Page 27 of Embers

“Were you mad? That she didn’t tell you about Derek for so long?”

“Sure, I was. She and I only had the one time. Not even sure how it happened. She was a good girl lookin’ to be bad, but she changed her mind about bein’ bad pretty quick. Never thought I’d have a kid. Never really thought I’d want one, but finding out I did… It changed things for me.”

I don’t respond with words. Just think about what he’s said, trying to wrap my mind around who Cal was back then.

“I tried to see him more,” he adds. “I tried to help out. I did. His mom wouldn’t take anythin’ from me.”

“I know. She never thought you could be a good dad.” There’s no judgment in my voice. It’s merely a statement of fact.

“She was probably right.”

“No, she wasn’t. You didn’t have much practice, and you were never given much of a chance, but you could have been a good dad to him. You being there meant a lot to him. At the end. I know it did.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long time, but it’s not because he’s closing down on me. It’s because he’s feeling too much. I can sense it in the tension of his body behind mine.

Wanting to do something to make him feel better, I find one of his hands and twine my fingers with his. I squeeze his hand and keep holding it as we lie in the dark together.

* * *

For the whole next week, I go to sleep in my own bed every evening, but as soon as Cal gets up in the middle of the night to stoke the fire, I climb out of my bed and move over to his.

The first time I do this, he stands over his bed, looking down at me and shaking his head. But he finally gets into bed and spoons me the way I want. And the following nights he doesn’t even shake his head.

It’s the best times of my days, snuggling up with him in the middle of the night and talking about whatever comes into my head. I ask him about his childhood, and he tells me about how his dad got drunk on the weekends and would beat up him and his mom. He wants to know what subjects I liked best in school and what kind of job I wanted to have before the world went to hell. We talk about how long it might take for the climate to get better and what society might look like in the future.

He talks more in bed during those midnight hours than I’ve ever heard him talk before. It’s like something about the darkness and isolation from anything real in the world loosens up his mental inhibitions. Lowers his walls.

Sometimes, when I pry too deeply into his psyche, he gets huffy with me and rolls over onto his opposite side to go to sleep. But even that’s not bad. I like how his back feels against mine. I like sleeping in the same bed with him.

Feeling as though we’re reallytogether.

One night, a week after I started going to his bed, I ask him about his best memory from his childhood, and he tells me about a trip to Nashville he and his mom took together. On their own. His grandmother had given his mom some money for the trip for her birthday, and his dad had whined about missing work, so they’d gone without him. They spent four days there. They’d gone out to eat and done touristy things and hadn’t even once had to worry about his dad coming home drunk and angry.

The story touches me so deeply I want to express it, but there’s nothing I can do. I can’t find words to embody what I’m feeling, and Cal will never allow me to turn around so I’m facing him. Hug and kiss him the way I want.

So I just hold on to his hand, rubbing the palm and massaging each finger in turn.

Slowly I move down his hand to start rubbing his forearm, stroking the skin and coarse hair. The scars that slash down toward his wrist.

Something hurt him badly to create all these scars, and I have no idea what it was.

So I stroke them. Wish I could do the same to other parts of his body.

The more I caress his hand and arm, the tenser and hotter he grows behind me. His chest is snug against my back, and our legs are twined together. He starts to breathe heavier. His exhales waft against my hair and neck.

There’s a clench tightening inside me too now. Below my belly. It makes me want to shift my hips.

When I do, he mutters, “No wigglin’.”

I grow still with a sigh, but I’ve got this shuddering of emotion inside me. In response to it, I pick up his hand and bring it to my mouth so I can press a little kiss into the palm.

He jerks his hand away from me and then rolls over to face the opposite way. He’s pulled far enough away from me now that not even our backs are touching.

I slump in disappointment, but it’s my own fault. Cal isn’t a man who likes to be touched. I’ve always known that. He’ll use his body to warm up mine if he thinks I need it, but he doesn’t want me to pet him, to make moves on him. I kissed his hand, and it was a mistake. It’s my own fault he pulled away.

After giving myself a well-deserved lecture on my foolishness, I fall into a fitful sleep. When I wake up again, it’s still really dark so only a couple of hours must have passed, but something important has changed.

I’m aware of something very hot and very hard against my back.

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