The Aftermath Read online

  It’s sad when pink hair offers you the thrill you’ve been looking for.

  My grandmother sighs. “You have more courage in your little fingers than most people I know. Have since you were seven…” Thankfully, her voice trails off. Some things aren’t necessary to revisit, not out loud or inside the mind. “I just want to know that you’re taken care of when I’m gone. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  I smile because I know. “You’re not going anywhere, and personally I think I’m doing okay taking care of myself. I have this bakery after so many years of just hoping for it. I have you working here with me and customers who seem to like it. Other than opening up a second location and franchising it one day—fingers crossed—what more could I want?”

  She shrugs. “Love?”

  “I have you. It’s all the love I need.” My grandmother raised me to be strong and independent like her. It wasn’t like she had a choice in the matter.

  “Hush up, child. I’m not enough, and you know it.” She pushes off the counter and waves me away, rubbing her wrist. It hurts, and that might bother me more than anything. I hate seeing her in pain, but it’s becoming more common as she ages. One can act like they’re seventeen all they want, but the body refuses to cooperate when it comes to aging.

  “You are enough. You and Paul both. Who knows, maybe in ten years he won’t be too young anymore. If nothing else, maybe he would agree to be my baby daddy. I’ll be nearly forty and desperate at that point.” I wink, and my grandmother shakes her head in exasperation.

  “You won’t need a baby daddy.”

  “You never know. I could be so busy running my twenty stores across the country, that having a baby daddy is the only way I’ll have time for kids. Someone should stay behind and help raise them, so why not Paul? Life is unpredictable that way. Plus, I could definitely do worse.”

  I could do much worse.

  She laughs and walks out of the kitchen while I head back into the office to put away the medical kit. It’s a mess back here, papers on the sofa and floor, the trash can overflowing with litter, and someone needs to clean it. That someone would be me, but whatever. I shove the medical kit in the top drawer and close it with my thigh. I’m leaving the room, picking at a snag on my thumbnail when it happens.

  Lightning. Another strike, loud and violent. So violent the building shakes and the stack of papers on the desk float to the ground and scatter in a long wave of white. Wide-eyed and confused, I bend on shaky legs to retrieve them when something shatters in the other room. Loud and deafening, like a window breaking or plates tipping over. The building shakes again as the deafening roar of a freight train barrels through the bakery. I cover my ears to block out the noise, but it doesn’t mute everything.

  People scream.

  Children cry.

  Furniture splinters.

  What on earth is happening?

  In a panic, I crawl through the swinging doors and suck in a breath, the wind too strong, the noise too loud, every part of me numb at what I see.

  Broken glass. Swirling papers. Toppled furniture. Shattered dishes. Fathers are holding to the ankles of flailing, crying, children. Mothers are huddled in heaps underneath tables, trying to protect those around them, trying to get away from the roaring wind and flying debris. Upturned tables that were occupied only a few minutes ago. The picture window is gone. I see what looks like my grandmother’s shoe. I don’t see Paul at all.

  Complete and utter chaos is all around me.

  This is what shock feels like.

  I’m frozen in place, blank for what to do. And then something brushes against my arm and snaps me into action. Paper. A person. A tape dispenser. I’m suddenly aware of everything around me. With pure animal instinct, I scream. I holler out a long stream of instructions to everyone and no one, a litany of demands with no room for argument. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.

  “Hurry up! Everyone get in the kitchen! Crawl! Run! Straight through these doors! Keep your heads down!” People crawl past me while I count heads. One, two, seven, nine, where is my grandmother? Where is Paul?

  It isn’t until the room empties of people that I see my grandmother. She’s flat on the ground on the other side of the counter, moaning under a barstool that tipped and trapped her beneath it. But that isn’t the worst of it. A large piece of glass juts from her side from the broken picture window, and blood has already fanned in a sunburst on her white button-up shirt.

  That’s the worst of it.

