The Heart's Ashes
Page 7

“Dad?” I moaned. “I don’t want them.”
“Well, it’s just—Mike said the same thing. I don’t know what to do with them.”
“Oh, fine, bring them in then. What could it hurt?” I huffed, then stopped and looked at Dad. “Er, they’re not still wrapped are they?”
Vicki elbowed Dad. “Told you.”
“Fine. Whatever.” I threw my hands up.
“Coffees are on the bench, Ara,” Emily said, popping her head around the archway.
“Okay, we’re coming.”
Exhausted from the long day of unpacking, I stationed myself in the square pools of moonlight shining onto the carpet through the French windows. The now unwrapped wedding gifts stared at me from the floor, the lounge and the small round table behind me, sitting nestled between the two tub chairs in the bayed window space.
He really could have at least unwrapped them for me.
“What’d you get?” Emily slumped in the tub-chair behind me.
“Um—” I looked at the pile and shrugged. “Mostly crystal glasses, a sheet set, and—” I lifted the wrapping paper. “A chess set.”
“Cool.” Emily leaned back and blew a strand of hair off her face. “Oh, hey, Mike called, by the way—while you were at the shop. He said he’d call tonight.”
I melted into the carpet. Great. So far, with all the house hunting and moving preparations, I’d managed to avoid talking to him, but I knew I couldn’t avoid it much longer. I slid up into the tub chair across from Emily and sat a nearly flat box on the table between us.
“You’re going to have to talk to him sometime, Ara—it’s been two months.”
“I’m not ready yet, Em. You should’ve seen the look on his face when he left. I destroyed him.” I pulled the frosted glass chessboard out of its box.
“And what do you think it’s doing to him now, that every time he calls to talk to you, he’s stuck with a five minute casual chat with me instead?” She grabbed a chess piece from my hand and held it until I looked at her. “You have to talk to him, Ara.”
“Fine,” I rebuked, slamming the chess pieces into place on the board. “If I do, will you shut up about him?”
Emily softened and leaned forward. “Ara, he still loves you—”
“So you keep saying.”
“I’m just—it’s just that I never...I don’t like the way he sounds,” she finished. “He...he doesn’t have that...that hint of humour his voice always used to have. I just...I don’t think he’s okay.”
“What’s your point?”
“Don’t just say you’ll talk to him, actually talk to him.”
As I set each white chess piece on the board, they gave a gentle clunk. I let the sound answer Emily for me.
“Ara.”
“Em. I...” I shook my head and swallowed. “He’ll convince me to be with him again. I don’t know if—”
“That’s what you’re afraid of?” She leaned forward. “Ara, that’s silly. He knows how you feel. He’s given you space, time, everything. He’s not going to try to convince you to take him back—that’s not why he’s calling.”
“I know but...I’m not a hundred percent sure I don’t want to be with him. I just need more time to think before I hear his voice again.”
“Reasonable enough, I suppose. It’s just sad, that’s all.” She stood up and walked toward the kitchen.
“Pretty much everything in my life is, Em—but at least I have you.”
Emily drummed her fingers on the corner of the wall where she stopped. “Yeah, you’ll always have me.”
Quietly, I went back to setting up the chess set. “Hey, Em? Did you move one of the pieces?” I called out.
“Nope. Why?”
“Oh, there’s just one missing?” I leaned back in my chair and stared at the almost complete set.
“Which one?” she yelled, her voice echoing all the way from her bathroom.
“The black knight.”
“Check the box.”
“I did—” duh, “it’s not in there.”
“Well, where’d you buy it?” She popped her head around the corner again. “Maybe you can return it.”
“Nah, it was a gift, remember?”
“Oh.” Her lips made a long circle. “Dodgy.”
“Yeah. Oh well.” I clicked my tongue, considering the incomplete set. “We’ll just use one of Sam’s Lego men or something.”
“Well, I don’t play chess anyway.” Emily shrugged. “So, unless you plan to play alone...” She walked away, letting the hidden meaning behind that statement hang loosely in the air behind her.
As my bedroom came to completion when I shook out my pink and black cherry blossom quilt, I stood back and took it all in. Though the sun was long gone and the dark sky had seeped into my beautiful new house, it felt bright and sunny in my room.
I nodded, a self-satisfied nod, and stuffed my hands in my pockets. This is my room. With all my own things. The first place that’s truly mine—that I can truly call home.
But the quilt cover reflected the dark mood I was in the day I purchased it, and the sleigh bed I bought straight off the floor seemed to lack any real connection to me. Everything seemed out of place and odd, even though the rhythm bedsides perfectly matched the antique dresser my grandmother left me, which sat neatly in the space across from the foot of my bed.
Then, after standing alone for a while, each item that caught my eye around the room made me smile. New meets old. Little pieces of my life, from different times, that were made to be together. For once.
Outside, wind brushed the leaves of the topiary trees against my window. I briskly marched across my room and twisted the wand on the venetian blinds, closing out the streetlight, then flopped on my bed, sinking into the feather-soft mattress.
“It’s been a long day.”
I tilted my head backward to look at Emily, standing in the doorway. “Sure has.”
“Can I come in?”
“Of course you can, Em.”
She smiled then flopped down next to me—her feet dangling off the opposite side, mimicking my hands-on-belly, eyes-on-ceiling position.