Always Emily

by Mary Sullivan

  Aiyana and Mika laughed easily with Emily, more than they had with their own mother. Who could blame them? Annie had had a heart of gold, but what good was it when she was stoned, her addictions more powerful than her love for her family?

  Emily brought out the best in his children. It warmed his heart, and he resisted that warmth because he didn’t want his daughters depending on her, not after what their mother had put them through, and what Emily would certainly put them through when she left.

  He’d made his decision, though, to allow this relationship to grow, and swallowed his sadness. Let them live for this moment.

  * * *

  FRANTIC KNOCKING ON the front door that evening had Salem rushing to open it. Who on earth would that be at nine-thirty at night? Emily stood under the porch light, gripping a couple of cheap aluminum and nylon-webbing lawn chairs.

  “Emily, what’s going on? I thought there was something wrong.”

  “There will be if we miss the meteor shower that’s forecast for tonight. I heard about it an hour ago.” She thrust the chairs at him. “Take these to the backyard. I’ll get the rest.”

  The girls had joined Salem. Aiyana slipped into a pair of shoes. “I’ll help.”

  They retrieved more chairs from Nick Jordan’s SUV then trooped through the house to the backyard to set them up.

  “Salem, I picked up snacks. They’re in bags on the backseat of the car. Would you get them, please?”

  He did, then found everyone in the kitchen. Emily filled big bowls his dad had taken out of cupboards, with popcorn and chips. She handed around juice boxes.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “Do you own a plastic table we can use outside?”

  “I have folding dinner trays.” His father pulled them out of the laundry room at the back of the house.

  Salem stopped Emily just before she stepped outside. “Why aren’t you watching this with your own family instead of coming over here?”

  “They left for a party in Denver two hours ago. I was really pooped from working on the garage and didn’t feel like going. I’d rather watch shooting stars anyway.”

  Disappointment slid through him, bitter like a dose of cod liver oil. Why had he hoped for a different answer? For something like, I wanted to be with you.

  You’re hopeless, buddy, resisting her because of guaranteed future heartbreak, but wanting her to desire you just the same.

  Out in the backyard, his dad opened the trays in the middle of the circle of chairs and Emily put the food down. Aiyana and Mika had carried out the drinks. They chose their seats.

  “You want to tell us what this is about?” Salem reached for a handful of chips.

  “The earth is passing through debris from a comet’s orbit tonight. It should look like a rainfall of shooting stars.”

  In the faint light shining through the back windows of the house, Emily’s face glowed. He’d forgotten how much she used to love this stuff, how much of a nerd she’d been as an adolescent, despite not looking the least bit like one.

  “Can we turn off the indoor lights?”

  “I’ll do it.” Salem turned them off then returned through the darkness to take his seat again. An owl hooted in the distance. Even back here, he heard those crickets that had taken up residence under the front porch.

  Down the street, someone was just closing up his grill for the night. Overhead, stars sparkled.

  “How does a meteor shower happen? What causes the debris?” Salem’s own teenaged nerd, Aiyana, burned with the same level of curiosity as Emily had at that age. He crossed his fingers. If only high school didn’t burn it out of her.

  He listened with half an ear while Emily explained. This came close to his idea of heaven, sharing a piece of nature with people he loved.

  “Look!” Mika cried.

  Once the shower started it didn’t let up until they were hoarse and their throats spent after too many oohs and aahs. Nature’s fireworks, brought to them because Emily had been vigilant, and had thought to include his family in the event.

  “That was amazing.” Aiyana sounded breathy and happy.

  “Yeah. Thanks, Emily.” Mika’s juice box straw made rude noises when she sucked the remnants out of the bottom.

  Everyone laughed.

  “We are happy, eh?” Salem’s dad gathered the empty bowls and carried them to the back door. “Thank you, Emily, for going to this trouble.”

  It was a dig at him, Salem knew. It was his father’s way of saying, Look, here she is again bringing fun trouble into this house.

  Salem had scooted down in his chair earlier so he could rest his neck on the back to watch the show. He rolled his head to admire Emily in the chair beside him. She had scrunched down in her chair, too.

  She must have felt him studying her. She rolled her head to meet his gaze, hard to see in the spare ambient light. Yet he knew an understanding passed between them, of a love of nature, and a love of friends. Their awareness of each other became pronounced, palpable.

  Her hand rested on the arm of her chair and he set his on top of it. She turned her palm up, and it was natural to thread his fingers with hers.

  He smiled, floating in a serenity that blocked out any problems the future might bring. This woman gave his children so much.

  Thank you, with all of my heart.

  She returned his smile.

  You’re welcome, from my heart to yours.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SALEM DROVE THE GIRLS into Denver on Thursday evening after work. They found the music rental shop without a problem and spent a couple of hours trying out instruments.

  In the end, Aiyana stuck with her original plan. No surprise there. She had a habit of knowing her own mind.

  Mika chose the clarinet. Fine by Salem. He loved New Orleans jazz and envisioned his daughter belting out some lively stuff one of these days.

  They left the store with their rented instruments. If the girls liked the music enough, and stuck with it, he would buy them their own.