  “Grandma!” I rush to her side, colliding with a table leg on the way. The bruise feels immediate. Hair blankets my face in a blinding sheet, the wind whipping it into my eyes and mouth. Desperate to see, I hold my hair back in a fist and slide next to my grandmother, patting at her body, quickly trying to assess the damage while yelling in her face. “How bad are you hurt? How bad?” Something wet slides down my face. I grab the barstool, trying not to be carried away.

  Tears. I’m crying.

  “I’m okay,” she yells back. “I just got in the way of the window. What is going on?”

  That’s when they sound. Tornado sirens are blasting the downtown area in an ill-timed warning… two minutes too late. My grandmother blinks up at me, her eyes wide with fright—the details of her face blur through my tears.

  “A tornado?”

  Water drips from my eyes and nose, but I nod. “I guess so. I’ll get help.”

  “No!” she yells, gripping my arms. “Don’t leave me.” It isn’t hard to see where her mind has gone. If I let it, mine will head that direction too. Something I might have allowed if times weren’t desperate, and if I didn’t have people in the back room depending on me.

  “Where’s Paul?” I yell when she won’t let go.

  “I don’t know. He was standing by the window when it started.” My stomach drops to the floor at her words, and I scan the room. Nothing.

  I shake my head to clear it, determination taking over. One thing at a time. “I’ll call 911. Don’t worry. I’ll get someone here. If I have to, I’ll drive you to the hospital myself.”

  Crawling on my stomach, I make my way behind the counter and reach for the phone. My grandmother insisted on installing a corded phone when we opened. At the time, I considered the request silly and outdated—doesn’t everyone use a cell phone nowadays? Thank God she didn’t listen to me. This one has stayed locked into the wall and hasn’t blown anywhere.

  I dial 911 and press the phone to my ear, thankful the line still works while straining to hear through the deafening noise. Finally, I hear the faint sound of words and start yelling.

  “I need help. I’m downtown, and my grandmother is wounded.” I give the operator my address and answer a slew of what seem to be pointless questions. Where is the wound? Are you applying pressure? Are you aware there’s a tornado in the area and the wait may be several minutes?

  Despite the alarms, the verbal confirmation of a tornado is sobering.

  How many minutes?

  I try to offer my grandmother a reassuring smile, one I don’t feel at all. Blood scares me, but chaos scares me more. There’s nothing like panic to bring the memories back, memories that aren’t welcome to either one of us. I shunned them years ago, never intending to acknowledge them again. Yet here I am, staring head-on at catastrophe with no opportunity to look away. Blood snakes a trail down my knuckles, and my pulse trips inside my throat.

  With assurances they will be here soon, I hang up, grab a clean towel from under the sink and crawl back to my grandmother’s side to wait. “The ambulance is on the way, but they’re backed up. Said they would be here in ten minutes or so.”

  She nods, silent and wide-eyed. What if we don’t have ten minutes? Seconds are precious when life is on the line. I should know, and I have a history of seeing time run out. What makes me think today will be different?

  I shove my dark thoughts aside and smile down at my grandmother, unsure what to do with the towel in my hand. The glass looks so deep and movin
g it seems like too much of a risk. She’s already lost a lot of blood. So, I smooth back her hair the way she once did to calm me as a child, resting the towel just under the cut to catch the trail of blood falling under her ribs. Smiling works to ease worry, at least that’s what I’m counting on. Still, the only thing I can think is: what if she falls asleep? What if we don’t have ten minutes?

  Dear God, please give us ten minutes.

  It’s a mental prayer that plays on repeat while the wind howls all around us.

  Minutes pass. An ambulance doesn’t come.

  CHAPTER 2

  Chad

  I think I found a solution to the Miller’s insurance claim that they can live with. It won’t garner them as much money as they’d hoped, but it won’t leave them penniless either. Sometimes in life, we have to take the hard knocks with the rewards and be thankful even when things don’t work out according to plan, and this is one of those times. They planned to settle for a half-million dollars. Their reality is one hundred thousand, take it or leave it. Let me be clear: both scenarios were astronomical, but this one won’t involve my head on the proverbial company platter, or my body buried in the local unemployment line.

