Page 14 of Ashes of Us
Alex shrugged off her thanks and closed the trunk. “Take all the time you need. The hotel isn't going anywhere. I'll reschedule the Dallas audit, and there are two weeks before we go to California. If you need more time than that, let me know and I'll reschedule those as well.” Danica nodded, grateful that he was, in his own way, letting her know she could handle her personal things, and it wouldn't affect her job. “Call or text if there's anything I can do,” he reached out and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze, his grey eyes studying her face as he seemed to struggle to find the right words. “I'm... really sorry about Jasper, Dani.” he dropped his hand and walked away, getting back into his jeep before she could say anything. She quickly moved out of the way when his reverse lights came on, backing up toward the side door.
She watched him leave, noting that he didn't look at her again as he backed out of the driveway and drove off. Not sure what to think of that, and suddenly too tired to care, sheunlocked the door, let herself in and immediately regretted her decision to come home as she turned and surveyed the kitchen from the tiny mudroom. Dishes were piled high next to the sink, the garbage hadn't gone out and was overflowing in the corner, and there was a pile of greasy rags on the table. Jasper wasn't an inherently messy person, but his ADHD just made him not notice the mess, especially if there was something else his focus was on. He could step over something on the floor thirty times, and when Danica picked it up and asked why, he would shrug and tell her he “didn't notice it.”
Deciding to deal with the mess after she got some sleep, Danica dragged her suitcase through the kitchen and into the living room, closing her eyes briefly when she saw the piles of clean laundry on the couch. The laundry was in the basement, and she would often fold the clothes in the living room while watching TV before bringing them upstairs. She could see he started to fold it, then gave up. Two-thirds of the couch was a huge pile of clothes, while the remaining third was clear and had a half-eaten plate of pizza rollups on the side table next to it. Shaking her head, she continued up the stairs and found their bedroom reasonably clean, which shouldn't have surprised her as much as it did. Jasper rarely spent time in there because she refused to have a TV where she slept, one of the few things she held on to from her foster mother.”Bedrooms are for sleeping, a TV will keep you awake.”
Danica debated showering, but her stomach growled, and she decided to eat and go to sleep. She quickly changed out of her clothes and pulled on one of Jasper's old t-shirts to sleep in, not out of a sense of nostalgia or anything, but because it was on top of her pyjama drawer, then opened the bag with her sub sandwich in it. Alex once again surprised her by getting her order almost completely right - she usually had extra mayoand no salt and pepper - right down to the bottle of water and macadamia nut cookies she usually got. She practically inhaled her food, way hungrier than she had previously thought, and then slowly crawled into bed. At first, she curled up on her side of the bed, closed her eyes and did her best to go to sleep. Then she rolled over and pulled Jasper's pillow to her chest, burying her face in it and breathing in his familiar comforting scent. She didn't think she had any tears left, but they were soon coming hot and fast as she let out all the pain, guilt and grief she felt.
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Danica woke up to the sound of her phone ringing and groggily reached for it, wondering why her eyes and head hurt so much. Checking the caller ID and seeing it was Cecil brought everything crashing back into her, and it took everything in her not to ignore the call and bury herself deep under the blankets. Rolling onto her back, she answered, and after getting the general small talk about how they were doing out of the way, she agreed to meet him and Amy at the hospital in an hour. Scrambling out of bed, she quickly showered and put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt before shoving her hair back into a messy bun. Grabbing her phone as she headed out of the room, she saw several missed calls and text messages from members of Jasper's family, all of them offering condolences and reminding her to reach out if she needed anything. There was also one from Alex, asking if she was okay and if she had gotten any sleep.
She responded to everyone as she waited for her coffee maker to fill her travel mug and, for the first time since she quit at twenty, wished she could have a cigarette. She was almost to the Impala when her phone rang again. Pulling it out of her bra, she saw it was Emilia. She put it on speaker and tucked it back into her bra so she could talk while driving.
“Hey Em. I guess you heard.”
“Heard? It's all I've heard since I woke up this morning.”Danica had to smile at Emilia's faint exasperation. She married into the Preston family like Danica did and had a much harder time adjusting to how close they all were.”I swear, you'd think Jasper married all his cousins with the outpouring of grief in the group chats and on social media. How are you doing?”
“Up and down,” Danica admitted. She had told Em all about the fight in the garage and the state of her marriage after at one of their rare coffee dates a month ago, so she knew Emilia would understand what she meant. “I have moments where I'm completely fine and then other moments where I can't stop crying.” She hesitated, and then everything that had happened the night before came pouring out of her. The woman approaching her and Alex in the hospital and what she said about being pregnant, the weird way Cecil had responded to her showing up at midnight to break the news of Jaspers death and how she now suspected Jasper had cheated. Emilia listened quietly, and when Danica was finished, she heard the sound of a door closing.
“What did she look like?”Emilia's voice was hushed, and Danica frowned as she backed out of the driveway and headed in the direction that would take her to the Massachusetts General Hospital.
“I don't know. Black hair, brown eyes, taller than me.”Danica gave a vague description as she drove, wrinkling her forehead as she tried to remember what the woman looked like, but the truth was she hadn't really looked at the woman that hard; she had been too angry at her audacity. “Why?”
“Because she knew your name and knew who you were.”Emilia pointed out.”But you didn't know her. Jasper wasn't the type to pick up random women from the bar, so heknew her, but hadn't introduced you to her.”Danica's frown deepened as she tried to wrap her brain around what Emilia was saying, but she couldn't figure it out; she was too tired, and her head hurt too much.
