Page 39 of From the Embers
Desperate for an escape, I took the kids to the park, then out for frozen yogurt, and eventually to the mall to ride the carousel. I was exhausted beyond reason, but being with my kids was the only thing that eased my splintered soul. The house was blisteringly quiet when we got back. None of Luna’s sugary giggles or Eason’s rich laughter.
He wasn’t there to ask me about my day. Regardless of my answer, his wide smile made it so I knew it was about to get better.
He wasn’t there to sit outside and bullshit about nothing, his animated stories making the weight of life seem lighter.
To be honest, he didn’t even have to talk. Just knowing that Eason was there, outside in the pool house, working on his music gave me a sense of comfort I’d never expected to find again.
My own pain stung, but my sympathy for Eason was the true slap across the face and it only made me hate Rob and Jessica that much more.
Utterly unable to keep my lids open for any longer, I fell asleep for a while after the kids went to bed, but within hours I was right back up. I covered the bedroom floor with rows upon rows of the text printouts I’d requested. It was a tedious process, matching up timelines, looking back at my old messages to figure out what he’d told me he was doing while he was with her, then doubling back to see if any photos were taken on those days. And what were Jessica and I talking about in our old conversations while they were sneaking around behind my back? I was mentally piecing together a puzzle for which I only had about half the pieces.
The worst part was that I had this visceral need to know why they had done it, but deep down, I knew that none of it mattered. Knowing wouldn’t change what had happened. No matter how many lies I uncovered, it wouldn’t unbreak my heart.
After the revelations of the last two days, I began to feel like our entire life together and my friendship with a woman, who I’d never thought could betray me, had been nothing more than an illusion. Carefully crafted and expertly carried out, leaving Eason and me fools in their games.
When Rob and Jessica had been lost in that fire, so many secrets perished along with them. Some apparently had only been scattered to the breeze for a while. Regardless, I couldn’t shake the feeling that, somehow, we were still smoldering in the ashes of that night, a hotspot yet to be discovered, growing brighter even a year after their deaths.
And as I flipped the page to the next set of their messages, my lids almost as heavy as my heart, the embers of their betrayal suddenly ignited into a conflagration that would consume us all.
EASON
Even before I’d lost Jessica, I was no stranger to heartbreak. There weren’t many songwriters who were. In my younger days, a woman had cheated on me with a coworker. Another left me for her ex. One just went straight up off the rails and called my mother to tattle about how I hadn’t bought her enough flowers. It was all part of the journey, and closure was nothing but part of the process.
However, as it turned out, raging at a ghost was as unfulfilling as breakups came.
There was no one to be mad at.
No tear-filled arguments long into the wee hours of the morning.
There were no lies to sort through. No pleas to stay. There wasn’t even the satisfying slam of the door as I stormed out, my head held high, my self-worth in the gutter but knowing I deserved better.
Jessica had been sleeping around behind my back with the man I considered my brother.
I didn’t get to drive to Rob’s house and bang on his door in the middle of the night, demanding answers to questions no one should have to ask. There were no insults to exchange, no punches to be thrown, and absolutely nothing I could do to soothe the hurricane brewing within me.
So I packed my daughter and my guitar and left in the middle of the night. I hated leaving Bree alone with the fucking phone, but I couldn’t stay. The memories the four of us had made in that house before the fire had once been comforting. The afternoons around the pool, laughing and drinking. The impromptu dinners Bree and Jessica would plan where Rob would insist on grilling. The countless times Rob and I watched football, or basketball, or any sport that was in season on the big screen while our wives chatted about everything under the sun.
Now, those memories were poisoned by doubt. Tarnished by deception and lies.
Had he been fantasizing about her as she walked around the pool in a bikini? The very same pool my bedroom overlooked.
