Chapter Thirty-Three
Ember
I zipped up my Vanderbilt hoodie and headed out into the morning chill, my coffee hot in my travel mug. I took a sip and cringed. The only creamer Luke had been able to find had been all the way in Izmir, powdered and unflavored. I’d hoped I’d get used to it after a month, but apparently my taste buds were more homesick than I was.
I didn’t miss the States yet, or even the internet, but every molecule in my body screamed with missing Josh. I looked to the east, where I knew, forty-five hundred miles away, he was probably on shift. Please be safe. Just be okay.
A deep breath later, I forced him to the back of my mind. Well, tried to, at least.
The sun was already bright, the temperature mild for September. I skipped down the steps of our little setup of rowed trailers and crossed the cypress-tree-lined dirt road into the ruins. At seven thirty a.m., I had about a half hour before the busloads of tourists began arriving.
Morning was my favorite time in Ephesus. Except for the few other dig members who got up early, the ruins were vacant, hauntingly beautiful. I made my way down the rough cobblestone street, keeping to the left so I could look at the uncovered mosaic tile walkway that the ancient Romans had used in front of their shops. It was hard to believe that something so beautiful, so intricate, was made to be walked on, or that it had survived thousands of years before being uncovered.
Maybe that was the trick—keeping the valued things covered, tucked away. It seemed that when we exposed what we treasured to the elements, that’s when things got pretty fucked up.
“Hey, Red,” Luke said, catching up to me, jumping over a broken cobblestone.
“Morning, sleepy,” I answered and took another god-awful sip.
“You moving into the terrace houses today?” he asked, motioning to the newly constructed cover that housed the latest dig site.
“Yep, I get the pleasure of working with Reed.” My voice dripped sarcasm.
“It’s all in the name of discovery!” He lunged forward dramatically, and I laughed. We paused as the library came into view, its tall, massive pillars standing in defiance of the passage of time. “There are moments I realize how lucky we are to be here,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, it’s been surreal. Did you hear Charlotte found an entire antechamber at her site yesterday?”
“No way! I want to be on that team.”
“Finish your doctorate,” I teased him. “Until then, we get the honor of sweeping dirt away with toothbrushes.”
“While supervised,” he joked. He sighed as we reached the fork in the path. “Amazing, isn’t it, that we could reconstruct something that fell so long ago?”
I looked toward the library. “It’s gorgeous.”
“Let’s hope we got it right,” Reed said, coming up from behind us and passing on the left. “Let’s get going, Howard,” he ordered, pulling his cap down over his short blond hair. “Those mosaics aren’t going to uncover themselves.”
“I somehow doubt they’re in danger of going anywhere!” Luke shouted back. “I wonder if he’s right. Maybe we fucked it up.” He tilted his head as he looked back at the ruins.
I shrugged. “It’s better to have tried, right? How can we ever know just how beautiful something was, how important, how epic, if we don’t at least try to put it back together when it breaks? Even if some of the pieces are in the wrong place, at least it’s standing.”
He shot me a little side-eye. “And how exactly is Flyboy?”
My grip tightened on my coffee mug. “Don’t.”
“You could come with me to Izmir tomorrow. Internet’s shitty in places and shittier in others, but you could at least try an email. Or at least upload pictures to your own Facebook instead of having me log in for you.”
“My mom wanted to see them.”
“Then give her some more to see. Reach out to Flyboy. Come on.”
I’d said no the previous four times he’d asked, knowing there was nothing I could say that would erase the way we’d left things—the way he’d left things, since I hadn’t had much to do with it. But just the thought of being able to reach out and connect with him had me tempted. “I’ll think about it.”
He fist-pumped, and I rolled my eyes. “You guys will pull through.”
“Howard!” Reed yelled, the sound echoing down the stone steps.
“Coming,” I answered. “Napoleon needs me.”
“All in the name of conquest,” he joked, and we split at the path, Luke to his dig site, and me to mine. I passed the already unearthed terrace houses and continued to climb, wondering, as always, what women had climbed here before me. Who had they been? What had they wanted for their lives? Which of our assumptions about their way of life were completely wrong?
I opened the door to the enclosed dig site and started the climb over the see-through walkways above the uncovered rooms. “Where do you want me today?” I asked Reed, who was waiting midway.
“This way.” He led me down the next set of steps into a room where a Turkish boy, maybe seventeen, waited with a smile.
“This is Ilyas. He’ll be assisting you. Ilyas, this is Miss Howard.”
I waved. “Hi, Ilyas. And it’s just Ember.”
He grinned. “Hi, just Ember.”
Reed rolled his eyes and pointed to the tools. “We’re uncovering this one. You’ve been trained in all these tools?”