“Em, please. Just say it.” Danica couldn't quite keep the frustration out of her voice. “I don't want to play twenty questions.” She loved Emilia, but she thought everyone was just as quick as she was to put things together, when the truth was no one could pull two seemingly separate threads together faster than she could. She could almost hear her friend rolling her eyes at her in the annoyed huff that escaped her.
“Black hair, brown eyes, knew you, but you never met her? It was Lucy.”She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and when she did, the pieces fell in place for Danica. Lucy was Jasper's ex-girlfriend, and from what Danica had pieced together from Jasper's various relatives, she expected him to propose but he ended up dumping her instead. When they discussed past relationships, Jasper said he was with someone all through trade school, but he wasn't as serious about her as she was about him, and after he dumped her, she moved away.
“Jasper said she moved to Miami.” Danica came to a stop at a streetlight, still struggling to comprehend why Emilia would say it was Lucy.
“She did, but according to Xavier, she moved back last year and immediately reached out to Jasper. He told her he was married and blocked her everywhere.”Emilia sounded remorseful as she spilled the beans.”I wanted to tell you, but Xavier convinced me not to; he said Jasper had taken all the right steps and hadn't entertained her at all, so why potentially start a fight?”
Danica found she wasn't mad at Emilia or Xavier for not mentioning it, because she genuinely believed at her core that Jasper had done just that, told her he was married and blocked her. If Jasper had cheated on her, she knew it had been a one-time thing that he had done impulsively after their argument, and she knew he would have wallowed in guilt and self-disgust after, just like he did every time he did something impulsively that got him in trouble.
She also believed he would have told her eventually because he always told on himself when the guilt and shame became too much. Looking back over the last two months, everything began to make sense. He was distant and short when she was away because she was out of sight, out of mind, giving him a break from the constant guilt he most likely felt and then when she was home, he love bombed her in a desperate attempt to make up for his attitude while she was gone and to try to make the guilt go away. Her going away every second week was most likely why he hadn't confessed yet, because it gave him a break from his emotions.
“Please don't be mad, Danica.”Emilia's nervous voice filled the car, and Danica realized she had sat through the green light. Thankfully, it was early on Sunday, and the streets were mostly deserted.
“I'm not,” Danica assured her as the light changed again, and she put the car into gear and started to drive automatically. “Really. It's fine. While I don't think it would have caused an argument like Xavier said, I understand why he might have thought it would.” Jasper's jealousy issues around Danica were almost legendary in his family, but it was also pretty well known that Danica didn't like it when other women hit on him, not because he entertained them, but because he didn't actively shutit down like he expected her to, he just laughed it off or would wink and say, “In another life, perhaps.”
They spent the rest of the conversation with Danica filling Emilia in on the plan, and debunking some of the rumors going around the group chats, which Danica had muted on her phone because it was almost constantly going off, namely that Jasper had been drunk or that the other driver had been, and that he wasn't actually brain dead, the hospital just didn't want to have him taking up a bed for too long. By the time she got to the hospital, her head was absolutely pounding and she wanted nothing more than to turn around, go home and spend the rest of the day cuddling with Jaspers pillow, but she parked, got out of the car and after a brief moment to collect herself, she straightened her shoulders and headed inside to meet Cecil and Amy.
Chapter Thirteen: Overstepping
The rest of the week was nothing short of pure torture for Danica. Her meeting with Cecil and Amy had not gone as she thought it would, and it had thrown her off. Amy had been clearly devastated when she saw her son, still covered with bandages and connected to a bunch of machines, and she clung tightly to her husband's arm as they approached the bed. Danica had given them a private moment with their son, leaving the room and finding a quiet room to sit in until they came to find her. They had a very subdued conversation about his situation, with Danica explaining what the doctor had told her as gently as she could while still making it clear there was no hope for recovery.
To her surprise, Amy hadn't fought her on anything, just thanked her for waiting a week so the family had a chance to say goodbye before she made the call, then asked, rather shakily, if she could be in the room when they turned off the machines, which Danica immediately agreed to. The meeting ended after a brief discussion regarding Jasper's wishes for burial, and Amy and Cecil hadn't returned to the hospital at all after or checked in, leaving Danica to work out a schedule that worked for the family members who wanted to see him and wouldn't drive the nurses and doctor’s crazy.
It was after six in the evening the following Thursday when Danica got home from the hospital. She was cooking a box of macaroni and cheese when her phone rang. Pulling it out, she let out a low groan when she saw it was the hospital calling. Visiting hours were over at six, something she had made very clear to everyone who wanted to visit Jasper, but she had received calls from the hospital every night because someone felt the rules didn't apply to them and kicked up a fuss. The fact that they had done it tonight, knowing they were turning off life support the next morning, made her see red. She decided to tell the hospital to escort whoever it was off the property with security or the police, or whoever they thought was appropriate.
Turning off the burner, she answered the phone with a very annoyed “Hello?”
“Mrs. Preston,”a nervous-sounding woman responded.“I'm sorry to bother you, but this is Doctor Heather Cuthburt. I'm the administrator here at Massachusetts General Hospital. I had hoped to catch you before you went home for the day, but obviously, I missed you.”She seemed to realize she was rambling and took a deep breath.“I'm so sorry, but I need you to come back so we can talk about your husband.”
“Look, if I forgot to sign something, can I come in early tomorrow to do it?” Danica hated the slight whine that she could hear in her voice and winced, trying to make it go away as she attempted to explain her position. “It's just been a crazy week, and I'm not sure I'm up to driving back there right now.”
“I completely understand, but something has come up that we need to discuss.”There was a slight pause, and then she continued.“It might be a good idea to bring someone who's a lawyer or has some understanding of POAs and next of kin issues.”
