Page 23 of Buried Dreams

“Yeah,” I agree softly, standing back up and looking out the window, forcing my mind blank but failing when I see Everleigh smiling at Saige and ignoring me.

She comes over and washes her hands before drying them and going to her bedroom. I pick the phone back up and continue the message.

Charlie: We should talk when you have a chance. Time is precious, man.

I shake my head and put the phone down, not wanting to read the rest. I don’t need him to tell me that time is precious. I don’t need him to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do.

Instead, I walk over to the back door and slide it open before stepping out and sitting in the chair and just looking out into the distance. The swing set I set up for Saige when she turned four. She was so small it took all of her energy to climb up the ladder on the side. Even on the swing, she could barely touch the ground with her feet, and now she hardly ever looks at it. Eventually, I should just take it down, but something always tells me not to.

I sit outside, my head a mess, as I try to push away all thoughts of the bakery and the way Everleigh must be feeling. I don’t care, I remind myself when I hear Saige at the door. “I’m done.”

“Okay, I’ll go shower quickly,” I state, getting up and bending to kiss her head, “and then we can go.”

“Okay,” she replies, following me inside and going to sit on the couch while I go to my bedroom. I make my bed before taking a shower and getting dressed.

We’re walking out of the house when my phone rings, and I look down to see Winston is calling me. I ignore the call and put it into my back pocket, making sure Saige is in her seat before I take off. My phone rings again, showing me Tony is calling. “Hey,” I say, answering on the Bluetooth.

“Hey, I’m about to head out.”

“Sounds good,” I say. “We’re on our way to the park.”

“Have fun.” He disconnects the phone as my truck makes its way over to the shop instead of to the park.

“We’re going to walk from here,” I say. She jumps down, and I look over at the bakery and so does Saige, who gasps.

“Daddy, look.” She points at the bakery, and I see the construction truck in the parking lot, along with a container in the front as workers walk in and out of the door, carrying stuff. “It’s all messed up.”

“Yeah,” I reply, walking down the street and seeing the front windows boarded up. Black soot is around where the windows were and also where the door is. The roof from the front doesn’t look like there is much damage, but when you walk to the side, you see half of it is off.

“Daddy, look, it’s Everleigh,” she declares when we stop by the side window, the only window that looks like nothing happened to it. I can see the front counter looks like it’s still intact, but the glass cases are smashed on the floor. Everleigh has a broom in her hand as men around her are also cleaning up. I don’t even notice Saige has left my hand until I see her hold up her hand and she’s knocking on the window.

Everleigh looks over, and I see her eyes go soft as Saige waves at her. Eyes that used to go soft like that when I walked into the room and told her I loved her. Eyes I haven’t seen for a long time. Eyes I’ve missed, and sometimes when I dream of her, they look at me like that. Exactly like she is doing right now. She looks like she hasn’t slept a wink, and she has black soot on her face. But she smiles at Saige, ignoring that I’m standing right here as she waves at her. “Does this mean that there are no more cupcakes?”

“It looks that way.” I reach out for her hand and pull her away from the window. “We’ll find another place.”

We walk down the street, Saige looking over her shoulder every now and again. I’m forcing myself not to look back over my shoulder.

I sit on the bench and watch her play with a couple of friends from school. The whole time, my stomach feels like I’ve swallowed glass. My mind sees Everleigh with her hair tied on top of her head. I wonder how the fire started. I wonder if she’s going to be okay. I wonder how Ms. Maddie is doing. I wonder all of these things I shouldn’t wonder. I wonder all these things I have no business wondering about. I wonder if she even ate anything, knowing she fainted twice when we were together because she didn’t eat the whole day. Scared the shit out of me when she walked out of the bathroom and then just fell on her face. That was the first time I ever felt a fear inside me. “Daddy.” Saige comes running over to me, panting. “Can we have a mani-pedi night?” She smiles at me, her whole face lighting up.

I smile as I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Whatever you want, baby girl,” I agree, the emptiness I felt not a couple of seconds ago being filled by her smile. She’s the only one I’ve let into my heart after Everleigh. She will be the only one who will have a hold on my heart ever again.

“So pizza night and mani-pedi.” She sits beside me, taking the water bottle I went to buy at the corner store while she played tag with her friends. Her chest heaves. “When can we go?”

“Whenever you want,” I say, and she gets up, putting her hand out. We walk back down Main Street. I see the bar is open, the doors are open with the sign in front that says: “Come in, we are open.”

My eyes go to the bakery as we walk past it and see there are just a couple of people left inside. None of them Everleigh, or at least we don’t see her, and I’m happy, or else I don’t know what Saige would do.

When we get home, I order pizza while she takes a shower and then comes out with her pink mani-pedi case. She puts it on the counter and zips open the top. “What color do you want this week?” she asks as she takes out the bottles of nail polish she keeps accumulating every single time we head over to the pharmacy. “I’m going for a blue,” she declares, picking up the baby-blue one she got last week. “What about you, Daddy?” she asks, and I look over at the bottles in front of her, picking out the lightest shade there is and it’s a light white. “That’s boring.” She shakes her head, taking the bottle from me and putting it back in the case. “We are going to do this one,” she says of the green one she picked out when it was Halloween. “You said it was a nice color.”

“It is,” I reply right before the doorbell rings. I get the pizza, and she eats two slices before the two of us settle on the couch. She paints my nails, and then I paint hers.

The cap of the bottle is too small for my fingers. “What happened to the bakery?” she asks softly, as I focus on trying not to get it on her skin.

“I don’t know, baby girl,” I say the truth. “There was a fire.”

“Do you think Ms. Maddie is going to build it back?”

I nod. “Of course she will.”

---