  I crunch a few more numbers and enter them in my laptop, then file the claim. They’ll be given a check for one-hundred-seventeen-thousand dollars and twelve cents, to be exact. I know for a fact we’re being generous. Flood insurance isn’t common in Tennessee, but the Millers were one of the fortunate few who’ve paid for it. Claims filed for busted pipes at an old bed and breakfast are almost unheard of because they never pay out. Had their home not been listed with the historical society two years ago, this claim wouldn’t be paid either.

  The money covers damages and nothing else. Mrs. Miller will have to give up her dream of new furniture and double-paned windows for now. She’s lucky she doesn’t have to give up her house.

  “What’s up, Buttercup?” My brother Liam walks in the kitchen and reaches for a bowl, then takes out a box of Rice Krispies and fills it nearly to overflowing. A few pieces ping as they fall to the counter. I smile at the nickname and click submit, then close my laptop.

  “Did we just step back two decades? I haven’t heard that nickname in forever.” I squint through the bay kitchen window and rub my eyes. It takes me a while to wake up, but it’s worse on Saturday mornings, whether I’m working or not. I drain my coffee and stand up for more, happy to see a freshly brewed pot.

  “I know, right? It flew out of my mouth like Mom was the one here saying it. I’m more disturbed about it than you are.” He eyes the table. “You’re working already?”

  “It’s almost noon, and I had a deadline. I would have had a very irate client if I didn’t file their claim this morning. I can’t handle another phone call from her, even though she won’t be happy about this claim when I drop the news.”

  “You didn’t make her rich?”

  I blow out some air and spoon two heaps of sugar into my mug. “It’s always the dream, and always the disappointment. I intend to down three more cups of this before composing an email to her. Ten minutes after I hit send, I should have a half-dozen messages telling me what a rotten insurance man I am.”

  “Cool. Is this what I have to look forward to when I join the firm? A bunch of clients who hate me?” My brother passed the bar last week and starts a new job at McCain, O’Connell, and Stephenson on Monday. They’re the biggest law firm in Nashville, which probably also means they’ll give him the biggest headache. I love my brother, but I’m secretly looking forward to witnessing him struggle. I immediately feel chagrined, considering he spent five days on a deserted island a few months back with no promise of being rescued. I suppose that was struggle enough.

  I take a sip of coffee and swallow the taste of guilt. “If you’re as lucky as me, it is.”

  Liam holds up his mug in a toast. “Awesome.”

  “Is there more? Please tell me there’s more.” Teddy, our roommate and the owner of this apartment, shuffles into the kitchen and slides onto a barstool looking more disheveled than I’ve seen him in a long time. I suppose I’m one to talk. My hair is two inches longer than normal, and I haven’t shaved in three days. But where my reasons are plain laziness, Teddy has a good excuse.

  He’s been traveling for over a month and got in late last night. After a three-day reprieve—the longest break he gets in a five-month span—he’ll head back out to begin the overseas leg of the tour. The life of a musician is glamorous and enviable, sure. But it also leaves you exhausted as hell and missing your friends. We miss him too. This three-man apartment isn’t quite the same with two, because when Teddy’s away, Liam and I argue more. It’s the downside of being brothers.

  “There’s more unless Liam drank it all.”

  “I didn’t, jerk.” He pours a cup for Teddy and slides it across the bar. “Are you hungover?” Teddy’s head rests on his arms, his face buried in the counter.

  “No, I’m not hungover. I’m exhausted. Where am I? What city do we live in? Is it Christmas yet?”

  Liam grins at me, shaking his head. “It’s September, idiot. Drink that and pretty soon you’ll remember. I made it strong.” Yet another downside of living out of a suitcase; life is a constant adventure, but you never know exactly where you are. I might feel sorry for Teddy if he didn’t have the best life of anyone I know. Money, fame, talent, travel, the adoration of women everywhere. He’s on the cover of a different tabloid every week, and last month he was listed as number twenty-three in People’s Sexiest Man Alive issue. Twenty-freaking-three. The guy isn’t hurting for anything.

