“All over,” Ray echoed.
At that point, the driver began groaning and Asher’s first thought was,at least he’s still alive. “Is the driver yourfather?” Asher asked.
They nodded and started crying. “Is he dead?” Mike asked.
“No son, he’s not dead. What’s his name?”
“Roy Lee Abrams,” Mike said.
Asher checked the driver for a pulse. It was steady enough, but the danger of any of these cars blowing up or bursting into flames in the next five seconds was real. “Let’s go, boys,” he said, and held out his hands. They crawled out into his arms, still crying, and as he turned, saw firemen running through the crowd, and police and EMTs following.
“Over here!” he shouted, and waved down a pair of EMTs. “My name’s Kingston. I’m a cop with the attorney general’s office. The driver is unconscious. His name is Roy Lee Abrams. These are his sons, Mike and Ray. Where do I take them?”
They pointed to ambulances arriving and lining up along the side of the highway. It was as close as they could get. “First bus is ours. Number ten. That’s where we’ll take the father. Keep them together. It’s a nightmare for family when they wind up at different hospitals.”
“On it,” Asher said, and started weaving his way through the wrecks with both boys clinging to him, their arms clutched around his neck. “You’re both safe, okay? You’re going to ride in an ambulance with your daddy.”
Ray was sobbing. “I want Mommy.”
“The police will call her. They’ll let her know where you are, okay?”
Mike shook his head. “Mommy went to heaven today. Daddy was taking us to Grandma’s house.”
The words were a shot in the heart. Asher pulled them closer, held them tighter. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he kept saying.
When he reached the ambulance, he handed the boysover, flashed his badge, and delivered the information, but when he turned around to leave and saw the boys wrapped together in a blanket, huddled together as if they’d just been abandoned to the world, something inside of him broke.
He walked back to his car with his chest aching. His throat tight with tears as he got into his car, he then drove around to the back of the service station and took a back alley out, and away from the scene.
It was after eight before he got to Whole Foods and picked up his order, then headed home. He didn’t think. He just drove.
Forty-five minutes later, he was pulling into his garage. As soon as the door went down, he popped the trunk, gathered up the bags of groceries, and went inside.
The house was just the way he’d left it. But he would never be the same. In his line of work, some days were like that.
He put everything up, then turned on the lights in the hall as he went to his room to lock up his weapon.
He emptied his pockets on top of the dresser, then stripped where he stood and headed for the shower. His heart was pounding as he turned on the water, and only then noticed his hands were shaking. He was coming undone.
It wasn’t the weeks of stress from what happened to Jacob. It wasn’t even about that damn fool driver who’d set off a chain reaction of death and destruction. It was the little boys. They were the trigger.
All of the shock, and the sadness, and the fear he’d hidden when it had happened to them. Then stepping into shoes too big for a child to wear just to be strong for his dad, for his little brothers. Every side-glance they’d lived with. Every snide remark. Every whisper of gossip. All the shame. Pretending he didn’t hear. Didn’t know. Didn’t care.
The tragedy of those little boys’ lives today had hit hard.Hard enough to bring down a wall. Hard enough to make a grown man cry.
Ash stepped beneath the steaming water and ducked his head into the spray. The tears washed away as fast as they fell, until there were no more tears to cry. Then he grabbed the bar of soap and began scrubbing and scrubbing until the shame was all gone.
He said a prayer for Roy Lee Abrams and for his sons, and for the grandma who would step into the gap, and then he turned off the water and got out, dripping all over the bathmat until he remembered that he needed a towel.
He towel-dried his hair, then himself, and walked back into his bedroom and pulled back the covers. He hadn’t eaten since morning. He didn’t want to close his eyes and relive anything. What he needed was Nora, but was glad she couldn’t see him like this.
He put on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, and was on his way to the kitchen when the cell phone he’d left on the kitchen counter began to ring. He ran to answer without looking to see who was calling.
“Hello.”
“Hey, you, I hope you weren’t asleep, but I had this feeling that I needed to call you. Is everything okay?”
He sighed. “God, Nora, how did you just do that?”
