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Cue the anxiety.
“Come on, Mom. It’s heavy!” Parker urged and I wanted to throw my hands up in the air and scream. Instead, I took a deep, calming breath.
I waved my hand in front of me in some general direction that really wasn’t anywhere in particular. “Just over there somewhere.”
I was tired as hell, but we were almost done. And I was done.
Parker set the box down and walked over to me, her big black combat boots thudding against the floor, her sandy-blond hair swinging behind her head. She had a smile on her face even though I’d just uprooted her fifteen-year-old self from everything and everyone she’d known her whole life.
But she took it in stride just like she did most things. She was resilient as hell. She was the coolest damn kid I knew. And I was so lucky she was mine.
She placed her hands on my shoulders and I didn’t like it one bit how easy it was for her now that we were both the same height. “You good, Mom?”
I shrugged and pulled her in for a hug. “Yeah, baby. I’m fine,” I lied into her sweet-smelling hair.
I already missed home. The smell of it. The familiarity of it all. I wanted to pack everything back up and get the hell out of this strange place.
She pulled back and gave me a look that said I was full of complete shit and I couldn’t help the smile that came over my face.
Parker always saw through my lies. Every time. But usually, she didn’t call me out on it. Not verbally anyway. She wasn’t just my daughter. She was my best friend.
“Hey, I thought we were working in here. Not standing around bullshitting.” I heard from the other side of the living room and looked around Parker to see my friend Holden standing there holding three boxes high in his arms.
I scooted around Parker, heading toward Holden quickly, all the while rolling my eyes at his antics. “For heaven’s sake, Holden. That’s too many boxes.” I pulled one off the top and motioned for him to set the others down in the living room.
“Don’t sweat it, Ems. I’m missing a leg, but I still got both arms,” he said, throwing me a wink, but I didn’t miss the slight grimace on his face.
I felt my face get hot at the mention of his leg. Holden hardly ever brought it up. I knew it was something that was private for him, so I never mentioned it out of respect.
In fact, the only time we’d ever discussed it was after Andrew had died. He’d come to me months after the fact, even though I’d expected him sooner. But I knew he needed time, just like I did, so I wasn’t mad.
He’d shown up on my porch out of the blue, asked to come in, and being that he was Andy’s best friend and with Andy the day he died, of course I’d invited him in. Besides, I’d been expecting him.
That was when he recounted the horrible day to me. How he’d stepped on an IED and Andy had died trying to get him to safety. He’d been pitiful then, sitting on my couch and blaming himself.
But I didn’t for one second hold him responsible. Andy knew what he was doing when he joined the military. He wanted to help. He wanted to protect and serve, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that if given the chance he’d have given his life all over again for Holden. He loved him like a brother.
Andrew was just that type of guy. Good down to his core.
Thinking about him made me miss him miserably, just like it always would, no doubt.
“Holden Steel, quit giving Emily a hard time,” Miranda, Holden’s wife, said from the kitchen of the old ranch home I’d just closed on in the middle of nowhere, South Carolina.
Not really the middle of nowhere. We were pretty close to the capital, Columbia. Probably only a twenty-minute drive, but even so it felt small compared to the big city of Nashville, Tennessee, where we used to live.
Holden had been begging us for years to move out this way since Andy’s passing. I think he felt a sense of obligation to take care of us and for a while, I knew he had a lot of struggles of his own. But it had seemed he’d found a sense of peace since meeting Miranda. So, I’d always declined, wanting to stay in the place where my memories of Andy were. Where I could be reminded of him. I was scared I’d forget him. How he smelled, tasted. I’d wanted to stay in the house where we’d made love every night. In the place he’d brushed his teeth and rocked our baby girl to sleep.
But with Parker starting to apply to schools soon and being so driven, one of her top choices being the pharmacy school at the University of South Carolina and Holden not letting up about us moving closer to him, it seemed like a no-brainer. And now we were only thirty minutes from the university and even less from Holden and Miranda’s place.
Besides, the thought of Parker going off to school states away while I stayed in that house alone sounded miserable. And whether I liked it or not, my memories of Andrew faded over time even though I’d stayed there just to preserve them. The smell of his clothes was long gone years ago and in the last five years, I’d forgotten more than I cared to admit even though I spent a good amount of time trying to remember.
So now, here I was. Day one in my first ever house I’d purchased all on my own, surrounded by people who loved me and Parker, and still, I’d never felt more lonely.
There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t wake up and feel sucker punched in the gut that Andy was gone. And since we’d decided to move a few months ago, it seemed that sleepless nights were on the menu, too.
But I was more than willing to give this new life a try. A fresh start, Holden had called it. But I didn’t like the thought of starting anything without Andrew Davies. Even five years later.
Holden saddled up next to Miranda behind the giant white island in the kitchen. I imagined since this house was old, there had probably been a wall where that island was now. Lucky for me, the past owners had really updated the place nicely. Now it was an open concept, just how I liked, with the gleaming white kitchen, dining room, and living room all sharing one large space. That big space had two small hallways off each side of it. A garage, secondary bedroom, and guest bath off one side, and the master and master bathroom off the other. It was only about sixteen hundred square feet of living space, but it was plenty big enough for my girl and me. And had a huge back and front yard we could enjoy.