  He raises up on one arm and drains his coffee in a long pull, and I wince. That had to burn. Okay, maybe he’s hurting for that. His cup clatters when he sets it on the counter and drops his head onto his arm once again. When he speaks, it’s a muffled, familiar whine.

  “My head’s about to explode, and I think I’ve lost hearing in my left ear.”

  “You say that every time you come home, but by the next day it’s always better,” Liam points out. It’s true, he does and it is.

  Teddy’s head comes up. “I know that, dipshit. But right now, I can’t hear anything on this side and I’m worried I never will again.” He points to his ear while I roll my eyes behind him and make faces he can’t see. I’m aware this gives me the maturity level of a child; I’m also aware Teddy is fun to mock because sometimes he complains so freaking much. Liam leans against the counter, trying not to laugh.

  “If you think I don’t know what you’re doing back there, you’re wrong,” he says to me. “I can see your reflection through the glass cabinet door. Cut your hair, by the way. It’s too long.” Teddy whips a dishtowel off the bar and hauls it backward like a man who’s done it before. I don’t manage to duck fast enough, so the damp towel lands on my face. It slides downward, leaving the scent of old onion and wet paper in my hair. I grimace and use it to wipe up a coffee ring. My hair is not too long, and there’s nothing wrong with it or the twelve pounds I’ve taken off since last month. Sometimes when your life veers a different direction than you hoped for, you veer right along with it. Reinvention is the close cousin of heartbreak.

  “You’ll hear fine tomorrow,” Liam says. “Today, though, you should stay in bed and sleep. I’ll call for pizza tonight and stay in with you.”

  Teddy frowns and twists back around to face Liam. “You’re offering to stay in with me instead of going out with Dillon? What gives?” Dillon is Liam’s fiancée, and I’d like to hear the answer to this question as well. The two have been inseparable since their engagement, something that took me some time to get used to. Before my brother began dating Dillon, I dreamed of her. Hoped and prayed to date her myself. Now that he has her, I’ll kill him if he lets her go. I didn’t suffer the loss of an imaginary future with her for nothing.

  He looks between us like a frat boy caught with two women. “Nothing gives.” So much guilt camped inside those two words.

  Teddy and I star
e at him, waiting.

  He runs both hands down his face. “Fine. I don’t want to taste wedding cakes again, but that’s all she can talk about. Should we go with the strawberry cream or the raspberry coconut or the vanilla caramel?” he mimics in a high-pitched voice. “What even is raspberry coconut? Chocolate. It’s the only choice. No one wants strawberry cream.”

  I shudder. Teddy shudders. “If you pick strawberry cream, I’m not coming to the reception,” he says.

  “Me either.”

  I see Liam’s jaw clench from here. “You’re my best men. You have to come and give toasts.”

  “Then pick chocolate, or you’ll hate what I have to say.”

  “Ditto.”

  “Do either of you ever have your own separate thoughts?” Liam asks us both.

  “Nope,” we both say in unison.

  And it’s mostly true, especially about food. We’re a chocolate group through and through. Don’t believe me? Check out our pantry. Oreos are stacked five packages deep, and the Reese’s peanut butter cups have their own special corner complete with a Candy Only label.

  “Now that the cake’s settled, yes pizza,” Teddy says. “Chad, you in or out?”

  I run a finger around the coffee cup rim. “Can I let you know later?”

  “Sure, but you need to be here.” Liam says, settling the matter. Then he hones in on Teddy again. “Dude, did you see this cover?” He picks up a US Weekly and flips it around to show us the front. “It says here you’re dating her. But this one…” he turns over a Star, “claims you’re dating her.” One girl is an A-list actress, the other a well-known fashion model. Both of whom any red-blooded American and non-American man would kill to be photographed with. “What I want to know is…” Liam continues, “Which one is true?”