Amongst The Flames: A Contemporary Christian Romance (Embers and Ashes Book 1) (8 page)

By the time the guys got back to the fire station and the kids left to go back to school, it was already lunch time. Sitting down to the table with all the guys in the dining hall, it felt like old times. I bit into my sandwich as Kane began talking about the fire.

“I can’t believe they waited to call until the kitchen was already in flames and it was progressing into the living room.”

Micah said, “A lot of people don’t understand a minute or two is a long time for a fire to grow out of control.”

“I guess, but dang…” Kane replied, shaking his head.

“I like how you hosed that car, Alderman,” Brian said to Rick right before he took a drink of his soda.

“You want to park your Mercedes in front of a fire hydrant? You will get hosed!” Rick laughed. Everyone laughed and nodded in agreement.

The strangest feeling in the world came over me right in that moment. I felt a distance between myself and my comrades at the station. I was out of place and uncomfortable with my sling and my kid tour duties. Shortly after lunch, I said my goodbyes and headed home.

W
alking up the sidewalk to Tom’s house that evening, I saw a new lawn gnome in the garden out in front of the house next to a rose bush. My mother-in-law Cindy was obsessed with her gardens. She had the one up front and then a larger one out in the back. The one in the backyard had some of the juiciest tomatoes. Every year when they were ripe, she’d bring Megan and me a basket full.

“Taylor,” Tom said, answering the door.

Stepping in, I gave him a nod as I walked through the doorway. Hearing Cindy in the kitchen just beyond the dining room, I asked, “What cha cooking? It smells amazing.”

She peeked in from the kitchen and smiled as she said, “Lasagna.”

“Yummy,” I replied as I took a seat in the living room with Tom. He sat in his old worn out green recliner he has had for as long as I’ve known him. I took a seat on the couch that was adjacent to his chair. He picked his television remote up off the end table next to his chair and turned off the TV. I caught a glimpse of the television before he did. It was a hunting show.

“You can go ahead and watch that. I don’t mind,” I said.

He shook his head, “No, that’s okay. We need to talk anyways.”

I immediately shifted in my seat at his words. I didn’t want to talk about anything, but judging by the strain in his words, he didn’t want to either. “Talk about what?” I asked.

He sighed. “Megan. Now I know that you two have had some struggles lately, but God designed marriage forever. Not for ‘as long as it suits me.’ ”

“What are you talking about? Megan and I are great. I don’t know where you’re getting your information from, but she’s just visiting her sister Amanda for a couple weeks. She’ll be back shortly. Amanda is the one with the issues.”

Tom sat back in his recliner and rubbed his chin. “You don’t know…” he said with a scoff.

Cindy came into the living room and placed her hand on Tom’s shoulder. “Knock it off, Tom.” Cindy looked over at me, “She said she told you, Cole… she must have lied to us.”

“Told me what?” I asked, standing up. I went red in embarrassment as I already knew my gut feeling was right about this being more than a vacation. It wasn’t just to go visit Amanda. Tom and Cindy remained speechless with blank looks. I shook my head and made a dash for the door. Tom chased after me and pushed the front door closed as I tried to open it. I looked him dead in the eyes.

“Cole, come sit down…” he insisted.

“I need to call my wife and figure out what you two are talking about since you two don’t want to say anything.”

Cindy came over to us. “Cole, she left you.”

I looked down and away as I tried to process the sentence.

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way. It wasn’t our intention,” Cindy said, placing her hand on my shoulder.

“Of course it wasn’t…” I replied, looking up at her and then over to Tom. “You just randomly invited me over for dinner and then sprung the news on me… all by some kind of accident, right? Oh wait, you thought she already told me.” I grabbed for the door again, but Tom pushed it shut forcefully. It took everything in me not to shove him backwards and cold cock him in the face.

“Knock it off, you little punk! We brought you over to see how you were handling things. We care about you.”

Tom care? He was lying. “Save the story time for your grandkids, they’ll actually believe what you say.” I grabbed for the door again. This time he didn’t stop me.

As I stepped out the doorway, I felt a strange feeling inside of me. Like I wasn’t supposed to leave. Glancing back at Cindy, I saw her eyes welling with tears in each one of them. I couldn’t just leave, even if Tom was a jerk. Tom being mean wasn’t anything new to me.

“Okay, I’ll stay,” I said coming back inside.

Tom said nothing.

“Thank you,” Cindy said. “Just ignore Tom’s bitterness. He’s jealous of your youth you know.”

“Hardly,” Tom added.

I laughed. “I’m twenty-eight, not really young anymore.”

Cindy laughed. “I’d kill to be twenty-eight again! Anyway, take a seat at the dining room table; it’s time to eat.”

As Tom and I took our seats in the dining room, Cindy came into the dining room and poured us both glasses of water. Tom asked, “Do you know why Megan would leave?”

Hating the conversation before it had really even began, I said sharply, “No. You’re the one that seems to know everything… why don’t you tell me?”

“She didn’t really say much about it. Just that she needed a break. I know you hang out with the guys at the station a whole lot in your free time. Maybe not now, but before you were on bed rest, you’d be out constantly with the guys in your free time. You think that could be getting at her?”

Shaking my head, I said, “I hang out with my friends, yeah, so what? I’ve been going bored out of my mind just lying in bed and that’s why I came into work today for the tour! You know that, Tom! And where is Megan now? While I’m home on bed rest? She’s in Seattle? That logic you’re trying to spin is utterly stupid!” I could feel my anger getting away from me, so I paused and took a drink of my water.

I couldn’t help myself from continuing to talk about Megan. “Megan wants me to have friends anyways and do things without her. She’s even told me that before. I think she just doesn’t like worrying about me while I’m at work. She said she spent her whole childhood worried about you.”

