Always Emily. Mary Sullivan

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      A hot breeze blew the dust of the desert in through her open window. Local merchants hawked their wares four stories below. Inside, Jean-Marc tried to sell her damaged goods. “Come on,” he said. “Be reasonable.”

      God, what an asinine phrase. Jean-Marc meant, Agree with me.

      “Save your smiles for the young women you chase.” She packed her cosmetic bag. “They no longer work on me.”

      Emily shoved a sweater into her backpack, ready to walk out of this man’s life for good. It had taken her a year to come to her senses.

      “You’re running away.” If one more man told her that, she would scream.

      Disillusioned with him, she’d also come to the end of her love affair with the past. Somewhere along the way, archeology had lost its magical allure, had changed from the excitement of revealing ancient treasures and had become...digging in the dirt.

      Relics, the secrets of ancient worlds, still commanded her respect and awe, but she was tired of it. She needed a firmer attachment to the present. She needed to get a life that worked. Past time to go home, she was determined to get out of here in one piece, with her sanity intact.

      Too late, kid. That’s long gone.

      She swiped a hand across her brow, skimming sweat from her forehead. She was used to the heat of the desert, but today’s heat was way too high for May. Even her brain felt foggy. She’d lost track of their argument. What had Jean-Marc said? Oh, yeah.

      “I’m not running away,” she stated. “I’m leaving. There’s a difference.”

      “Explain it to me.” She already had, but Jean-Marc was a notoriously bad listener, especially when he disagreed with a point.

      She’d given the man too much, because that’s what she did as a matter of course. When she committed, she gave her all. It had been her downfall with Jean-Marc.

      Time for self-preservation.

      She stuffed all of her socks beside her one sweater. Why did she bother? They were ragged. It might be hot as hell in the desert in the daytime, but nights were cold. She’d worn the daylights out of her clothes. They’d become as ragged as some of the relics she’d unearthed in her career, and a sad metaphor for her life.

      Time for a new me. It starts with a clean break.

      “We can work things out,” Jean-Marc insisted.

      “Really? By me being a doormat while you sleep your way through all of the young beauties of the Sudan?”

      “You’re exaggerating. I made only one or two mistakes.”

      Emily sent him a repressive look. “You’re beginning to believe your own lies.”

      “You are a prude,” he snapped. “This is how modern people conduct affairs.”

      Emily slammed her alarm clock into her backpack and snapped the buckles together, then tossed it toward the bedroom door. “I’m tired of your lies and your vanity. My God, is there another archeologist on earth, another man, with a bigger ego?”

      Jean-Marc became a mini–Mount Etna, ready to blow. If she weren’t so angry, she’d laugh. He didn’t look much like the suave playboy now, did he? “I have an ego because I’m good. The best.”

      “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before.” Her anger whooshed out of her on a giant exhalation. Her shoulders slumped. “Why me? If you wanted to sleep around, fine, but why keep me dangling? Why not just let me go?”

      In a split second of honesty, his smile a ray of sunshine, he said, “I love you, chère. Don’t you know that?”

      She wouldn’t give in to that smile, as she’d done so many times in the past, because it was too small, and she wanted, deserved, more. Love should be huge. Grand. She’d been sucked in by his larger-than-life personality and brilliance, but it hadn’t translated into a big love. Only a troubled one.

      She gestured between them. “I can’t keep doing this. I need peace and quiet. I’m going home.”

      “Yes, to your small town where people do nothing magnificent, nothing lasting, where they never become world citizens working to enlighten all of humanity.” She’d rejected his moment of sweetness, and his spiteful side took over.

      She thought of Salem, with his light hidden under layers of modesty, and the way everyone with whom he came into contact respected him. How hard he worked to teach the community about his culture, with quiet humility. With Jean-Marc, she’d chosen flash over substance.

      “Some people don’t need the whole world held up to them as a mirror. Some people do great things even while they are humble.”

      “I don’t need to be humble. Nor should I be.”

      “Please, Jean-Marc.” Her head pounded. “Be a better man than this. Leave while I finish packing. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

      “I will ruin you.” There was something smug about his disgusting little smile, all sunshine gone now, proving as he often had that his ego was stronger than his love. He left the bedroom and, a moment later, the apartment door slammed shut behind him.

      She double-checked that she hadn’t left anything behind then carried everything to the front door, but decided to use the washroom one last time before going. She wished her stomach would settle down. Those airport lineups could be brutally long and slow. Khartoum was a small airport by international standards, but busy. She was washing her hands when she thought she heard something in the living room.

      “Hello?” She stepped out. No one. Just her imagination.

      She reached for the doorknob to leave. The door stood open a fraction of an inch. It should have been shut tightly, especially because Jean-Marc had slammed it on his way out. Had it been closed when she put her bag here? She rubbed her forehead. She couldn’t remember.

      She studied the small rooms. Nothing was amiss. She glanced at her knapsack and violin case. They looked fine. A thread of doubt ran up her spine and she opened her case. Jean-Marc would know where to hurt her most, by damaging her precious violin.

      She checked every square inch of the instrument and found it sound, then packed it back into its case.

      Her headache set off fireworks behind her eyes and she just wanted out—of the country and the relationship—so she shrugged off all thoughts of what that open door might mean. A shuffle in the building hallway alerted her. Someone was there. She threw open the door then let out a breath. Not Jean-Marc come back to wreak vengeance, thank goodness.

      Instead, seven-year-old Maria Farouk, in all of her cosmopolitan beauty, compliments of an Egyptian father and an Italian mother, stared up at her with liquid brown eyes in an olive-skinned face. Her thick hair had been brushed to glossy perfection.

      “Maria,” Emily said. “What are you doing in the hallway alone?”

      “I came to say goodbye.” The child sounded too solemn. Of all of the farewells Emily had made in the past two days, this would be the most difficult.

      Emily СКАЧАТЬ