Page 66 of It's Holy Matrimony, Baby

“I mean it,” I say. “Don’t move.”

“Okay,” she croaks.

Closing the door, I race around and climb in the other side. Nothing I can do here except watch my family’s history burn to the ground. Don’t want to see it.

I close my eyes while I sit behind the wheel. I feel empty. Numb. Except when it comes to Beck. She’s the only thing that means anything anymore. I start the truck up and pull out of the parking lot.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” I tell her. Whatever happened it wasn’t her doing. She moved my furniture weeks ago. She didn’t start the fire. “It was an accident. Or stupid kids. It wasn’t you.”

“It feels personal,” she says. “Feels like maybe...”

She doesn’t say it. Doesn’t have to. She warned me about her bad luck, because as much as she hates it she believes in it. Believes that staying here with me is costing me the things that I love the most. But she’s wrong, because she’s the most important thing in my world. Anything else I can deal with. Somehow even Dad’s memory turning to ash isn’t as important as she is. She’s the only thing I can’t handle losing. I grip her knee as I steer toward home. Hold onto her. “It’s not the curse. Just an accident. No one got hurt.”

“You did,” she says, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Your dad’s legacy is gone. Your possessions. Your plans. How can you be sure it’s not a sign? That things won’t escalate? I can’t bear the thought that it could get worse. That I could...”

“What, Angel?”

She curls into herself, hugging her knees to her chest and shaking her head. I spot Jack and Dean travelling in the opposite direction, lay on the horn and pull over.

Jack jumps out of the car and comes to my window. “Have they got it under control?”

I shake my head.

“Any chance—”

“Roof collapsed while we were there. It’s gutted.”

“But we can—”

“No,” I croak. “It’s over.”

“There’s nothing we can do?” Dean asks as he joins us.

“Can’t think about it right now.” I glance back at Beck, still curled up on the seat with her face pressed into the headrest. She’s gasping, almost hyperventilating. Her whole body is shaking, the seat shuddering.

“Is she okay?” Dean frowns as Beck makes this god-awful broken sound.

“Liv’s at the cabin. She said you might need her.” Jack claps his hand on the edge of the window. “She was packing the contents of her medicine cabinet into her handbag at the time. I think she has some Valium in there.”

Can’t keep still. Beck was a hot mess by the time we got back to the cabin. Had to carry her inside. Liv was waiting for us. She took one look at her best friend, grabbed her handbag, and followed us into the bedroom while I put Beck to bed. Then she ordered me out.

Twenty minutes later one of the local docs showed up. He stayed long enough to wrap Beck’s hands and explain to Liv and me how to treat them. Liv nodded and talked over what she’d already done and the amount of Valium she’d given Beck and how her dad is a doctor. Turns out between Liv and her old man Beck hasn’t stepped foot in a hospital or a doctor’s office since the accident. She’s damn near phobic about the idea.

I prowl the length of the glass windows in the living room. My entire world has been turned upside down, bowled over, burned down. I have no fucking clue where to go from here. No idea how to keep my wife from leaving me when everything is going tits up. People say everything happens for a reason, but there’s no reason here. Just destruction. Maybe we are cursed. Maybe...

I slam my palm against the window and the pane rattles. No, I can’t believe that. Don’t believe that. How many times had I wished for the orange grove to be destroyed? And now it’s a problem off my plate. But the studio... what would Dad think of what’s happening now? I’ve screwed up so many times, and now I don’t know how to fix things. Or if I can at all. Where am I supposed to go from here?

Grabbing one of the photo albums from the bookshelf, I drop onto the couch and leaf through it. It’s full to the brim with pictures of my brothers, and Lou, and me. Of Dad running behind Jack’s bike while he learned how to ride without training wheels. One of the entire kitchen covered in flour while he and Lou baked a cake for our mother. Lou’s wearing this ridiculous ‘kiss the cook’ apron, her hair up in piggy tails. There are several of Dean and Dad and Sophie pulling faces.

I swipe at the moisture that gathers in the corners of my eyes, even while I smile at the memories. Can’t help it when they were so full of hope and love and happiness.

I find one of me and Dad in his workshop. We’re working on a piece of furniture. Think it might have been the dining table we gave Mom for her birthday that year. What I don’t find is a single picture of the studio.

I get up and grab the other albums. Walk down memory lane. My memories are bittersweet things. Warm golden bubbles of happiness that make me miss him more. There’s one of Hollander. Lou has her arms around him and his feet are still on the ground. He wasn’t even fully grown.

I’ve spent these past few years trying to atone for my sins. Thinking that rebuilding the past would somehow change it. But I can’t. I never could. And I’m not sure why I ever expected that it would be possible. My family legacy isn’t in bricks and mortar. It isn’t the strings of a guitar or the sound of a perfectly cut record. It’s in my family. It’s in the way Lou always fills my freezer because she needs to know I’m looking after myself. It’s in the way Dean and Jack and Finn never once remind me of my failures but chip in at every turn to keep us all afloat.

Closing the last album, I lay it down on the coffee table. Hideous, crappy piece of furniture, but it’s Beck’s. She’s infiltrated my life, mixing her new stuff with my old. Somehow I have to convince her we’re stronger together than we could ever be apart.

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