Page 151 of Burning Ember

It took minutes to destroy months of work.

But losing Dana and the baby weren’t the only things gutting me that night.

She’d cut my life into pieces and left me to live it broken. And instead of punishing her, I’d lost it and punished the nearest person I found fault with. With my bare hands, I’d taken a life. I did it and ignored every warning my conscious threw at me. I didn’t spare a second to concern myself with who he was besides her drug dealer. Or whether or not he had a family of his own.

I killed him in cold blood, and I was going to hell for it. I knew there would never be anything I could do to change that fact.

“Why would she walk away if she had you . . . and this?” Doll whispers.

“She didn’t know about this. Nobody did. Not even my brothers. It was meant to be a surprise.”

“You never told anyone?”

“No one besides Cap even knew she was pregnant.”

“Oh, Mav. Why?”

I shrug. “Because they’re all about pussy, and green, and partyin’ ’til you pass out on the floor. How were any of them gonna relate or know what the fuck I was goin’ through? We’re not made from the same grade of grease. I’ve always known that. I love ’em. But we have a different idea of what a good life looks like.”

I don’t give her time to grasp my meaning. Instead, I pull her to the back of the truck and bring down the tailgate. Another bolt of pain flares through my chest as I yank the black bag toward me.

Retrieving the bag this morning from my bedroom at the clubhouse was hard enough. Every time I touch it, I relive that day and the month of utter frustration I spent looking for Dana. I relive the rising hope, and then the desolate fall. I relive trying to kill her, and then turning every ounce of my anger on the guy Cap threw in front of me. I relive each punch that pulverized his face into nothingness, and how with each hit I felt a little bit more of the man I was slipping away.

That’s what everything in here represents. Everything I lost, including myself.

I don’t know how many times I’ve taken this bag out to the fire pits behind the clubhouse intending to burn it, hoping that when only ash remained, it would somehow mean an end of the torment and regret that bombards me daily. But I could never do it. And the pain never ceased to crush my chest.

Even in this moment, I’m in no way ready to open it and show her everything, but I don’t think there will ever be a time when I will be. So why not now?

I unfold the blanket I brought and shake it out over the bed of the truck.

Ember comes to stand beside me and watches intently as I unzip the bag. The Bible comes out first. It’s black and engraved with the initials JMG on the bottom right hand corner of the cover.

“My mom gave me this. It was another reason why I stopped fighting her and Paul. This was my dad’s.”

She traces the gold letters with her finger. “What do these stand for?”

“John Matthew Gunn.” I slowly flip through the pages until I find the ones I’m looking for. “At first, I wasn’t sure it was his. It didn’t look like it had ever been opened. But then I saw this.” I show her the Book of Job and all of the scriptures highlighted in different colors. In the white margins are his thoughts written down in a sharp messy script. “My mom showed me some old letters he’d written her too. The handwriting matched.”

“Why do you think he highlighted only these parts?”

Giving a slight shrug, I reply, “I figured it was the only part he’d read, or the only part he could relate to.” The corner of my mouth lifts. “I must have read this thing a couple dozen times, and some of the ones he highlighted are still my favorites.”

As Ember leafs through the pages and studies some of the passages, I pull the other books out that are about what to expect when you’re expecting a baby. Some have post-it notes sticking out and most of the pages are dog-eared. Putting the Bible down, Ember eyes those too.

“You read all of these?”

My chest constricts. “Yeah, I wanted to know what I needed to do to be ready.”

The box is next and, as my fingers curl around it, my stomach bottoms out. “This was supposed to be the first gift of many,” I explain as I hand it to her. Ember hesitates to take it.

I nod and say, “Go ahead . . . open it.”

Her eyes shift down and through the clear plastic, she can see what’s inside.

Her hand shakes slightly as she opens the box and pulls out the doll. She handles it as if she’s terrified it might break. But it’s tough like her. It’s not going to break.

“That’s why I started callin’ you Doll. Why I wanted you gone that first day. I was tryin’ to forget. And you made it all fresh and new and every time I looked at you, I saw this.”