Buried dreams, p.9
Buried Dreams, page 9
part #1 of Dreams #3 Series
“Are you okay?” I ask while I put my seat belt on. My mother doesn’t say anything; instead she shakes her head and looks out the window. “It’ll be okay, Mom,” I say, my eyes looking at the bakery. “We’ll make it okay.”
Chapter Twelve
BROCK
“Daddy,” I hear from my side and then feel the bed dip. When I look over, I see Saige putting her knee on the bed as she rubs sleep out of her eyes. “It’s morning.” She gets under the covers with me and lies down on the other side before grabbing the remote from the bedside table.
“Is it morning?” I ask, turning my head to the side, keeping my eyes closed as I try to wake up. “How do you know?”
“The sun is up.” She snorts. “And it’s nine thirty.”
“Is it that late?” I lift my head and grab my phone from the bedside table and see she is telling the truth. I also see I have a couple of missed texts from the guys at work, and then the last one is from this morning, and it’s from Charlie. “We slept in.” I toss the covers off me and get up, making my way to the bathroom.
When I return, Saige is still in the middle of the bed with the pillows propped up behind her. “Are we getting out of bed?”
“Maybe,” she says. “It depends. Are we going to the park?”
I raise my eyebrows at her. “I don’t know. It depends. Are you going to get out of bed?” I don’t wait for her to answer. Instead, I walk out of my bedroom and head to the kitchen to start my coffee before anything else.
“Can I have a cupcake?” she shouts from my bedroom. I look over at the white box on the counter that holds the extra cupcake Everleigh placed in there the day before. Something that made Saige extra happy when she opened it when we got home. It irritates me she did that for my daughter. All night long, I kept thinking of her face when she met Saige. Something I never thought would happen, if I’m being honest.
“You aren’t eating a cupcake in my bed,” I say as I grab a mug and fill it with coffee. I hear the sound of her feet hitting the floor before seeing her walk into the kitchen. “Good morning, sunshine.”
I watch her grab the box and then go to her stool and pull it out as she opens the top of the box. “She gave me a special one,” she repeats what she said the day before, and instead of answering her, I just grunt.
Grabbing my phone and going through the messages, I see Tony’s message at the top.
Tony: Have you heard about the bakery?
Ryan: It sucks big-time.
My neck tingles as I read through the messages, but no one has said what has happened. And I’m not about to ask about it until I get to Charlie’s text.
Over the years, we’ve drifted apart. We each had our own shit to deal with. To be honest, I wasn’t close to anyone and preferred to be by myself.
Charlie: Hey, not sure if you heard, but there was a fire at the bakery last night.
I have to hold on to the counter with one hand as the image of Everleigh stuck in the fire feels like someone just kicked me in the stomach. I close my eyes, the hiss comes out of my mouth, and I ignore all the feeling in my chest. When I open my eyes, I continue reading the text.
Charlie: Everyone is fine.
I drop my phone on the counter and put my cup down, and I brace on my elbows, my head hanging. Letting out a sigh of relief.
“Are you okay, Daddy?” Saige asks, and I look over at her. Her image is blurry through the tears I fight away.
“Yeah.” I nod. “I’m good, baby.” I turn around, breathe in through my nose, then exhale through my mouth. “Did you want a breakfast sandwich to go with your cupcake?”
“No, I’m going to do my homework, and then can we go to the park?”
“Yeah,” I agree softly, standing back up and looking out the window, forcing my mind blank but failing when I see Everleigh smiling at Saige and ignoring me.
She comes over and washes her hands before drying them and going to her bedroom. I pick the phone back up and continue the message.
Charlie: We should talk when you have a chance. Time is precious, man.
I shake my head and put the phone down, not wanting to read the rest. I don’t need him to tell me that time is precious. I don’t need him to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do.
Instead, I walk over to the back door and slide it open before stepping out and sitting in the chair and just looking out into the distance. The swing set I set up for Saige when she turned four. She was so small it took all of her energy to climb up the ladder on the side. Even on the swing, she could barely touch the ground with her feet, and now she hardly ever looks at it. Eventually, I should just take it down, but something always tells me not to.
I sit outside, my head a mess, as I try to push away all thoughts of the bakery and the way Everleigh must be feeling. I don’t care, I remind myself when I hear Saige at the door. “I’m done.”
“Okay, I’ll go shower quickly,” I state, getting up and bending to kiss her head, “and then we can go.”
“Okay,” she replies, following me inside and going to sit on the couch while I go to my bedroom. I make my bed before taking a shower and getting dressed.
We’re walking out of the house when my phone rings, and I look down to see Winston is calling me. I ignore the call and put it into my back pocket, making sure Saige is in her seat before I take off. My phone rings again, showing me Tony is calling. “Hey,” I say, answering on the Bluetooth.
“Hey, I’m about to head out.”
“Sounds good,” I say. “We’re on our way to the park.”
“Have fun.” He disconnects the phone as my truck makes its way over to the shop instead of to the park.
“We’re going to walk from here,” I say. She jumps down, and I look over at the bakery and so does Saige, who gasps.
