The Righteous and The Wicked (33 page)

Lead lungs. Blurry eyes. Emma shakes her head in disbelief. “What?”

Deborah steps toward her. “This house is for sale and
you
are trespassing.”

Sharp, shooting, searing pain. “He-he called you? You spoke to him? What did he say?”

“He said things just stopped working out for him.”

Searing anguish. Crimson rage. She cannot speak. Her body goes rigid and tears sprout in her eyes.

“Aw, don’t look so sad, sweetie.” Her words are daggers. “I guess you just weren’t enough for him. How is your husband, by the way?”

“How the hell do you know that I’m married?” Something inside Emma clicks. This woman is the reason that Aaron’s here.

“You crazy bitch! You called my husband? Why? So you could have Eric for yourself? Well, newsflash, he’s fucking gone. He’s gone and you’ll never get him. You wanted to fuck him, didn’t you?”

Deborah’s shocked such an accusation came out of this otherwise benign woman, but she knows how to play this game. “How do you know that I didn’t?”

Emma steps even closer, so close she can smell Deborah’s skanky, cheap perfume.

“Because anyone who gets fucked by Eric never looks the same again. I can tell just by looking at you, you never got to feel how good he is.”

She’s so close that she can whisper. “See this smile on my face? It’s there because I know what it feels like to have him inside me. He fucks you
so
good.”

Deborah’s shaking, but her arsenal isn’t empty. “Well, it couldn’t have been that good for
him
. He did
leave you
after all.”

For some reason, all Emma can think of is Danielle.
“You can wait for someone to throw you a ladder or you can climb out of the ditch yourself.”

Before Emma knows what has happened, her hand flies. She punches her with such force Deborah falters and lands on the hood of her car. A trickle of blood drips from her lip and leaves tiny red specks on the white hood. Deborah cowers and drops the sign on the ground. She gets in her car, slams the door, and speeds away.

Emma feels relieved, but the feeling is fleeting. She looks down at the seven letters on the sign and they are the final nail in the coffin.

He’s never coming back.

Emma will not allow this truth to destroy her any longer. She picks up the “For Sale” sign from the grassy ground. She raises it above her head, and then plunges it into the soft earth herself. Then she grabs her keys from the unopened door and drops the one Eric gave her in the dirt.

Emma is climbing out.

Since she has resolved to no longer let her life be consumed with sadness, Emma fights to occupy her time with things she enjoys.

Time with Abby and Danielle. Movie nights with Aaron. Music.

She stares at her father’s record player and thinks of Eric. Reminders of him linger everywhere. The first time he kissed her . . .

She kneels down and flips through the dusty albums. She examines each one and places her selection on the turntable. The soft notes waft through the room as the music’s vibrations ripple through her and she turns the volume knob all the way to the right. She sways to the music, alone. She plays it as loud as it will go, thinking of Eric, but she knows it will never be loud enough for him to hear.

A hand touches her back and she startles. She jolts and spins around to find Aaron standing behind her. He speaks, but she can’t hear him over the music.

“What?” she asks.

His face is annoyed. “I said, turn it down!”

Emma obeys his command. Then she stops herself. “No.”

“What?”

“I said no. This is
my
house, Aaron.” Emma places her hands on her hips, challenging him.

“Emma, this is
our
house.
Our
life. When are you going to see that? Eric is gone. He’s not coming back.”

“Don’t talk about him like you know him, Aaron, because you don’t!”

“I know that he’s a coward! I may have left you, Emma, but it wasn’t out of cowardice. It was a hard decision for me to leave you and I regretted it every day.”

“You left me
,
Aaron, because it was what was best for
you
. Eric left because he thought it was what was best for
me
.”

Once again, something clicks:

“
You owe it to yourself to search for happiness, and I owe it to myself to try to get better. If
that happens, then and only then will I return.
I want to come back to you, but I won’t until I am certain I deserve to have your heart.”

The words echo in her mind. Words that Aaron claimed, but Emma sees the truth now: it’s the letter Eric left. The letter she never received. Aaron stole it. He used Eric’s words as his own.

“That letter. That was
Eric’s
. Aaron, how could you do that?” Emma’s disgusted.

He begins to back away from her in shame, but then it’s replaced with arrogance. “So what if I did? That doesn’t mean I love you any less. I know what’s good for you, don’t you see that?”

It’s like she was walking around with a veil over her eyes and now it has disappeared. It has been destroyed and she can see. Everything is clear. She’s done with this charade.

