Page 16 of Ashes of Us

When she was aboard the Jeep, Danica leaned back and closed her eyes, wishing she had never heard Amy's screams because she didn't think she would ever be able to forget them.

She could sense Alex was looking at her, but she didn't know what to say.

After a moment, he laid a bag in her lap, and the familiar scent of a Subway veggie sandwich reached her nose.

There was a Subway near her house, and she often picked up lunch there on her way to work, but she didn't think Alex had paid so much attention to what she ate that he knew she always got the veggie sub.

She wasn't sure if she could stomach food at the moment, but she murmured her thanks with sincere gratitude as he pulled away from the curb and started the drive back to Boston.

“Are you okay?” Alex's voice was hesitant, and she barely heard him over the radio's low volume. “It kind of looked like you got kicked out.”

“I kind of did.” She admitted. “But it was because Jasper's father didn't want me there when he told his mother, and she was waking up.”

“Ah.” He didn't comment, but she could see he wasn't sure what to make of that.

“So where did you want to go?” He asked after a moment.

“Home?” Danica's heart leapt into her throat.

Did she want to go home? See what kind of mess Jasper had left behind with her gone for two weeks?

Sleep where she could smell him? Yes and no.

She did because she wanted to hold onto those last few moments of her husband's life, and no, because she didn't know if she could handle being there by herself.

But where else was she supposed to go? Emilia was close by, but she didn't have any extra room in her place, plus her kids were out of school for the summer now, and while she adored them, the older two, Benny, who was eight, and Delilah, who was six, were a lot to handle.

The youngest, Gracie, who was four, hadn't been officially diagnosed with anything.

However, she still hadn't spoken a word and clung to her parents exclusively, panicking when they were both out of her sight, which demanded a lot of Emilia's and her husband, Xavier's, time and energy.

While they did their best, the older two would often latch onto anyone who paid attention to them.

Normally, that wouldn't be a problem for Danica; she and Jasper occasionally took Delilah and Benny for an afternoon or overnight, joking it was practice for when they had kids, but she didn't want to have to deal with all that right now.

“Dani?” Alex's voice cut through her thoughts, and she jumped a little, realizing she had zoned out completely and never answered him.

“I could take you to the hotel if you'd rather not go home.”

“No,” Danica said firmly. She absolutely did not want to go to the hotel; she wasn't ready to answer those questions or have her co-workers give her pitying looks.

“Take me home, please.” she decided she wanted to be alone with her memories for one more night and forget about all the bad.

Jasper was gone, and even if he had cheated on her and gotten the other woman pregnant, the baby no longer existed, and she could pretend it never happened until she was ready to confront it.

Alex just nodded and left her alone with her thoughts for the rest of the drive.

She was surprised when they pulled into her driveway, since he never asked her for directions, but figured he must have seen her address on her employee file at some point.

“Are you sure you want to stay here?” Alex asked as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “If you don't want to go to the Rose Gold, I can take you to another hotel.”

“No, I'll be fine.” She reassured him as she got out.

She heard him sigh, but he also got out and went to open the back of the jeep for her so she could get her suitcase.

She took it from him, and they stood awkwardly in silence for a moment, then she cleared her throat.

“Thank you.” She gave him a small smile, trying to convey just how much she appreciated everything he had done for her since finding out. “I'm gonna need a couple of days off.”

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, she unlocked 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 mayo and 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?”