I took a deep breath, praying silently for the right words to say.
“Cody—we need to talk. I’m not sure what you heard during my interview, but I need you to hear it from me,” I started.
“Okay, Mom.”
“Do you remember when we lived with Uncle Briggs, before we moved for my job at the florist shop a couple years ago?”
“Yeah. I miss watching cartoons with him and kicking his punching bag in the garage.”
I giggled at the memory. “Yes, I know you loved participating in his workouts, but I’m quite happy not to have a gym in our garage anymore.” My face sobered as I watched him throw a few rocks into the lake.
“Cody, there was a reason why we lived with your Uncle Briggs—one I never told you about.” I took a deep breath. “Before you were born, I’d been scared for a very long time.”
He stopped throwing rocks and stared at me in the moonlight. “What were you scared of, Mom?”
I picked up his hand, and traced an invisible pattern onto his palm the way I had done since he was a baby. “Your father.”
He scrunched his face, concern crinkling around the edges of his eyes. My gut twisted.
“He had a lot of problems, made a lot of bad choices…and because of those decisions, he became a very hateful man. He hurt me Cody…”
“What do you mean, mom?” Cody’s voice quivered.
“When you were two, after I left with your Uncle to make a safer life for you and me…he found us. He tried to take you, and I wouldn’t let him. Uncle Briggs showed up just in time…and I had to stay in the hospital for several weeks.”
His mouth hung open slightly as his teary-eyes searched mine. “Like…you could have died?”
The salt from my tears remained on my lips as I spoke. “Yes, baby. I didn’t want to leave you…I fought so hard to stay, to be your mom.”
“But…you told me my dad died when you were pregnant with me. That he was in a car accident. Was…was that lady right mom? Is my dad in prison?”
I swallowed down the guilt that threatened to choke-out my next words, and closed my eyes. Don’t let him hate me, God. I opened my eyes and gazed into my son’s upturned face.
“Yes, Cody. Your father is in prison.”
For a second he didn’t move, didn’t even blink, and then before I knew it…he was on his feet and running away.
“Cody!” I cried and he halted, standing stiff with his hands fisted.
His body was turned away from me, facing the house as I approached him from behind. Sobs broke from his throat as he tucked his chin to his chest. “You lied.”
Two words.
The two words I’d done everything in my power to avoid.
“Yes. I lied.”
I moved in front of him, my heart ripping in half at the sight of his hurt. Lifting his chin with my fingers, I stared into his beautiful blue eyes. “I love you, Cody. It’s my job to protect you. I thought I could protect you from my past if you didn’t know that truth. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“But you…you always tell me lying is wrong.”
“It is, Cody. And I spent a lot of time lying for your father, covering up the truth that I should have exposed…”
“So why did you lie for him again?”
The question exploded in my chest like a bomb—the shrapnel cutting off my air supply.
“Mom?”
I knelt in front of him and wrapped my arms around his waist.
“I never saw it like that, Code. I’m so sorry. Please, please, forgive me.”
Cody sobbed and knelt down beside me, pressing his head to my chest. I rubbed small, comforting circles onto his back.
“I forgive you.” He lifted his head and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Is that why you help the women at The Refuge? Because they’ve been hurt, too?”
“Yes, baby. Because for some women it’s very hard to leave a man like that. They need help, support, comfort, advice.”
Cody clung to me, quiet for several seconds more as the cicadas sang in the distance.
Finally he nodded. “I know who kept you safe, Mom.”
He lifted his head and touched my necklace, the one I never took off, the one that had seen me through every hurt and every hope.
“Your guardian angel.”
I kissed his forehead. “That’s right, baby. My guardian angel from God.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Though my nap had recharged me a little, by the time Cody headed to bed at nine, I was right in tow with him. I don’t even remember falling asleep, my body and mind were obviously calling out for a reprieve from the day.
I reached for my phone, confirming it was just before sunrise. I grabbed my black journal and slipped on my sweatshirt and shoes. After making pit stop in the restroom and brushing my teeth, I headed out onto the deck and down the steps toward the dock.
There was no better depiction of hope than a sunrise.
The darkness around me lay thick, yet there was a dim light in the distance, blanketing the earth with a dusky gray. I brought my legs to my chin, and wrapped my arms around them as I sat on the grass several feet back from the plants of the dock itself. I stared out into the horizon—thinking.