  Aiyana said, “I want to buy Emily and Cody gifts to thank them for helping me with the bullying, but I don’t know what to get.”

  “I can help you. Let’s do it now.”

  Aiyana’s lovely smile warmed his soul. “Thanks, Dad. I don’t have much money. Do you think they’d be okay with something small?”

  “Yes. They’ll be touched by the sentiment—the cost doesn’t matter.”

  “Okay,” Aiyana said. “I want to get something for you, too.”

  “Me? What did I do? I was totally useless.”

  “You got me the right help.”

  He didn’t want to tell her how little he’d wanted to ask Emily because, in the end, his daughter’s needs had been more important than his own discomfort.

  “One of my teachers once said that having a lot of knowledge is great,” Aiyana said, “but even more important is knowing where to look when you don’t have the answers. You knew where to look. Emily was perfect.”

  If only Emily really were perfect. Sometimes, though, only Emily came close enough to that ideal to tempt him. If only she would stay put.

  They found a gift shop where Aiyana bought her dad a journal. She chose a bright scarf for Emily and a black leather wristband for Cody. The band had a pair of silver hands that clasped together to keep it closed.

  “This is so cool, Dad. It’s like jewelry, but it’s still really masculine. I’m not sure, though. Is it appropriate to give something like this to a guy I’m not dating?”

  “Good question, Aiyana. On the one hand, it’s a nice thought and a generous way to thank him. On the other hand—”

  Mika grabbed it from her sister. “Honestly, you guys think too much.” She plonked it on the counter beside the cash register. “You’re buying it, Aiyan
a. It’s perfect.”

  Salem took his daughters out for dinner as a kind of celebration. Occasionally, he treated the family to dinner in Accord, but between working and studying so much and paying tuition for years, it hadn’t been a regular thing.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken them out in Denver, even though it was only a little over an hour up the road from their hometown.

  Over fish and chips, coleslaw and milk shakes, Salem broached the subject that had been troubling him. How was Aiyana doing now? As a parent he should know, but he’d never been one to open a can of worms if he didn’t have to, especially since he wasn’t sure how he would help her if she was still struggling.

  He jumped in before he lost his nerve.

  “Aiyana.” He must have sounded serious because both girls stopped chewing, the easiness of the meal gone in a moment.

  “What, Dad?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Okay?” A puzzled frown formed between her brows. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you know...with the whole Justin thing.”

  “Oh, Dad, that’s so over. Thanks to Emily and Cody, it became a nonissue fast. Everything’s back to normal at school.”

  She cut up her battered fillet and scooped out the fish to eat first, saving her favorite part, the batter, for last. Salem hid a bittersweet smile behind his hand, happy to see that his growing-up-too-fast teenager still had some of her childish habits. She’d had this one for years and he’d always found it endearing. How much longer would this tiny piece of her childhood last?

  Another thought had been troubling Salem since the Justin debacle, when Aiyana hadn’t had a mother to turn to for help. Had his girls recovered from their mother’s death? Salem had been clumsy in his attempts to console them at the time while also trying to protect them from the harsher reality of what had happened. Mothers weren’t supposed to die from drug overdoses. It might somehow have been more acceptable if it had been a prescription drug, but that crazy Caleb Brown had sold her some kind of dirty meth. The fact that the cops hadn’t followed up and charged Caleb still burned Salem to this day. Then the coward had skipped town.

  Annie might not have been a pillar of society, might not have held a significant position in town, and might not have had influence, but she had been important to her children.

  “Girls?” Again they stopped eating and stared at him.

  “Do you ever miss your mother?”

  Mika stared down at her plate. “I feel really bad, Dad. Some days, I can’t see her face anymore. I have to look at her picture to remember her.”

  “That’s normal and you have nothing to feel guilty about. I think it’s the mind’s way of dealing with grief, of making it easier to accept loss.” That was advice Salem felt comfortable giving because he’d lived with that guilt himself before he realized it was a waste of energy. “How about you, Aiyana?”

  “I felt guilty for a long time after she died because I was so mad at Mom for doing drugs. I know she was a good person, but I hated when she was using. Why did she do it, Dad?”

  How could he tell them the truth without hurting their feelings?

  “Just tell us, Dad. We can handle it.”

  Man, these women who knew him so well could run circles around him. First Emily, and now Aiyana.

  “Whatever it is,” she continued, “you need to be honest with us. We’re growing up. We’re not little kids anymore.”

  The waitress came, cleared their plates and took orders for dessert. While Salem doctored a coffee, he decided his daughters deserved the truth.

  “Your mom had kids too young.” He rushed to reassure them. “Don’t get me wrong. She really loved you two. Ever notice all the photos of you as babies and toddlers around the house? She loved making photo albums of those pictures. That was her favorite hobby.”

  “So, what does that have to do with her taking drugs?” That was Mika, ready to face reality.

  “She wasn’t yet thirty and you girls were growing up, and she realized she’d become a wife and a mother before she’d had much of a chance to find out who she was, or to have fun. She went straight from working in that upholstery factory as a teenager to marriage. I guess she saw me as a way out, but in time came to see it as a different kind of...bondage, I guess?”