“Daddy, look.” She points at the bakery, and I see the construction truck in the parking lot, along with a container in the front as workers walk in and out of the door, carrying stuff. “It’s all messed up.”
“Yeah,” I reply, walking down the street and seeing the front windows boarded up. Black soot is around where the windows were and also where the door is. The roof from the front doesn’t look like there is much damage, but when you walk to the side, you see half of it is off.
“Daddy, look, it’s Everleigh,” she declares when we stop by the side window, the only window that looks like nothing happened to it. I can see the front counter looks like it’s still intact, but the glass cases are smashed on the floor. Everleigh has a broom in her hand as men around her are also cleaning up. I don’t even notice Saige has left my hand until I see her hold up her hand and she’s knocking on the window.
Everleigh looks over, and I see her eyes go soft as Saige waves at her. Eyes that used to go soft like that when I walked into the room and told her I loved her. Eyes I haven’t seen for a long time. Eyes I’ve missed, and sometimes when I dream of her, they look at me like that. Exactly like she is doing right now. She looks like she hasn’t slept a wink, and she has black soot on her face. But she smiles at Saige, ignoring that I’m standing right here as she waves at her. “Does this mean that there are no more cupcakes?”
“It looks that way.” I reach out for her hand and pull her away from the window. “We’ll find another place.”
We walk down the street, Saige looking over her shoulder every now and again. I’m forcing myself not to look back over my shoulder.
I sit on the bench and watch her play with a couple of friends from school. The whole time, my stomach feels like I’ve swallowed glass. My mind sees Everleigh with her hair tied on top of her head. I wonder how the fire started. I wonder if she’s going to be okay. I wonder how Ms. Maddie is doing. I wonder all of these things I shouldn’t wonder. I wonder all these things I have no business wondering about. I wonder if she even ate anything, knowing she fainted twice when we were together because she didn’t eat the whole day. Scared the shit out of me when she walked out of the bathroom and then just fell on her face. That was the first time I ever felt a fear inside me. “Daddy.” Saige comes running over to me, panting. “Can we have a mani-pedi night?” She smiles at me, her whole face lighting up.
I smile as I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Whatever you want, baby girl,” I agree, the emptiness I felt not a couple of seconds ago being filled by her smile. She’s the only one I’ve let into my heart after Everleigh. She will be the only one who will have a hold on my heart ever again.
“So pizza night and mani-pedi.” She sits beside me, taking the water bottle I went to buy at the corner store while she played tag with her friends. Her chest heaves. “When can we go?”
“Whenever you want,” I say, and she gets up, putting her hand out. We walk back down Main Street. I see the bar is open, the doors are open with the sign in front that says: “Come in, we are open.”
My eyes go to the bakery as we walk past it and see there are just a couple of people left inside. None of them Everleigh, or at least we don’t see her, and I’m happy, or else I don’t know what Saige would do.
When we get home, I order pizza while she takes a shower and then comes out with her pink mani-pedi case. She puts it on the counter and zips open the top. “What color do you want this week?” she asks as she takes out the bottles of nail polish she keeps accumulating every single time we head over to the pharmacy. “I’m going for a blue,” she declares, picking up the baby-blue one she got last week. “What about you, Daddy?” she asks, and I look over at the bottles in front of her, picking out the lightest shade there is and it’s a light white. “That’s boring.” She shakes her head, taking the bottle from me and putting it back in the case. “We are going to do this one,” she says of the green one she picked out when it was Halloween. “You said it was a nice color.”
“It is,” I reply right before the doorbell rings. I get the pizza, and she eats two slices before the two of us settle on the couch. She paints my nails, and then I paint hers.
The cap of the bottle is too small for my fingers. “What happened to the bakery?” she asks softly, as I focus on trying not to get it on her skin.
“I don’t know, baby girl,” I say the truth. “There was a fire.”
“Do you think Ms. Maddie is going to build it back?”
I nod. “Of course she will.”
“It’s good that she has Everleigh there to help her.” She mentions her name again.
“Yeah.” That is the only thing I say and hope that she changes the subject.
“Do you think they need more help?” she asks. “If they do, maybe we can help them a bit.”
“I think they have all the help they need,” I deflect, finishing painting her nails. “Now, do you want your toes the same color?” I make sure I change the subject, and she nods. I finish painting her toes. She sits on the couch not moving and fans her hands to make sure her polish dries, and I do the same. She finally dozes off sometime after ten, long after the paint has dried.
Picking her up, I carry her to her bed and tuck her in before kissing her head and walking out. I turn off the television and the light, and instead of heading to my bedroom to do the same, I head outside and sit in the chair, looking up at the sky. My mind plays tricks on me when I imagine what my life would be like with Everleigh in it. Would we be here in this house? Would we have kids? If we did, would they look like Saige or have Everleigh’s eyes?