“You’re my weakness, Angie…I’m just not sure you should let me be yours.”
So much had gone on yesterday—so much drama and frustration, yet his words ran deep. My mind refused to let go of them without further investigation. I shook my head.
Two weeks.
That’s what time I had left here, and now even that much might be challenged. I didn’t know what the fallout would be from Divina’s interview, but somehow the dream of a future with Pinkerton Press paled miserably in comparison to my dream of Jackson Ross. I reminded myself again that I hardly knew him.
Yet there were times I felt more in tune with him than anyone else.
How was that possible?
As the first brilliant bolt of orange peaked out behind the trees in the distance, I heard footsteps behind me. I jumped.
“Believe it or not, I was trying not to startle you. I just didn’t want to miss the show,” Jackson said, his voice deep and sleepy.
I smiled up at him—hair disheveled, wearing track pants and a t-shirt. I’d never seen him like that. I loved the look.
“Glad you could join me.”
He sat down next to me, and for a few minutes we said nothing to each other as we watched the most brilliant colors paint the sky, bringing light to everything around us. The moment was magical, beautiful.
“I love to watch the sunrise when I come here,” Jackson said, eyes straight ahead.
“I would, too. It’s amazing to see it like this, over the water.”
He nodded, smoothing out his hair with one of his hands. I felt disappointed at the return to decorum.
“What?” he said, looking at my face. “Why are you frowning at me?”
I laughed, caught red-handed. “Oh…I uh, was just thinking that your bed-head isn’t so bad.”
“You were thinking about me in bed?” He grinned so wide his eyes seemed lost inside it.
I pushed him—hard. “No! It’s just rare to see you so casual.”
“It’s rare I get to have a reason to be casual.” His face lost all traces of humor as he said the words, like that fact alone was cause for heartache. I wanted to touch his hair then, to feel the strands run through my fingers as I pulled his face to mine. But I didn’t move. Instead I sat frozen in place, too afraid of the strength of the emotions raging inside me.
“How did your talk go last night with Cody?”
I stretched my legs out, letting the cool, dampness of the grass seep into my yoga pants. The breeze was warm enough to ward off chill.
“As good as it could go I guess…although, I’m sure our conversation on the subject isn’t over.” I shook my head at the irony of my words. “He will have a lot more questions as he processes what I told him. The hardest part is knowing I can
’t control what the future holds.”
I felt his eyes on me then. “No…we never can.”
A beat of silence passed between us, and I waited for him to say more. I begged silently for him to say more, but he did not. Instead, I decided I would go first. Most of my “stuff” was already out there at this point anyway. Why not tell him everything? I could only hope he would reciprocate in kind.
“I was married at eighteen, right out of high school. We eloped, although my parents were so detached from my life they hardly noticed.”
He watched me as he lay back, propping his torso up with his elbows. I scooted around to face him and crossed my legs as I plucked pieces of grass from the earth.
“I thought he was everything I wasn’t: charismatic, funny, and charming. He was popular in school, invited to every party and social event. I felt like somebody when I was with him, not just Angie-the-forgotten-daughter, or Angie-the-sister-of-Briggs. I felt important, wanted.”
“The first year wasn’t so bad. He worked for his parent’s furniture company. They gave him a lot of flexibility with his schedule. He came and went as he pleased. They spoiled him with freedoms, knowing someday he’d have to step it up and take over for them. It’s ironic though; his freedom meant the end of mine.
“What was once a party every few weekends quickly turned into him staying out every weekend. And soon enough there was no distinction between his weekend partying and his normal mid-week life. Dirk grew distant with me, hiding things, lying to me. I knew he was on something in addition to his heavy drinking, but he would tell me I was crazy, laugh me off. But one day he stopped thinking my accusations were funny. He changed into an angry, violent monster almost overnight. I’d seen his anger before, but I never thought…I never believed he would hurt me like he did. I lived in such denial, unwilling to tell anyone the truth about what was really happening. I felt like a failure. I’d banked everything on my future with Dirk—I didn’t go to college, I didn’t pursue writing, and I didn’t think I needed friends.
