Always Emily

His confusion with Aiyana, his utter...helplessness, had him swaying toward Dad’s point of view. He needed someone’s help. Emily was the only one available right now.

He’d made the decision to not see her again, to not think about her, to pretend she didn’t exist, and yet here she was in his house. And Aiyana needed someone at this moment. Salem could deal with the consequences later.

“Okay,” he said and trudged upstairs, footsteps heavy and slow like his thoughts.

At his closed bedroom door, he halted and glanced down the hallway toward Aiyana’s door, also closed.

So many doors were closed to him these days. About the only thing that wasn’t was school. No wonder he spent so much time buried in books. They opened pathways for him he couldn’t breach elsewhere in his life.

He knocked and Emily called for him to come in.

She stood beside the bed, her skin pale and gray like ash, using his brush to calm her hair. He loved its thickness and color, a medium brown warmed by glints of blond and red tones. Natural highlights. Or, he assumed they were natural since they’d already been there when she was twelve.

He still remembered the first time he ever saw her and thinking he’d gone crazy because he’d felt such an immediate kinship with a stranger, and her only twelve while he was a strapping eighteen.

For a while, he’d wondered if he was some kind of pervert before realizing his attraction wasn’t sexual. That had come later, when she was still too young at fifteen. It had driven him into the arms of another woman. Just his rotten luck their birth control had failed. No, that wasn’t true. He might have regretted his marriage, but never his daughters, even now when they were teenagers and he didn’t have a clue what to do with them.

“Are you okay?” he asked Emily.

“I’m fine,” she replied, but wasn’t.

He knew when Emily lied. She was lying now.

“What’s up?” she asked shyly. Emily, who could go anywhere, do anything, was never shy. “You look upset.”

“And you look a little better than last night. More like yourself. How do you feel?”

“Tired, but the fever broke during the night, thank goodness. The attack’s almost run its course.” She placed his hairbrush onto his dresser. “I’ve known others with this. I’ve seen the symptoms and how they progress. I’ll be better soon.”

“Do you need to be anywhere this morning? I have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“Aiyana’s upset.”

Her head shot up. “Aiyana? What’s wrong?”

The request backed up in his throat, but the bottom line was that Aiyana needed help and Emily was here. Even with his father’s help, Salem had been coping as both parents for so long, and he was out of his depth. “I think maybe she needs to talk to a woman.”

Emily looked uncertain, another sign she wasn’t herself. In all the years he’d known her, Salem had admired her generosity of spirit and her self-confidence.

He stepped back. “If you don’t want to that’s okay.”

“No. I don’t mind. It’s just...”

“Just what?”

“What kind of help does she need? I mean, I don’t know if I can help.”

If she didn’t help him figure out the puzzle that was his daughter, who would?

“What exactly is the problem?”

Salem shook his head like a bewildered old man, so far out of his element. “Mika says it’s boys. She’s at that age, right?”

Emily tilted her head, thinking. “Aiyana’s what? Fourteen?”

“Fifteen. Almost sixteen.”

“Yeah.” Emily’s mouth twisted wryly. “It’s probably a boy.”

“So, you’ll talk to her?”

A wash of emotion that might have been sadness painted Emily’s features.

“Okay.” She seemed to rouse herself. “Where is she? In her bedroom?”

Salem nodded and went back downstairs, hoping he could deal with the repercussions of Emily leaving—again—later. Maybe. He hoped.

* * *

EMILY LEANED HER forehead against Aiyana’s door to summon her strength before entering. She had to help the girl however she could, even though her resources were depleted. She just didn’t know what she had to give. Damn this illness.

Aiyana, the girl who used to follow Emily around like a perky kitten, needed her. While Emily had completed high school, she’d spent time with Aiyana on the weekends, bringing her gifts—stuffed bunny rabbits, books and toys.

The child might have been born to another woman, and Emily might have resented Annie for marrying Salem, but Aiyana had been Salem’s daughter, and a darling. And Emily had loved her from the first moment she met her.

Funny that Annie hadn’t minded, but then, Annie had been a proud mother, and happy to show off her baby. She had even let Emily babysit.

When Emily had gone to college, she had sent Aiyana birthday cards and sweet little notes at Christmas, and more presents.

As an archeologist, she had mailed Aiyana postcards from all the exotic countries she had visited. So, Emily had enjoyed a correspondence both ways, with Maria in the Sudan when she was at home, and with Aiyana when she’d been away.

And now Aiyana was hurting.

Aware of how hypocritical it was to offer boy advice when her own love life was a mess, she knocked anyway, because Salem had asked her to. How could she say no?

“Go away, Dad.” The voice sounded sullen, as only a teenager could, but Emily heard more. Desolation.

“It’s Emily.”

“Emily?” Emily heard a nose being blown. “Oh, um, just a sec.”

Emily waited.

“Okay. Come in.” It sounded thick with tears.

Emily opened the door cautiously. Aiyana sat on her bed with her arms wrapped around an oversize teddy bear, looking so much like a female version of a teenaged Salem that it brought back memories, both warm and tough. Aiyana was too old for stuffed animals, but Emily remembered the misery of unrequited love. Salem came to mind. She approached the bed.