Page 4 of Left of Forever

After we manage to do just that and they’ve both left for the evening, I let out a few more happy tears and uncork a bottle of wine.

But when I take a sip, I spot the paper again—my paper. My fledgling project from earlier, folded neatly onto itself in even, crisp thirds, tucked next to my whiteboard calendar.

For the life of me, I cannot remember folding it.

PART 1Last Fall

CHAPTER 1

ELLIS

It’s when my stomach growls as I watch a buzzard peck at a charred animal carcass that I realize I haven’t eaten in over twenty-four hours. “Shit,” I mutter under my breath.

I peel off my helmet and wipe at the salt on my brow, wondering how long I’d been standing there before I turn and start to make my way up the scorched hill, boots crunching across the blackened earth. Everything is black, as far as any of us can see. I search the sky, begging for signs of rain, but only find more endless hazy gray. I hear the whir of a distant helicopter, the buzz of a few chainsaws, and the crack and rip of a snag before it thunks to the ground.

“Break time,” I call out to one of the rookie firefighters nearby. I can’t recall her name. Hardly remember any names, in fact, but this isn’t my regular crew. I’m not sure how I ended up in charge of this particular group, but then again, I’m never sure how I end up leading anyone. It’s definitely not through any pursuit on my part.

A resounding chorus of relief goes out around me as the message gets passed across the hillside, and everyone starts the trek for the top.

“I love package day,” the rookie eagerly says as she catches up to my side. Her bouncy excitement reminds me of my brother Silas. The thought fills my dry mouth with ash.

I lengthen my stride, feet hitting the ground like I might stomp out the memory of Silas’s silhouette being engulfed in flames as he skidded down a mountainside a few months ago. An intubation, an induced coma, and multiple weeks in the ICU later; he thankfully made it out with some gnarly scars and his uninhibited (vexing) nature well intact. It left those of us who love him with invisible scars of our own, though, which is why the rest of my regular crew is back home in Spunes, taking some time off.

I, however, needed out. Sitting around Spunes would only continuously remind me of everything I can’t control and all that I’m helpless to fix. Like my heartbroken sister with her sad smiles as she tries to push through. We all watched Sage fall in the kind of love that alters you this past summer, and I can’t take watching as she grieves it now. Fisher and his niece moved back to New York, and I know in my goddamn marrow that they belong back in Spunes with Sage, but… but I guess I rarely know as much as I think I do. Then there’s Silas, who made it clear he was tired of my hovering over his rehab progress. Micah, my other brother, is off in California still giving baseball his best shot, far out of my reach. And then, of course… there’s Wren. My ex-wife.

“What’s on the menu today?” says the rookie breathlessly.

“What?” I can’t hide the annoyance in my tone.

“What’d you pack for lunch, I mean?” she asks, unfazed. The name tag on her uniform saysKirby.

I let out a curse. I meant to grab a few things from thecontinental breakfast at the hotel and am only now realizing that I forgot to pack any food altogether.

Kirby chuckles. “No lunch?”

I shake my head and grind my jaw, my stomach voicing its complaints again.

“Married, then, huh?”

I stop in my tracks and glare down at her. “What the hell brought you to that conclusion?” Is it that obvious that I’m only half of something still?

Kirby puts her palms up in surrender. “In my experience, it’s the married people who forget to eat and pack food. That’s all. Used to either having someone to remind you or someone to take care of you, I guess.”

I grunt and continue on toward the truck. I imagine there has to be something in there I can scrounge up to eat.

“Wait,” Kirby continues. “Hold up, boss! Care package day, remember?”

That’s right. I pivot and barely refrain from running, the hunger gnawing at me viciously. The care packages we get don’t all come with edible goods, but local schools, churches, and various organizations like to send whatever small aid they can to keep up morale on these long fires. I’ll either have to get to the pile early to find one that looks promising for food, or I’ll have to be a dick and pull rank. I spot a few firefighters already gathered around the collection, opening up handmade cards and bags of chips with sooty smiles. My eyes catch on a pink box a few yards away, and my target is determined, feet kicking up in a jog. I swipe the box just as a fellow captain reaches for it. He snaps his hand back with a shocked laugh.

He says something about pink being my color, but I’m already surging away, yanking out my pocketknife with shakyhands before I tear into it. I barely register the sight of something that looks like a biscuit before I find a tree to lean up against and shove the whole thing in my mouth like a rabid animal. A moan escapes me before I’m aware of it. I haven’t even swallowed the first before I’m reaching for a second, which is when multiple things come into focus.

The first is the series of flavors that invade my senses. Marionberry. Lemon. A hint of Earl Grey. My body is sliding down the tree trunk as each one washes over me, until I hit the ground with a thud.

The second is the label on the side of the insulated pink box. I know this logo, the silhouettes of two wrens woven into the design. I know these damned boxes well, too. Spent many an August-tourist-season night at a bakery putting them together each year.

The third is a letter poking out of the hastily opened box. I drop the scone in my hand, but pick it up and dust it off despite myself. I haven’t had one of these in… in, well, over four years now. I stare at the thing—this innocuous fucking scone. It shouldn’t elicit this strong of a reaction in me.God, I know it shouldn’t. It’s a goddamned pastry.

But it’s also sleepless nights in a rocking chair, the witching hours when we couldn’t go back to bed, and drifted into a kitchen instead. Our toddler son dancing on the kitchen island to Right Said Fred until we had tears leaking from our eyes. It’s my wife in an apron, wild blond and bronze curls escaping their tie. It’s playful food fights that lead to stripping her out of her clothes, tracing the marks where her body had stretched for our family with flour dusted fingers.