Mary Sullivan - Always Emily

“Boys,” Mika said, with a nod of wisdom and a shrug that said, isn’t it obvious? “See you after the party, Grandpa. Bye, Daddy.” Then she was out the door and off to meet her friends down the street, so blessedly uncomplicated Salem thanked his lucky stars.

“What do I do about Aiyana?” Salem buttered his toast.

“Get your woman to talk to her.”

His knife clattered to the counter. Clumsy fingers. “She’s not my woman.”

“Ask her to talk to your daughter.”

“No.” He might have let Emily sleep here last night, and he might have held her while she slept, but he’d be damned if he would expose his daughter to Emily’s brand of heartache.

“She has been good to Aiyana since that girl was born.”

True. She had showered Aiyana, and later Mika, with gifts and stuffed animals and postcards from abroad. “I know, but—”

“And Aiyana loves her.”

Yes, he knew that, too, but maybe not so much lately. Anger at Emily had grown in Aiyana since her mother’s death. Perhaps she’d hoped Emily might replace her mom, but that hope had been dashed every time Emily left.

Aiyana used to adore Emily, used to trail around behind her imitating her every move, and singing all of the silly songs Emily taught her.

When Emily would leave at the end of her visits, it was okay because Aiyana had her mother. Once Annie started using, though, she became less and less available to her daughter. Aiyana looked forward to Emily’s visits too much after that, and was more devastated when she left.

Then, after Annie died, the questions started.

“Why is Emily going away? Doesn’t she want to be with me? When is she coming back?”

Salem explained about her career, but it was hard to be convincing, because he’d always suspected there was more to it than there appeared to be.

“Aiyana is angry with her,” his dad said, “but still loves her.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Who else is there?”

No one now that her mother was dead. They didn’t have an extended family.

“Ask her.” Dad could be as persistent as a bear in the mood for dinner.

“No.”

“Stubborn.” His father sniffed. “Like your mother.”

He was not. “Emily is trouble.”

“You need a little trouble.”

Salem rounded on his father. “How can you say that? You of all people? After everything Mom did to you? To us?”

“I loved your mother, warts and all.” His dad leaned back in his chair, crossed his feet and cupped the back of his head with his hands, as though they discussed nothing more serious than the weather. “Emily isn’t like your mother.”

Salem turned away and stared out the window.

“She isn’t Annie, either,” his dad said. “She is a different kind of lively. Not trouble trouble. Fun trouble.”

“So what?”

“Aiyana is unhappy,” Dad said. “Has been for a while.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“You would know more if you spent more time at home.”

“I work hard—”

His father cut him off with a shake of his head. “So what? Listen to what is important here. Something is wrong with Aiyana. I’m no good for her. You’re no good. She needs a woman to talk to.”

There wasn’t one—Annie was dead and Salem’s mother long dead—but damned if he would ask Emily to step in.

His mind cast about. “I’ll phone Laura, Nick Jordan’s wife.”

“Uh-huh. Sure, you can. She’s probably at the bakery right now serving customers, but you can call her and ask her to leave them and come right over.”

Of course he couldn’t. Weekend mornings were crazy busy at the café, Laura’s busiest time. “How about Emily’s sister, Pearl?”

“She won’t think that’s odd? You calling her while Emily is here in the house? And her knowing Aiyana idolizes Emily? That won’t look strange?”

It would look ridiculous, and Salem knew it.

Emily was here. Still...he couldn’t ask. He couldn’t open Aiyana to heartbreak. But Aiyana was unhappy about something, and wouldn’t confide in him.

His dad’s white eyebrows rose in an exaggerated circumflex, low on the sides and high in the middle, almost meeting at the midpoint, compelling Salem to set aside his fears and seek help for his daughter.

It stuck in his craw. He didn’t want Emily’s help. He could do this on his own. He wanted Emily out of his house and back in her own. Away from him. Away from his daughters.

“She won’t hurt them,” Dad said as though reading his mind. “She won’t lead them astray.”

His confusion with Aiyana, his utter...helplessness, had him swaying toward Dad’s point of view. He needed someone’s help. Emily was the only one available right now.

He’d made the decision to not see her again, to not think about her, to pretend she didn’t exist, and yet here she was in his house. And Aiyana needed someone at this moment. Salem could deal with the consequences later.

“Okay,” he said and trudged upstairs, footsteps heavy and slow like his thoughts.

At his closed bedroom door, he halted and glanced down the hallway toward Aiyana’s door, also closed.

So many doors were closed to him these days. About the only thing that wasn’t was school. No wonder he spent so much time buried in books. They opened pathways for him he couldn’t breach elsewhere in his life.

He knocked and Emily called for him to come in.

She stood beside the bed, her skin pale and gray like ash, using his brush to calm her hair. He loved its thickness and color, a medium brown warmed by glints of blond and red tones. Natural highlights. Or, he assumed they were natural since they’d already been there when she was twelve.

He still remembered the first time he ever saw her and thinking he’d gone crazy because he’d felt such an immediate kinship with a stranger, and her only twelve while he was a strapping eighteen.

For a while, he’d wondered if he was some kind of pervert before realizing his attraction wasn’t sexual. That had come later, when she was still too young at fifteen. It had driven him into the arms of another woman. Just his rotten luck their birth control had failed. No, that wasn’t true. He might have regretted his marriage, but never his daughters, even now when they were teenagers and he didn’t have a clue what to do with them.

“Are you okay?” he asked Emily.

“I’m fine,” she replied, but wasn’t.

He knew when Emily lied. She was lying now.

“What’s up?” she asked shyly. Emily, who could go anywhere, do anything, was never shy. “You look upset.”

“And you look a little better than last night. More like yourself. How do you feel?”

“Tired, but the fever broke during the night, thank goodness. The attack’s almost run its course.” She placed his hairbrush onto his dresser. “I’ve known others with this. I’ve seen the symptoms and how they progress. I’ll be better soon.”

“Do you need to be anywhere this morning? I have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“Aiyana’s upset.”

Her head shot up. “Aiyana? What’s wrong?”

The request backed up in his throat, but the bottom line was that Aiyana needed help and Emily was here. Even with his father’s help, Salem had been coping as both parents for so long, and he was out of his depth. “I think maybe she needs to talk to a woman.”

Emily looked uncertain, another sign she wasn’t herself. In all the years he’d known her, Salem had admired her generosity of spirit and her self-confidence.

He stepped back. “If you don’t want to that’s okay.”

“No. I don’t mind. It’s just...”

“Just what?”

“What kind of help does she need? I mean, I don’t know if I can help.”