“Aaron. I want you to leave. Right now.”

“Baby, you’re angry.” He tries to touch her.

“You’re fucking right I’m angry. Aaron, I don’t love you anymore. I don’t want to make this work. I don’t want to be your wife.”

He scoffs. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Yes, I do. I was asleep, and Eric woke me up. He woke my
heart
up. I can’t go back to sleep. I can’t live like that again. It doesn’t matter if Eric’s here or not, I
don’t
love you anymore. I don’t want you. Please, just go.”

“A part of you will always love me, Emma.”

“You’re wrong. I feel nothing for you.” She closes her eyes and wishes he would disappear. When she opens them again, she hears him gathering his things, then the click of the door.

Emma stands alone on the old warped floorboards of her porch, next to the never repaired crater. She takes a deep breath of sweet grass and lilac. It’s like the first breath she has ever taken. All she hears is the wind flirting with the trees, and the quiet song of a lone bird calling out.

Emma stands on the porch of her decayed and empty house. She is alone, and it’s okay.

“Do you feel in control?” Dr. Daryn asks.

“I feel like it’s not a need
as much as it is a
want
.”

“And what do you want?”

“You know what I want. I want
her.
But this demon
that chases me, that
chased
me, it ruined my life. It ruined everything.”

“No, Eric.
You
ruined everything. There
is
no demon. It is you, Eric.
Your
choices. You have to own it, own
those choices.”

He shakes his head and clenches his fist. He feels like a broken record. “I just want to be good for her. I love her so much.”

“Love is not what’s lacking here, Eric. I think we both know that. The question you need to ask yourself now is: Are you ready to give and receive love without guilt? Are you ready to let yourself feel?”

He contemplates Dr. Daryn’s words. Is he ready? Can he be true? Can he accept that what he has to give is good enough? It’s been so long since he touched her. His longing for her crawls over his skin. It lives in his soul. His need, his
want
is for her alone. Living without her is not living at all.

He goes back to his trailer and gets in the shower. The steam swirls around him. The water slides over his skin and drips from his thick hair. He thinks of Emma but he doesn’t just think about her body, he thinks of her smile. Her keen way of seeing the world. Her honesty, her faith. She’s beautiful, but she’s also smart and kind. She’s everything he could have ever sought in a woman.

Eric stands with his towel hanging around the damp skin of his hips, staring at a suitcase. He picks up an old T-shirt and holds it to his nose. It smells like her. He folds it with care, and places it inside.

A moving car. A family. Laughter. Children. Emma watches them from her kitchen window.

Eric’s house has been sold.

She turns her attention back to the dirty dishes. Her eyes flutter closed with memories. It would be so easy to fall back into bitter, numb sadness, but she doesn’t. She goes outside, picks flowers from her garden, and walks down the thick, green path to meet her new neighbors.

It’s a family. A married couple with two children. They invite her in. They gush that this is their dream house. They’re so happy, they can’t believe the home is theirs. Emma smiles. She watches the children scamper about the house. Emma is not hurt by the sights around her. She smiles, happy to be witnessing such love, even though she’s now resigned to the reality that having it for herself is something that will never be. Emma goes home. Her sleep is sound and peaceful.

Night changes over to day. The sky knows the sun is near before it can be seen. Deep blue fades and relents to lighter shades. The birds sing the dawn’s chorus. They feel what is coming and they cannot contain their joy. The horizon simmers and gives way to orange, pink, and yellow as the first rays break free and shake off their slumber, bringing with them promises and hope.

A fresh beginning. A brand new day.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Emma wakes to banging. On a Saturday. Her day off. Her day to sleep. There’s a knock at the door but
she won’t allow herself to indulge in the sweet chills which that sound used to send through her.
It’s gotta be Abby. Or one of the Driscoll kids,
she thinks, and throws the sheet off. She yawns and stops at the top of her stairs. That sweet chill is fighting to make its way through her blood. The shadow she sees on her porch is familiar.

She takes each step with caution, getting closer and closer to the source of the banging that woke her. She hears a sweet melodic tingle and she knows that sound can only come from one thing: her wind chime. With a trembling hand, she turns the doorknob and opens the door.

She gasps and blinks, testing her eyes, not believing what she sees. His back is to her, hammer in hand. He thumps it against the nail again and again. He has saved the chime from its exile behind the lilac bush, and he’s hanging it back up where it belongs.