  “Oh.” Aiyana’s voice sounded small. Salem took her hand then also held Mika’s.

  “That’s why I told you how much she loved you first. Her problem wasn’t with you, but with something inside her. She left school and started working at sixteen, came straight into marriage and motherhood at barely nineteen and missed her adolescence after the fact.”

  “I guess she started work early because she needed the money?”

  “Yes, Aiyana. That’s why I’m always stressing how important education is. I want you to have choices. Annie felt trapped.”

  “I get it, Dad. By the way, I really like school. I just wanted to go out with Justin because I wanted some fun, too. But don’t worry—I’m more like you than Mom.”

  Salem smiled. “Yeah, you are. Mika, you have your mom’s free spirit. But because your upbringing has been stable, you are, too. You like your fun, but you’re smart about it.”

  “That’s because of what I saw in Mom.”

  “Good.”

  “I’ve been thinking about if Mom had still been alive—” Aiyana cut into the lemon meringue pie she’d ordered “—she might not have been able to handle the trouble I had with Justin as well as Emily did.”

  “That’s possible, Aiyana. Can you tell me what makes you think that?”

  “Mom might have been stoned, anyway, but even worse, she didn’t have Emily’s experience to understand what I was going through. She would’ve thought they were just teasing or that they didn’t really mean to hurt me. Mom was really generous, but she didn’t always have a lot of common sense.”

  Ain’t that the truth, Salem thought. He had slammed up against that so many times during their marriage. If he hadn’t had his own mother’s faulty example, he might not have found it so hard, but all Annie did was bring back bad memories for him.

  After they finished dessert and paid the bill, they left the restaurant together. “So, we’re good?”

  Mika threw her arms around him and hugged hard. “Yeah, Dad, everything’s great. Can’t wait to start playing the clarinet.”

  Aiyana wrapped her arm across his back and rested her head on his shoulder. “Thanks for tonight, Dad. I really enjoyed spending time with you.”

  Like an awkward three-headed beast, they walked to the Jeep giggling.

  At home, Salem thanked his lucky stars that Emily had unwittingly brought him and his girls together this evening.

  His emotional high lasted until both Aiyana and Mika went to their room and started wailing on their new instruments, every note discordant and harsh. Amid the screeching cacophony, he entered the kitchen.

  His dad had stuffed his ears with tissues again. Salem reached for the tissue box and did the same, muttering, “Heaven help us.”

  * * *

  SALEM DROVE TO Violet’s garage on Friday evening after work with the warm June breeze slipping through the open windows and resting gentle hands on his shoulders like an old friend, heralding his favorite time of year. Days were growing longer and warmer, but weren’t yet humid.

  He drew a deep comforting breath. The scent of fresh earth and burgeoning corn in the fields outside Accord mingled with the aroma of green peppers and pepperoni inside the Jeep. Two large pizzas sat on the passenger seat beside him.

  Tonight, they were celebrating. Emily’s garage was renovated and ready for her first clients. Nothing like pizza and soft drinks to commemorate a job well done.

  Emily, Violet, Aiyana and Mika sat on lawn chairs in the backyard beside the
garage when he arrived. The dogs yipped and jumped around him, trying to reach the pizza boxes. Emily had scraped the outside of the garage and had painted it white with periwinkle trim. Salem thought it just looked blue, but Mika had set him straight. “Periwinkle blue, Dad.”

  He put the food and drinks on a plastic table. “Place looks really good. Love the flowers.”

  “Violet bought the window boxes and planted them.” Emily pulled a lawn chair close for him.

  A riot of purple and yellow pansies, with hot-pink geraniums, filled the periwinkle blue wooden planters.

  Violet handed around cups of ginger ale.

  “You do fast work, Emily.” Salem handed her a couple of slices of pizza on a paper plate. He couldn’t believe she could get so much done in a little less than two weeks. “You should be a contractor. I didn’t think you’d pull the place together this quickly.”

  “I’m dying to start teaching.” Emily took the food. “My first students are booked for tomorrow.”

  Her eyes shone. She sparkled with energy.

  “Tomorrow? That’s soon.” Pride swelled in him in her accomplishment. “How does the inside look?”

  She put down her pizza. “Come have a peek.”

  He hadn’t seen it since he’d put up molding around the windows and doors.

  She and his girls had painted the walls a subdued gray with a hint of lavender and the moldings a glossy white.

  “Aiyana did a great job on the moldings. Both girls were amazing, Salem. I couldn’t have done it without them.”

  Again that sense of pride blazed through him, this time for his daughters.

  “This gray is a good color. Makes the room feel calm.”

  “I agree,” Violet said. “It’s a beautiful backdrop for music.”

  “That’s what I think, too.” Emily ran her hand across one wall. “All of the color will come from the music and the kids. I thought it would be a good idea to have a calm atmosphere.”

  Her attitude surprised Salem. He’d thought someone with her strong personality would choose bold colors. She didn’t seem to be the impulsive woman he’d thought she was. Or maybe she had matured, as she kept trying to tell him. Actions spoke louder than words, though, and while painting a room a soft gray seemed like a great idea, it wasn’t enough to convince him.