apologized, routine, sticky, wet words until all she could do was shake her head. Not okay.

  He nodded, and held her hand, not moving to put the bandages back over her wrist, not just yet. He had some inkling as to what was on the mp3 player, the one thing outside Song she seemed to treat with a sort of reverence, perpetually checking for it in her pocket, hovering over it while it charged in the kitchen.

  “Don’t suppose you wanna talk to me?” He didn’t think so: they’d barely spoken, not since whatever fight-like thing had happened in the van, and he felt enormously guilty, for all of it.

  Biting her lip, she regarded him for a long moment in a way that made him feel as though she was trying to x-ray him, look deep inside to check him for weapons he might launch at her this time. Her mouth opened, then closed.

  Finally, she croaked: “Could you... could you hold me? Just...”

  He blinked, but found himself nodding almost immediately.

  “Let me...” Swiftly, but delicately, he rewrapped her arm, in a fresh bandage and gauze and padding, while she tried not to cringe or whimper. She watched him, strapping the bandage tight over the bone before he tossed the dirty supplies and sat down on the bed next to her.

  Whatever distance the two of them had put between each other, he ignored, and easily wrapped his arm around her little form and hugged her against his chest.

  He was warm and solid, and Emily closed her eyes, breathing in his smell. Human, alive. Finally, she let a sob tear through her throat; it felt like the first one in months. And once unleashed, she didn’t know how to stop. Her good hand clung to his shirt, hard, while tears and snot soaked into the fabric. She cried and cried as though she had a lifetime to catch up on.

  Aaron didn’t speak, and simply held her as firmly as he thought she could stand. Time coalesced and congealed in the artificial light that had become a stranger in so short a time. But in
the end, her sobs started to ebb away: slower, softer, until she was just rubbing her cheek against his chest.

  They sat quietly for a long time, before Aaron cleared his throat.

  “Feeling better?” It sounded stupid and stilted to his ears, and he would have cringed if it wouldn’t have shifted her there, as warm and heavy as she was, spent, against him. There was something about that weight, that kind of touch, that made him loathe to let go of her, even if he was just a means to an end.

  She nodded against his sweater, but then felt ridiculous and started to pull away.

  “Sorry,” she whispered again, eyes directed at his shirt. Her face looked raw and pink but the immediate desperation she’d held back with every smile, every word, every motion, had dissipated a little bit.

  “Hey, no, it’s okay. I mean... you have a right.” Without really thinking, he cupped her face, rubbed a thumb over her wet cheek, though it did little to brush the tears away. Her eyes fell closed, and she inhaled a shallow breath, face tilting ever so slightly against the warmth, that touch.

  “The right to... soak your shirt?” she whispered, trying to smile, opening her eyes to look up at him again. Their gazes met, warm and dark.

  “Sure. My shirt needs a wash anyway.” He smiled again, quite unable to stop stroking her cheek with the pad of his thumb.

  Emily smiled, too, wet her lips and breathed in deeply.

  “I don’t... I don’t want to go back to not talking...” she whispered then, blinking, only vaguely aware that her hand was still tightly wrapped up in his shirt.

  “Me neither.” His mouth lifted higher on one side. “I still don’t think you’re fucked up.”

  She laughed, a tiny sound that hardly moved her face or her chest, choked and wrapped in sticky, teary stuff, but still a laugh.

  “You’ve been on that all this time?” she asked, smiling back.