End on Extinct

Chapter Eight

ASHYR

Beige file folders lay scattered across card tables. Abandoned tablets and opened laptops spread across the back workstation. Even Ashyr's area felt cluttered, weighed down with demands tied in with the large printed calendar on the south wall.

Late hours, and the lab felt tired. The extra weeks of grueling untiring research, networking, meetings, and promises, had caught up to Ashyr. But, at last, the venture capitalist had become secured.

And now, with a healthy investment in their company's bank account, the milestones were clear, the expectations real, and the drive toward the future a daily surge.

So, when he scanned the lab, he couldn't help but scowl at the darkness spilling out of Folsom's experiment room.

The experimental tests were being run at home, Ashyr had to keep reminding himself of this. Still, Folsom often said he'd be back, after he picked up his kids, attended to their needs, and got them to bed in record time. Except, when the evening came, Folsom's plans often changed.

"Wish he was here," Ashyr muttered toward the empty experiment room. When Mariana looked up from her spot at the card table, he replaced his frustration with a grin. "Looks like it's just you and me again tonight."

Needing a distraction from Folsom's absence, he headed over to her card table. "Thanks for staying late, again." He slipped into a seat next to her. "For pushing things along, for keeping the momentum going."

"Sure." She glanced up again, her soft smile calming some of his anxiousness. "I have it easier than Folsom," she said quietly. "Zane's mom always offers. She says she'll stay as long as I need her to." He heard the sudden catch in her throat followed by a quick cough. She looked down and used her stylus to insert a note next to a line item, only to add, "His mom knows what it's like. She did this single mom stuff, too."

Ashyr kept looking at her, wanting her to look up, to say more so he could say more too. But, when nothing happened, he stood up and headed over to the small kitchen area.

He poured himself the last of the stale coffee and sipped it from his brown-stained paper cup only to watch her head bent over the tablet, the stylus hovering over it, her eyes appearing glued.

He'd offered her coffee earlier in the evening, but she'd declined. Instead, she'd taken out the trash while he'd made up a pot.

She took out the trash regularly. Had brought in a few air freshers. He'd even caught her spritzing around scented Febreze when he'd returned from an errand down the hall. Refinement. A woman's touch. He could hear his granddad's words. A man who lacked a woman's touch lacked a completeness. How true that proved, Mariana's presence refined the lab, her skills bringing a heightened sense of value, a surrealness to Em-Path's future.

Once he finished off the coffee, he tossed the cup in the nearly empty trash. Then he circled back to his table, picking up his own tablet, before slipping back in the chair next to her.

When she, at last, looked at him, he tried to speak gently. "About you staying so late, so often, and your mother-in-law having to help you out, I've just wanted to say, that I haven't known what to say, to you about all of that."

The smile back seemed tense. "Yeah. I know." Then the stylus beat again against the tablet as if a note needed to be captured within a sense of urgency.

"Just..." his voice softened to nearly a whisper, "I've wanted to say...I'm sorry about your husband."

The stylus paused, hanging fragilely in the air. For the first time since she'd joined them, her busy movements paused. He took the moment to keep speaking. "You're a beautiful woman, and your life should have been what you wanted it to be."