She walked in, her dead eyes searching for Mom. “June.”
Mom rushed around me, taking Chloe by the arm. “What’s going on?”
“God, June. It’s supposed to be next week, and I don’t think he’s coming home!” She crumbled, Mom only slowing her descent as they fell together to the floor. Ugly sobs tore through the room, ripping a hole straight through me to the part that hadn’t healed yet from losing Dad. “I just kept pushing through . . . I never realized . . .” Her words were punctuated with hiccupping cries in my mother’s lap. “The unit comes home next week. When those planes come in, he won’t be on one. He won’t be on one! It’s supposed to be over, but this is never going to end because he’s not coming home!”
April covered her mouth with her hand. I shuddered through a deep breath and forced a smile to my stricken face. “Boys! Let’s have a special dinner in the den! The Avengers looks great on that big TV!”
Carson and Lewis looked at each other with wary eyes, and I recognized that look all too well. It was the same one April and I had just exchanged, the glance between siblings that spoke without words. They were so small, only Gus’s age, and they didn’t have bigger siblings to look out for them.
“Gus, why don’t you take them to the den?”
Gus’s somber eyes dragged away from Mom and Chloe, who was still sobbing on the floor, leaving wet, dark streaks down Mom’s chevron apron. “Yeah, it’s really cool.” He faked a smile that didn’t reach his little eyes and pulled the boys away. “I love Iron Man!”
I sighed at the sheer perfection of Gus’s heart.
“Captain America all the way!” Carson answered as they raced the opposite way into the den.
“Hulk! Dude, he like tears off his clothes he’s so massive!” Lewis added from a distance.
Mom moved Chloe to the couch, cradling her head against her chest as the younger woman let out sobs that ripped through the scar tissue I’d grown over my grief. Chloe had held everything together, and I’d been so jealous that she was functioning while Mom was basically catatonic. This was nothing to be jealous over now.
April and I gathered up plates, making open-faced hot turkey sandwiches instead of the traditional fare Mom had intended. She carried them in to the boys while I traded their glasses for juice boxes. Comforting another widow or not, Mom would flip if they spilled open glasses of juice on the den carpet.
We situated the boys, turned on the movie, and left them to their Marvel heroes, softly shutting the door behind us to lock them into their world. April sagged against the wall just outside the room. “Jesus, Ember, is this ever going to be over?”
I leaned next to her, drawing her under my arm. “I think it’s always going to hurt. It’s always going to be there.” I blinked back tears. “But we’re getting better at living with it every day.”
“Just when I think I’m getting past it, something happens and it jumps in my face again, as bad as that first day.” Her voice broke.
“I know.” I looked up at the family pictures hung along the opposite wall, a collage of school years and events that made our family what we were, and it hurt because we wouldn’t be that way again. “It still floors me, too, April. I promise.”
Chloe’s sobs echoed through the house, reminding us that grief had no mercy, time limit, or expiration date. I held my sister as Mom held Chloe, unable to give any advice or utter a word that could lessen the blow we’d been dealt. We were stumbling through, even all these months later. I rested my head against April’s, thankful we weren’t alone, that we had each other.
“I told Chloe to sleep in your room, Ember. I hope you don’t mind,” Mom said, tossing her apron into the hamper.
“Not at all.” I slid the last dish into the dishwasher as April wiped the counters. “We put Lewis and Carson down in Gus’s room.”
“Good. I’m glad they have one another.”
There wasn’t much else to say, so we cleaned up the rest of the kitchen in comfortable, sad silence.
“I’m headed up to bed. Ember, are you going to your place tonight?” April asked.
“Yeah, I have class in the morning.”
She hugged me. “Thank you. I know I don’t say it enough. Thank you.” Before I could respond, she skipped out of the room and up the stairs.
“She’s getting better,” I said.
“We all are. I think these next couple weeks might be a little rough on us, but we’ll get through.” Mom quirked her eyebrow as I sanitized the counter April had only used a sponge on, and straightened the knife block. “How are you doing? I don’t get to ask you as often as I’d like.”
I leaned back against the cabinet. “I’m okay. I feel like I’m in this excruciatingly long period of adjustment, but I’m okay, under control.” She waited for me to talk, as was her way. She never pushed me; she knew better. Dad, I could open up to in a heartbeat, but Mom and I had always struggled with communication. Too much alike, I suppose. “My grades are good, and living with Sam is great.”
“I’m glad you two reconnected.”
“Me, too. You always think these are your forever friends on graduation day, when everyone is signing yearbooks, but only a couple really stay. Everybody just sort of . . . fades away.”
Mom pulled two K-Cups down and turned her back to brew a couple lattes. “The people stay when you make an effort for them.” Her hand paused on the coffee cup as she sucked in a deep breath. “Ember, there’s been so much going on for you this year, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.” A mocking laugh slipped free. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for myself. If I had realized what was going on with Riley . . .”