Tom looked up at Cindy as she set down his plate of food, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, babe,” she replied as she came around to me and set my plate of food down.

“Thanks,” I said as I picked up my fork. Looking back over at Tom, I said, “It doesn’t help matters that you hate me.”

“She doesn’t care. If anything, I think that helped her want to marry you more so in the beginning. She was just rebelling against her father!”

“She wasn’t that defiant, Tom. Jeez,” Cindy added.

After finishing a few bites and sharing a silence, I asked, “When was Megan supposed to tell me?”

“She was supposed to tell you the day after she arrived in Seattle.”

Shaking my head, I thought about Megan. She hadn’t let me know at all what was going on. She just took our children and left across the state with the plan to stay away from me… How ridiculous and immature of her. “I don’t get why she couldn’t just talk to me when she was here…”

“I don’t know,” Tom said with a shrug.

“She was scared,” Cindy added. “Telling your husband that you need time apart isn’t exactly easy.”

“Well, it’d be easy to address the
actual
issues at hand if she was here. Not run away from them.”

“Well, that’s not how it is. You two need to figure it out and fix it. Marriage is forever, Cole! Again, I say it’s not at the whim of how you are feeling in the moment. It’s a commitment to God!” He slammed his fist against the table.

It was difficult to swallow the bite of food that was in my mouth at the moment those words rolled off Tom’s mouth. This man, who was nothing but an arrogant jerk to me since I married his daughter, was trying to tell me about God? “You haven’t been to church in over a year Tom, don’t lecture me about God!” I retorted.

Seeing his eyes gloss over with anger, I smiled a little inside. I got to him with that comment. Finally, I got to him! He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “My lack of church attendance doesn’t change God or what he instructs us to do in the Bible.”

“Like how he says not to forsake the assembly?” I took another jab, edging his anger on purposefully.

“Look here, you little punk! I won’t let you talk down to me anymore in my own house! I invited you over here to help you and you’ve done nothing but disrespect me. Get out of my house, now!” he demanded shouting.

Cindy said with a soft voice, “Tom…”

Standing up, I tossed my napkin down on my plate and looked over at Cindy. “Thank you for the meal. I think it’s best if I go now.” I headed to the front door.

As I opened the door to leave, Tom said from the dining room table, “You can find a new station to work at! You made your bed and now you can lie in it!”

I slammed the door behind me as I darted down the sidewalk towards my truck. Coming over here was a mistake, I thought to myself as I climbed into the cab. It felt good to finally get to the guy after so many years of dealing with his attitude problems towards me. Even if it was at the cost of my job.

It was about a twenty five minute drive back to my place and a million things ran through my mind during that time. How far back did Megan plan on leaving me? I recalled her words about planning to go see her sister. Why did she defend herself when I asked why she was going to see her sister… She was so bold in her outright lie to me. What could she possibly say? My heart raced as adrenaline coursed through my body. I felt so angry and betrayed by my wife, I could barely stand the thought of speaking to her, let alone getting to the bottom of so many unanswered questions.

Later that evening as I was writing down key topics and questions I wanted to discuss with Megan, my phone began ringing. I sat back on my couch as I saw it was her, but this time it was a video call. My heart twisted in my chest as a lump formed in my throat. Trying the best I could, I cleared my mind of the issue, as the children were probably on the other end wanting to see their dad. Not wanting to see the broken, furious and angry husband of their mother.

“Da-da!” Bradley called out as the video feed became established. My eyes almost began to water at seeing my precious little boy try to kiss at the phone.

“Hey, Buddy,” I said with a smile and a soft tone, leaving my resentment and sense of betrayal behind on the pages of the notebook.

Megan leaned into Justin’s ear and said, “Tell Daddy what we did today.”

“We aw a ire uck,” he said, followed by more jumbled words.

I looked over at Megan for translation. “We saw a fire truck and firemen today.”

“Oh yeah? Where at?” I asked.

“We went to the fire station up the road earlier. The kids all wanted to go check it out as Bradley and Justin kept talking and playing with their fire trucks they got at the store the other day.”

I smiled. “That’s neat, was it a big station?”

“It was pretty big. They even had back up trucks in their bay.”

I nodded. “Yeah, some of those bigger stations do.”

The kids became distracted by something off camera and took off running. “Guess they’re done,” I said.

“Yeah, they can’t seem to stay too focused with anything. But they are happy,” she said, smiling as her eyes followed them.

My heart stung at the comment. They were happy without their dad being around? “So I had an interesting dinner with your parents.”

“I heard. Kind of why I did a video call, so you couldn’t freak out on me.”

Who was this woman? “Why are you scared to talk about our problems?”

She shrugged as she looked away from the phone. “There isn’t much to talk about…”

“What do you mean? You are planning to stay away from me and Spokane and keep my kids from me! There’s plenty to talk about, Megan!”

“Don’t be so overdramatic, Cole. I’m not keeping you from the boys…”

“Just tell me what is wrong,” I demanded.

“I don’t like this life. You being a fireman… I just don’t… feel like it’s my life. That was my Dad and Mom’s life, not mine.”

“Well your Dad fired me. I don’t see me being a fireman anymore.”

She laughed. “Oh please, you know you’ll get on with another station if he can even manage to get you fired. You’re well respected across all the fire houses in Spokane… and this is what you love, Cole. Don’t give that up for me.”

Shaking my head as I looked down at my bullet points I wanted to go over on the piece of notebook paper, I ignored the list. “I love you. I want you, and I want our family and it all back to the way it was before.”

“See, you’re not listening to me… I don’t want that life anymore.”

“What do you want then?” I asked. “Just tell me what you want!”

“I don’t know…” she replied, looking down and away. “I know what I don’t want and that’s the life we’ve been having.”