“I’ve been with Dr. Trimble for the last month, so yeah, I’ve got this.”
He blinked. “Of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you.”
I smiled, surprised that he’d actually apologized. “No problem.” I waved it off.
His eyes widened. “You’re going to take off that rock, right?”
I glanced at my engagement ring. “Yeah, of course.” I needed to stop taking it off the chain around my neck, but I loved seeing it on my hand when I woke in the morning.
“Good. Okay, it’s almost eight.”
I nodded. Nine-thirty in Kandahar. That half hour in the time difference always got me, like time itself was either trying to lean forward to connect us sooner, or lean farther away to make it harder.
“Well, let’s try to get a few good hours in. Call me if you need me. I’ll be a couple of rooms over.” He climbed out, leaving me in what would be my workspace for the next month. I took off my ring and hung it on the chain around my neck.
A cynical laugh bubbled up. Talk about metaphors for my life. I had to tuck everything I loved about Josh away so I could work, and he had to do the same. So where was the happy compromise? Was there such a thing?
Who had to give more?
I grabbed my tools and got to work. At least this was a mess I could clean up. Everything else would simply have to wait another month.
Izmir was crazy busy, especially when there were two cruise ships in port. Luke led me to the hotel he’d found that charged for internet and hooked me up. I half expected to hear a dial-up tone.
My email booted up, and I answered a note from Mom with a few, quick lines, then a joint one to Sam and Paisley, letting them know I’d call when I could. I answered two questions from the wedding coordinator in Breckenridge like nothing had changed.
Then I opened a blank email and addressed it to Josh. What the hell was I going to say? I love you? Why did you do that to me? Are you safe? Should I lie, hide everything about my feelings until we saw each other again? The last thing I wanted to do was stress him out during a deployment. He had enough on his mind already, and God knew how he was flying missions.
Were his nightmares back?
I hated not knowing the answers.
Hey, Josh,
I’ve settled in here. It’s gorgeous and surpassing every expectation I’ve ever had. So far I’ve helped uncover one room, and catalogue its contents, and now I’ve moved on to uncovering and preserving a beautiful mosaic.
Holy shit, you’ll bore him to death if you continue like this.
Anyway, I hope you’re doing well, staying safe when you can. Everything here reminds me of you.
Delete that.
I took out the last sentence with slightly aggressive keystrokes. Since when had I started censoring myself with Josh? Since he decided to give you a couple of months.
I miss you.
Yeah, that’s safer.
All my love,
December
I hit send before I could talk myself out of it, and for that tiny second, felt connected to him. It was like the second you accidentally touched scalding water, how there was always the tiniest breath before it hurt like hell.
I stared at the screen for a couple of minutes and hit refresh, hoping that maybe he was online right now. That I’d hear back. Then I opened my Facebook and uploaded a few more pictures for Mom.
“Hey, van’s leaving,” Luke said, tapping me on the shoulder.
“Yeah.” I nodded. I closed out my email, a pang of longing sucking the breath from my chest. The first three months of the deployment had hurt, no doubt, but this disconnect was excruciating. What if it became permanent? If he didn’t pull his head out of his ass?
God, is this how he’d felt those months after Dad died? When I hadn’t known what to do with myself?
It would take a hell of a lot more than his idiocy last month to stop me from loving him, but if he didn’t love me anymore, what was I supposed to do with that?
“We can come back in a few days,” Luke offered.
“It’s a forty-five-minute drive,” I muttered.
“Yeah, well, we’ll grab some supplies while we’re here. Make it a legitimate run.” He leaned against the computer table.
“I miss him,” I whispered, like those three words could even slightly define the gut-wrenching sensation of having my heart ripped from my body.
He stood and looped his arm around my shoulders. “I know. What you guys have is the real thing, the legendary stuff they write songs about. Just hold on to that.”
Right, but what kinds of songs? The ones with the happy endings and sappy melodies? Or the morose country ones that ended with sobbing into a bottle of liquor? I held myself together as we filed into the van, Luke and I taking the back row when four other dig students grabbed the middle ones.
My mind wandered as we left the city limits and headed back to the ruins.
I loved Josh. That was never going to change.
What we had couldn’t be diminished by a couple of months apart. We’d made it through just about everything, and we’d come through this, even if I had to pull him kicking and screaming. I wasn’t giving up, wasn’t backing down.
He’d waited months for me to get my shit together when Dad died. He hadn’t given up; he hadn’t lost faith. And even when all hope had been stripped from him, from both of us, he’d held on to the love we could never deny, no matter what the consequences.
It was simply my turn to grit my teeth and hold on tight.