It happens so fast—it’s as if I am having a déjà vu moment when I see myself right here in this chair, with her sitting next to me. Her head is in my lap, her legs stretched out in front of her as she smiles at me. Her hand rests on the small baby bump, with my hand covering hers as I feel our baby kick. I rub my hands over my face to erase the image from my mind. “Maybe in another lifetime.” I get up. “And if we were different people.” I look up at the sky, seeing a shooting star. “And if I didn’t hate her.”
Chapter Thirteen
EVERLEIGH
I walk up the steps to the front door and swear I’m counting down the seconds until I collapse on that couch. My whole body feels like it’s been run over by a Mack truck, front and back. Turning the door handle, I really fucking hope it’s open so I don’t have to fish my keys out of my purse and make me do more work. Closing my eyes and pushing it open, I say a little prayer of relief. “Yesss,” I hiss as I step into the house and immediately kick off my sneakers.
“Hey,” my mother says from the kitchen when she looks over at the door.
“Hey,” I mumble, tossing my purse to the floor, next to my shoes, before dragging my ass to the couch and falling onto my back. “Don’t even try to tell me to move because I’m not doing it.”
I open one of my closed eyes when I hear my mother laughing from the kitchen. “You are lucky you took your shoes off.”
“No.” I shake my head. “You’re lucky I took my shoes off.”
“Are you going to have enough energy to get up and eat?” she asks, and I groan.
“I don’t even have enough energy to walk up those stairs”—I point at the stairs—“and take a shower.”
“A shower will make you feel better,” she advises as she stirs whatever it is in the pot that smells really good.
“This,” I say, pointing at the couch, “makes me feel better. Mom, I swear every single bone in my body hurts.”
“A nice hot shower will make all the aches and pains go away.” I groan when she says that, and I literally roll off the couch.
“You are ruining my peace,” I accuse, walking up the stairs with her laughing the whole time. I walk into the bathroom and turn on the shower before getting naked. I close my eyes and put my head back as the hot water runs all over my body. The aches and pains from literally gutting out the whole bakery in the past five days are unreal. From sunup to sundown, I’ve been in there along with a demolition crew that showed up the day after the fire. As soon as the fire marshal said we could go back in, which was about ten hours after the fire, they showed up. It took five seconds to realize Charlie had called them.
Walking into the bakery was something I don’t think I was ready for. Seeing everything my mother worked for in a pile of rubble was a bit too much. I swept the front of the bakery with tears running down my face. I don’t know how I am going to do it, but I am going to make it bigger and better. I kept repeating that to myself the whole week when all I wanted to do was go home and bury my head under the covers. Finally, the cleanup is done, and we have a meeting with the contractor this coming Monday.
I stay under the water until it turns warm, getting out and wrapping myself in a towel before walking out and heading to my bedroom. I start going through my clothes when I grab my robe and just slide it on before walking downstairs. “Don’t you feel better?” My mother looks over at me when she puts a plate on the kitchen table.
“No.” I pull out the chair and sit at the table, looking down at the plate of beef stew in front of me. My mouth suddenly waters as I wait for my mother to sit beside me. She puts down a basket of fresh rolls I know she made this morning because she never, ever buys frozen rolls.
Sitting down next to me, she looks at me and smiles. “You can eat,” she urges, picking up her fork. “Tell me about today.”
I grab my fork and stab a piece of meat and carrot. “Cleanup crew is finally done,” I say. “Place is down to the studs, as they said.”
“Took me ten years to build that thing up to what it was, and it took a week to gut it.” She shakes her head as she takes a bite of her food.
“We have to talk about what is going to happen,” I say softly. “I know you said you didn’t want to discuss it, but, Mom—”
“I know, I know,” she admits, “it’s just I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, why don’t we start with all the medical bills,” I start at the beginning. “They aren’t much since you have insurance, but it’s still a debt that has to be paid.”
She lifts her hand, waving it. “That bill is covered,” she states, and I nod. “I’m more worried about how I’m going to cover building a new bakery.”
“What did the insurance company say?” I ask, and she again makes no eye contact with me. She doesn’t want to show me how scared she really is. “Mom,” I snap. She looks up, and I see big tears in her eyes forming at the bottom. “What is it?”
“They will have to wait for the full investigation to be done in order to tell me if I’m covered or not.”
“What?” I gasp, never thinking it would not be covered. That’s why you have insurance.
“The fact that it was arson, they have to rule out that I wasn’t the one who did it.” I slap my hand on the table. “It’ll be fine.” She tries to hide the fear and her worries. “I’ll take another mortgage out on the house, and I do have some savings.”
“Mom, that is crazy.” I shake my head. “You are going to be working until you’re eighty to pay it off. Is it worth it?”
“How can you ask me that?” she questions, as if I broke her heart. “Besides you, that bakery is the best damn thing I ever did. I had a reason to get up in the morning. I love going to work.”
I’m about to say something else when there is a soft knock on the door. Before either of us can get up and get it, the door opens, and Oliver comes in. He’s been here every single night since Mom has been home. He doesn’t spend the night, but he comes over and sits with her. “Hi, guys,” he says, his voice chipper as he puts down his helmet on the chair by the door. “What’s with the sad faces?”
“Nothing,” my mother quickly denies. “What are you doing here?”
