Free Just One Day by Sharla Lovelace

running to the house, calling her name,” he said. “Somebody stopped me. Told me she was already in the ambulance.”
    “Alive?” I asked, knowing the end result but hoping he got some time.
    “No,” he said, angry tears falling. “She was dead. Asphyxiation by smoke, they said. The fire spread too fast. According to Jamie, they made to the stairs and then she collapsed. He tried to carry her but then the stairs started giving way so he got out and called me ,” he said through his teeth. “Called 911. Kept trying to get back in, but—evidently he couldn’t get back to her.”
    “Jesse, I’m so sorry,” I said, touching his hand. He met my eyes at the sound of his first name, and looked surprised at my tears. He reached up and brushed one away, then frowned at his fingers as if they’d betrayed him again.
    “Jamie blames me for her death, and I can’t fault him for that. I should have been there. He shouldn’t have had to take that on by himself.”
    “Jesse—”
    He stood up. “His last memory of his mother is leaving her behind in an inferno. That’s something no kid should ever see.”
    Silence ticked between us, and I could hear my heart beating over the wind.
    “Maybe time will change things,” I said finally.
    “It’s been four years,” he said quietly, some of the anger spent. I wondered how long it had been since he’d said any of that out loud. “He wants nothing to do with me.”

Chapter Seven
     
     
    He dug at his eyes again and I saw the doors come back down. “Enough of all that,” he said, his voice ragged.
    He set about checking random things that I had the feeling didn’t need checking, but gave him something to do. I let him be. That was one hell of a roller coaster he lived on, and it broke my heart. I wondered if it was the reason for the old phone attached to the wall—like maybe he didn’t want to be dependent on something that could die and cost him so dearly. Or maybe he just didn’t feel like he deserved the luxury.
    I turned sideways in my booth seat and pulled a knee up to rest my arm on as I watched the wind bend trees across the street. The hail looked to have stopped, but the wind appeared stronger, fiercer. The gusts that hit the windows sounded brutal and the noise was constant.
    I stopped checking the time. Nothing was going to matter for a while. Even my phone was still upstairs, although I doubted that Brad had called or texted. He wasn’t a fan of phone conversations and he’d promised me the day, so I knew he’d be true to his word. All the little voices of reason were talking at once and I knew what they were saying. I just didn’t want to hear it yet. And Jesse’s words—and the fact that I was thinking of him as Jesse instead of just Montgomery—was working on me.
    “How long were you married?” said his voice to my right, making me jump. I hadn’t seen him walk up, and then there he was gazing down at me.
    I cleared my throat. “Fourteen years.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “What happened?”
    I shook my head. “I don’t know. Boredom, I guess. We stopped talking to each other, and all we had in common was Lanie.” I traced the condensation on my unopened beer. “One day he said he wanted out, and I said okay. I didn’t even argue.” I looked up at Jesse with a small shrug. “I figured if it was that easy to end after fourteen years and a daughter together, then something was definitely missing.”
    He leaned against the booth. “Maybe that’s why you’re balking this time around,” he said. “Maybe you’re afraid of hitting that rut again.”
    It made me itchy. “Maybe I just—”
    My words were severed by the sound of glass shattering upstairs. He sprung off the booth and was already on the stairway when I scrambled out and turned to look outside as I followed him. What I saw glued my feet to the floor.
    “Jesse,” I said, the name slow and purposeful, only because I had to force my mouth to work. My guess is that it