I’d never taken pleasure in soaping up a floor before. Then again, I’d never been uncovering something as beautiful or unique. Each inch I uncovered revealed something new yet ancient, the faces in the mosaic knowing secrets I could only guess at. It was incredible to think I was the first person to see it since the city had been evacuated thousands of years ago.
I’d spent the last four weeks discovering the floor of this room, and I’d never felt so in awe of something.
Except the first time Josh kissed you.
And every kiss after that, if I was being honest.
“Knock knock,” Luke said from the top of the ladder. “Feel like a break? You’ve been down here for hours.”
I pulled a sweaty strand of hair from my face and tucked it back under my bandana. “Sounds good. Ilyas, break time?”
“Absolutely. I’ll take one, too, and see you in a bit.”
Ilyas had been fun to be around, and he taught me bits and pieces of Turkish while we’d uncovered the mosaic.
Luke took the bucket of dirty water I handed to him, and then I ascended the ladder onto the walkway. “We’re tourist heavy at the front. Do you want to sneak out the back?”
“Heck yes.”
We dumped the water, left the bucket at the filling station, and then walked out at the top of the enclosure to sit on the hill where we’d stashed a couple of lawn chairs.
The October breeze cooled my skin, and I lifted my face to the sunshine. “Gorgeous day.” I peeked at the crowd below. “I think they agree.”
“Why do you think they all come?” Luke motioned to the flocks of tourists hiking on the pathways.
“The same reason we do. To touch history, to try to understand what we have in common with people who lived thousands of years ago.”
“How’s Flyboy?”
I cut my gaze toward him. “Real subtle, Luke.”
He shrugged. “You went into town without me yesterday. I have to live vicariously.”
“He’s good, I guess. His emails are short and mostly just updates on what he’s doing, but he signs them ‘Love, Josh,’ so that’s got to be good.” I pulled my engagement ring from between my breasts and slid it along the chain absentmindedly, as had become my worst habit of late.
Luke sighed. “You’ll be home next week. And he should be home soon after?”
Next week. It was hard to believe time had gone so fast here, but it seemed like forever since I’d seen Josh, or heard his voice. “Right. I’m not exactly sure when he’s due home, actually.”
Luke reached over and squeezed my hand. “It’s going to be okay. You know that, right? No matter which way things go, you will be okay.”
“There’s only one way it can go,” I said, my voice stronger than my heart felt. “I know why he did it. Logically, I know that he never would have really healed if he hadn’t gone back. It was the final stage for him, and God help me, the right thing to do. He’ll eventually reconcile himself with what happened, and I hope that’s what he’s doing there, but he never could have forgiven himself if he hadn’t finished his mission. It’s not in his nature to sit on the sidelines. It never has been.”
“You’re a damn fine woman, Ember. I hope he realizes it.”
The corners of my mouth lifted. “I have the love of a damn fine man. I hope he realizes that.”
A safari hat peeked above the hill to our left as Dr. Trimble sidestepped down the path toward us. “Miss Howard?” he called. “If I could have a word?”
Luke gave a low whistle. “Good luck with that one,” he said with a little hand pat. “Catch me up later?”
“You bet,” I agreed, and then started up the path toward Dr. Trimble. He waved me on, and I followed just over the ridge, where his trailer sat out of the sight of tourists.
“Have a seat,” he said with a smile and pulled a bottle of water out of his cooler. “You’ve been working very hard.”
I took the bottle and opened it. “Thank you. I love the work I’m doing.”
“Well, it shows.” He leaned back in his chair, studying me as I sipped the water. “You applied to the doctorial program for anthropology?”
I swallowed carefully, immediately nauseous. “Yes, sir, I did.”
“You were accepted.” He handed over a sealed envelope.
A shaky laugh stuttered my breath as I opened the envelope. Dear Ms. Howard, we are delighted to inform you…
I’d gotten in. I closed my eyes and clutched the letter to my chest. I made it, Josh. I’ll be a PhD. Dr. Walker. A small shred of my happiness flew away. The only person I wanted to tell was anything but accessible. “Thank you,” I said to Dr. Trimble, knowing full well it was his letter of recommendation and this program that had secured my acceptance.
“You did the work, Ms. Howard. I’ve never been happier to recommend a student. Your efforts here have been excellent, and I think you’ll make a fantastic anthropologist.”
“This trip has been a dream, and I can’t thank you enough for inviting me.”
“Are you ready to go home?” He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the desk.
“Yes and no. I’ll miss everything about this place, especially the work, but I’m happy to get home to see my fiancé. He should be redeploying right about when I get there.”
He sighed. “Did you know that we were able to secure permission to continue the dig on a smaller scale for another two months?”
My eyes widened. “No. I thought the setup was on pause until next year.”
