Page 26 of Sentinel's Kiss

“Brett, be careful.” Ashley had hugged him.

Dawn had kicked and they both had laughed.

“It’s perfectly safe.”

Ashley had put her hand over her stomach. “I know.”

“The odds are greater of dying in a car crash than from bungee jumping.”

“I know.”

Brett wanted to skydive but he couldn’t afford it. So he got his thrills bungee jumping instead. Maybe if she had given him the money to skydive, he’d still be alive. Maybe Dawn would have stayed in for the full nine months.

The funeral nearly killed her. They were buried together.

Ashley couldn’t handle her emotions. Everyone tiptoed around her like she was made out of glass. After the first year, though, no one had wanted to acknowledge her pain anymore. She should be moving on with her life, they said. Brett wouldn’t have wanted her to be sad.

Ashley knew what Brett would have wanted. He would have wanted to live his life fueled on adrenaline and risk. So she learned to ride a motorcycle, but she was so uncoordinated she broke her leg the first time she took it on the highway. It had been worth it to feel the wind and speed like she was flying. Then getting off the exit, she hit the brakes too hard and went sailing over the handlebars.

Everyone said she had been lucky.

But Ashley had only wanted to press her luck more, to see how far her mortality went. And as soon as her leg healed, she tried parasailing and worked her way up to skydiving. She jumped out of the plane for Brett. She ugly-cried the entire way down.

She got into NYU and her daredevil ways became legendary on campus. She would streak across campus, drag race, do body shots off professors, and table dance at a strip club for tips. Ashley had been fearless, and no one was surprised when she volunteered to go to the Middle East to report on the war.

She lost her zeal for dying when she was surrounded by it in that arid land.

Dawn and Brett were still gone and she was still here.

Twelve years as if it were yesterday. Only instead of being a pregnant cheerleader with the high school quarterback as her boyfriend, Ashley was a news reporter on a major television station fucking a biker who made her feel like she had just flung herself out of a plane.

Part of her wanted to run out of the house and drive as fast as her car could handle down the thruway. Ashley wanted the speed and the rev of the engine to clear out every thought in her mind. The other part wanted to turn over and soak the pillow with tears.

She would never be ready to have another child. Ashley had a hard enough time even looking at a baby. Once a kid was four or five years old, it wasn’t a problem, wasn’t a trigger. Until then, she lived by the motto that children should be seen and not heard. A baby crying was still almost enough to send her into a spiral of depression and self-destructive behavior.

Maybe she could find something in Pennsylvania this week that would feed her need for adrenaline. Ashley’s thoughts flitted to Josh. Too bad they were going to drive instead of taking the bike. She would have liked to feel it going all out on the long stretch of I-80. The four-hour trip wasn’t as much of a problem as arriving with bugs in her teeth and her hair squashed by the helmet.

“I’m sorry,” her mother said from the doorway. “I thought you were still seeing Dr. Henson about this.”

Ashley stared up at the ceiling. “I still do. Just not as frequently.”

“Do you need something?”

“Like what, a Valium?” It was her mother’s drug of choice.

“Or something to help your nerves?”

Something like stop bringing up Dawn at every family gathering? It wasn’t like her heart would ever forget her. And she understood that her mother had lost a granddaughter that day too, but neither of them seemed to be able to move on. At least Ashley had found some modicum of peace with her adrenaline junkets. But in this house, in this bed, she would always be sixteen and pregnant.

“I’m fine,” Ashley said. “I’m just tired. I’ve got to go to Pennsylvania this week for a story. So I’m going to miss the prodigal son’s visit. Give him and everyone my love.” She did love her family, even if they all managed to make her feel inadequate.

“Why don’t you come down for dessert? I’m going to need your support while your father has fruit salad instead of cheesecake.”

Ashley stroked the satin comforter. “Give me a minute. Tell them to serve me up some fruit salad too, but I’ll take home a slice of the cheesecake.”

“Good girl,” her mother said approvingly, and left her alone.

She wasn’t a good girl. Never had been. But once, for a brief few weeks, she had a good girl of her own.