Page 3 of Old Flame

“It’s okay to cry, honey. It’s our way of releasing the sadness and pain so that we can find our peace again.”

Salem pressed her forehead to Mom’s hands that held hers, and I watched as her body shook and the tears fell. Momma raised her eyes to me. Unable to watch Salem any longer, her pain an echo of my own, I went to stand behind her and placed my hand on her back. My touch seemed to slowly calm her, and we were all silent while she regained composure.

Finally, she lifted her head and wiped her tear-streaked face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I need to go get a tissue.”

Momma nodded, and Salem stood up to leave the room. Iwatched her go, torn between wanting to follow her to make sure she was okay, to comfort her and hold her, and staying, for fear of leaving Mom. What if I walked out again and she left this world before I could return?

“Come here,” Mom said, holding her hand out to me.

The lump in my throat was the size of a basketball. Panic and fear came roaring to the front of all the different emotions battling inside me. I felt like a little boy again. Staring down at my mother, terrified every breath she took could be her last.

Sinking down into the chair that Salem had just left, I grabbed her hand and held it in both of mine, the same way she had held Salem’s. It was cold and thin.

“If you love her, you will let her go,” Mom said firmly. “She adores you, and I know you love that girl. But, son, her life is on a different path—one you don’t want to follow—and she will leave all her dreams behind for you. She’ll change everything for you. She needs to be free to chase those dreams.”

The way my mom hadn’t gotten to do. My father had knocked her up, and I’d flipped her life upside down. She said she loved me and wouldn’t change a thing, but I knew I had held her back. My entrance into the world had ended all her plans.

“I don’t…” I said, swallowing hard. “I don’t think I can live without her, Momma.”

She smiled at me. “You are a strong, smart, independent man. And Salem is your first love. Those are the ones that prepare us for the future loves, the heartaches to come, and later on down the road, if we are lucky, we get the one who was meant for us. Some go forever without that. Some find their joy in their jobs and”—she turned her hand, palm up, inside mine and gave me a weak squeeze—“some find it in their children.”

I shook my head. “She’s not just my first love, Momma. She’s my…she owns my soul.”

The sadness in her eyes wasn’t what I wanted to see. It meantshe was going to say more that I didn’t want to hear.

“You own your soul. It’s just taken with hers because she shines so bright. But if you don’t let her go, let her chase her dreams, use her gift, her light will dim until it’s extinguished. You don’t want to be the one to do that.”

My eyes stung with unshed tears. She was lying here, dying, leaving me to continue this life without her in it, and she was telling me that the one thing I lived for was something I couldn’t keep.

“The things you don’t know about her…life before, the things she lived through…she’s broken in ways that I’ve tried to help heal, but they marked her. She’ll always strive to make you happy. She’ll put you first. It’s the way she is wired. If she thinks you need her when I’m gone, she’ll come here. She will leave it all behind to be by your side.” Mom stopped and took in a wheezing breath as she struggled to continue.

“Momma,” I said, trying to stop her.

She didn’t need to be talking so much, and the shit she was saying was shattering me.

“No, let me finish,” she rasped. “Life isn’t fair, and it’s painful. And you, my beautiful boy, are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I don’t regret a moment of it. Now, go live your life, Rome Cayson Bower. Find your dream. And let Salem go after hers. Set her free.”

1

Salem

Present Day

The black wool coat that I had tightly wrapped around my chest was more for comfort than warmth. The late January arctic breeze in Massachusetts could normally slice through my Southern-born bones. I had been told numerous times that I would acclimate to the weather up here. That had been eighteen years ago, and I had not, in fact, acclimated. But it wasn’t the promise of snow in the air that had me gripping on to the coat that was an expensive gift my mother-in-law had given me for Christmas two years ago.

If only it were.

I wanted to shout at the top of my lungs that he hadn’t wanted this. He had wanted to be cremated. He’d said being buried in the ground was a waste of good soil. If I didn’t feel so lost, I’d smile at the memory.

“Take me to a pub, Salem. Get a pint of the black stuff andsláinteto my memory.”

The corner of my mouth tugged as his words replayed so clearly in my head. His husky Irish accent, thick blond hair, the bluest eyes I’d ever seen, and his smile were things I would only have in my memory now. The ache went deep gripping tightly at my throat as the priest spoke. I couldn’t focus on anything he was saying.

As the casket was lowered to the ground, all I could do was watch it with a mix of horror and loss.

It seemed like only yesterday when I’d bumped into Eamon while walking to a coffee shop just off campus between classes, yet it was also as if we’d lived a lifetime since then as well. He was beautiful. A talented artist. Someone I could relate to. We enjoyed the same things. He made me laugh. He’d always said that he had loved me at first sight.

Standing here as the finality of all we had been through sank in, I ached to do so many things differently. Be the woman he had deserved right from the start. He had put up with so much from me.

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