“It was until a couple of days ago. I’ve also been given permission to keep a percentage of my staff.”
Luke would be thrilled if he got to stay. “Good. That will give you time to finish the terrace house excavation.”
“Yes. Of course it would go faster if you were the one to head that part of the dig.”
I swallowed. “Sir?”
“Reed has to go home. You’re young, and it’s not like I’d let you just run roughshod. I’d officially be the lead, but you’d be leading point. No one knows that excavation site better than you, and I’m not just talking about the room you’ve been uncovering.”
“I know it exceptionally well,” I admitted. While the other dig members had taken their free time in Izmir, or visited the leather markets, I’d spent every second exploring, making sure this trip was etched into every crevice of my memory.
“Yes. So I understand that you probably need to go home next week…”
I nodded, my eyes focused out his window—toward Josh. “Yes.” What would he say? He’d probably tell me to take it, and then, for an extra rush, volunteer to go join some special ops team while I was gone. You know he needs a few more years under his belt for that. Chill out. “I do need to go home and see him. And my friend’s baby is due tomorrow.”
“Why don’t you see if you can take off a few days early? Really think it over? Since you’d be listed as a team head, we can compensate you not only for the job itself, but for the return flight as well. I’d love to have you back, but of course it wouldn’t affect your position in the program come January. There’s always next summer, right?”
I blinked. Next summer. This could be what my future looked like—spending the school year teaching, writing, and the summers on archeological digs. It’s everything you’ve wanted.
But Josh. What was it worth without Josh?
Nothing.
I at least needed to see him before I said yes, to make sure we’d be okay for another couple of months. Because saying no was insane, right? It was a hell of a line for my resume, and I’d be home before Christmas.
“I’ll think about it,” I promised.
I cringed over the change fee to my airline ticket, but made it. One packed bag and two days later, Luke took me to the airport, already having agreed to stay for the remainder of the dig. “You sure you only want to take one bag?” he asked as we walked toward the terminal.
I nodded. “I’ll be back for the rest.”
His grin was instant. “I knew this place would get into your blood. I’m glad you’re staying with me!”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll see you in a few weeks?”
He hugged me tight. “Please, for the love of all that is holy and good, bring real coffee creamer.”
I laughed and promised to do so, then boarded my flight. Frankfurt, Philadelphia, and finally Nashville…fourteen hours later, I was stateside. Exhausted, but stateside. I fired up my cell phone as soon as we taxied. “It’s nice to be home,” I whispered as my signal picked up.
I skipped the thousand Facebook notifications, the Twitter updates, and the Instagram feed, going straight for Paisley’s number.
“Ember?” she answered, out of breath. “Do you have service over there now?”
“I’m actually in Nashville!” I exclaimed, something in my soul righting at the sound of her voice. We’d docked the plane, and now people were milling about the cabin, waiting their turn to disembark.
“You are? Jagger! She’s in Nashville!”
“What?” his voice was muffled in the background.
“How?” she asked.
“I came home a few days early. I was offered the chance to run my portion of the dig site for the next couple of months, but I wanted to come home first and think it over.”
“That’s amazing! I can’t wait to see you. Do you think you can get here pretty soon?” she asked.
“As soon as I get off the plane, I’ll rent a car and head home.” Finally my turn, I grabbed my backpack from the overhead bin and walked toward the front of the plane. Excitement lit my nerve endings. I’d get to sleep in my own bed tonight. Make dinner in a full kitchen. Yes! You can get Starbucks!
“I meant the hospital. If you’re not too busy, I’m kind of in labor.”
My jaw dropped. “Oh my God. Yes! Yes! I’ll be there as soon as I can!” I broke into a run as soon as my feet hit the Jetway.
I heard Jagger mutter something in the background. “I absolutely will not ask her that, Jagger Bateman.”
Another muffled response.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“There’s something else,” she said before I heard the phone change hands.
“Ember?” Jagger’s voice filled the line.
“Congrats, Daddy,” I said, my voice uneven as I sprinted through the terminal.
“Yeah, this is amazing. But listen, I need a favor.”
“Anything.” I bypassed the Starbucks by the security entrance and headed for the rental car desk.
“Yeah, I was kind of supposed to be somewhere in about an hour and forty-five minutes, and I need you to fill in.”
“Done. Where am I going?” I asked as I slid past people on the escalator.
“Josh is coming home today. I need you to pick him up.”
My feet failed me, and I tripped over the end of the escalator, sprawling on the floor in a graceless heap that was more metaphor than painful.
“Ember?”
I stumbled, maintaining my hold on the phone. “Yeah. Yeah, I got this.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Hell no. Not even close.