Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 36960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Her cheek is pressed to my bare skin, and her soft pants let me know she’s completely satisfied. My own body is buzzing, my blood electric in my veins. We definitely have a lot to look forward to over the next four decades.
The silence between us stretches. It’s not an uncomfortable or awkward silence. It’s the kind of silence that has our breaths syncing together, our hearts slowing after the frantic race to bliss.
We’re quiet for so long that I think she must have fallen asleep, but then she says, “Tell me something about yourself.”
“Like a secret?”
“Anything,” she answers.
I open my mouth to tell her something light and funny, but what comes out is a truth that she doesn’t know. “My dad killed my mom when I was a kid. He was a raging alcoholic that couldn’t get his life together. But she was the kind of person that loved everyone. Even after she divorced my dad and struggled to pay the bills, she always had a dollar for someone in need. She ran the bake sale and volunteered at the women’s shelter. Every holiday, there were always new people around our table because she had this habit of finding the unwanted and making them welcome.”
She doesn’t say anything, just presses a hand to my chest. She strokes her fingertips along my skin. The gesture soothes me, grounding me in the present.
I blink at the blurry ceiling. I can’t think about my mom for too long because then I think about all the things she’ll never get to see me do. Like marry Missy and start our family. “That’s not the secret. Almost everyone in town knows what happened with my parents. At the time, we were living a few hours away, and the state eventually located my aunt and placed me with her in Courage.”
I don’t tell her there’s a door in my mind. It leads to a closet filled with my darkest memories. The door rarely springs open anymore. But every so often it does try, and those are the hard days. The ones that make me wonder who I’d be without this grief and pain I carry. Would I still have gone into law enforcement?
“I can’t imagine how frightening that must have been,” she whispers, even though I think she has some idea. She was a foster kid too. She knows what it’s like to worry about where you’re going next.
Trauma teaches you to fear the future, that nothing good is coming tomorrow. It takes a lot of time and healing to realize that’s not true. Not every day will be a bad one. There’s still so much good to come.
“Everyone thinks I became a cop so I could catch men like my dad and put them in jail. But I did it because I needed to prove to myself that I’m not him. I won’t hurt the people I care about. I can be one of the good guys.” It’s the thing I’m most ashamed of, the heaviest secret I carry. What if I’m like him? What if there’s nothing good in me, nothing worth loving?
“You’re not him,” she whispers.
“His blood flows through my veins.” A few years ago, I had my DNA tested. I had been holding onto this crazy hope that we weren’t related. If I could say that, then I’d be free. I could argue that he was a bad person, and bad people do bad things. But if bad people have kids, what does that make those children? Does that mean I’m evil?
“And her heart beats here.” She taps my chest, the spot right above my heart. “You’re only studying one side of the equation. If his blood is in your veins, so is hers. If he gave you half his DNA, so did she. You have two paths to walk here. You can focus on how evil your father was, or how much your mother loved you. I know, as a mom, which one I’d want for my child.”
I’m quiet, absorbing her words. I’d never considered that. I’ve spent my life so focused on my dad and all the pain he caused. Maybe the path to healing isn’t to keep looking for signs of evil in myself. Maybe it’s to live the way my mom did—with love and grace, believing that even the smallest acts of kindness make a difference.
“Thank you,” I whisper around the lump in my throat. I don’t know if she’ll ever fully grasp the gift she gave me, the weight that rolled off my shoulders. But I feel like I can finally move forward with my life. A life that’s going to include marrying Missy and adopting her beautiful daughter. They’re both mine, and I can’t wait for the day I can tell the world.
Missy
When it’s time to leave Griffin’s cabin, he helps me with my clothes, and I button his shirt. It’s a different shirt since he lost the buttons on the one he was wearing earlier.