“There are so many nights I don’t remember, so many rages, but somehow those weren’t as bad as the in-between times. There was so much uncertainty, so much fear. I didn’t know when or what or how he would be set off…only that he would be. That became inevitable. Sometimes he would go for days or weeks without a rage, and I would see a glimpse of who I thought I loved in high school, but the calm never lasted. I did everything I could to make him happy. I thought if I could just be better, do more, love more, give more…then he would wake up and realize that he wanted me—more than his addiction. But he never did wake up.
“I left him when I found out I was pregnant. I planned it for weeks, saving up money to start over with Briggs somewhere new—somewhere untouched by Dirk. I never told him about the pregnancy.”
I stopped, realizing my heart was racing a thousand beats per minute. I had told this part of the story many times at The Refuge, but never like this. Jackson watched me intently as I focused on a single blade of grass between my fingers.
“But he found you,” he said.
“Yes.”
I heard Dirk’s words in my head then, as loud and clear as the night he first spoke them. “Found you, Angela.”
I shuddered. “He broke into our home in Dallas. Cody was only two. I don’t know how Dirk found out about him, but he did. He came to take him, and I…I wouldn’t let him.”
Jackson sat up, his knee touching mine, his hand balling into a fist at his side.
“He threw Cody into his truck, and I lunged at him, begging him to stop. That’s when he stabbed me.” My hand instinctively went to my abdomen. “It’s a miracle that Briggs came back that night. He was able to take Dirk down and call the cops. I’d lost so much blood by then though. The doctors didn’t think I would make it. They were worried about trauma to my head from when Dirk threw me against a wall before grabbing Cody. The doctors induced a coma as a last resort—to give my body a chance to heal.”
“And you proved them wrong.”
I smiled sadly. “I guess I did.”
“Will you show me?” he asked, staring at my hand on my abdomen. His eyes were so sincere, so full of selfless concern. I leaned back slightly and lifted my sweatshirt to expose the scar that resided an inch below my belly button.
I heard a hiss escape between his teeth as his brows furrowed. Then, he reached out, as if crossing a great divide. As his finger traced the length of the scar, a fire trailed across the sensitive flesh.
Eyes still focused intently, he said, “It wasn’t enough for you to rob me of my yesterdays…you had to steal my hope of tomorrow, too.”
I gasped. Those words were not his—but mine. They were only written in one place, a part of a poem I’d started years ago in my black journal.
He looked up from my scar, his crystal eyes piercing me through. “Photographic memory. I couldn’t forget those words.”
He took his hand away, searching my eyes for the truth they held, for the hurt that was the heaviest for me to carry.
A single tear slipped down my cheek. “I’ll never have another baby.”
The words came out like they were separate from me, passing over my lips without caution or restraint. I hadn’t spoken them aloud in years. There hadn’t been a reason to say them. Jackson went rigid beside me.
A twinge sparked inside me, in the deep hollow of my lower abdomen, within the void that lived under my scar. I closed my eyes briefly, wishing I had the ability to resurrect the feeling of life, the feeling of wholeness. But I did not. The only feeling that resided there now was emptiness. The vacuum had staked its claim; it couldn’t be undone.
Though his body was tense, his voice was low. “How are you not hateful or bitter?”
I didn’t need to look at him to know it was a sincere question. Not some perfectly constructed string of sympathies like I’d received in the past. This was Jackson, and he didn’t shy away from awkward. He embraced it, was comfortable in it even.
“When you have to fight so hard to live—to keep on breathing—you don’t relinquish that gift back into the hands of something that will destroy it. I didn’t have time to hate, not when I still had someone to love.”
“You sound like my brother.”
I exhaled at the change in topic, equal parts relieved and surprised.
“Do I?”
It was his turn to pluck a blade of grass and roll it between his fingers; he did not look at me. I held my breath, feeling my heart beat erratically with anticipation.
“Yes, he’s very forgiving.”
This was new information, a new piece of the puzzle that made him. I didn’t dare interrupt. He stared at the lake, as if watching a memory dance upon the water.
“My father and Jacob were cut from the same cloth, even though they never shared the same blood. No one could say a negative word about either of their characters, or how they led Pinkerton. But I never wanted their life of corporate ideals and business meetings. I didn’t want to be trapped like them. I wanted to live my dreams…” He said the last word as if it were venomous.
I waited, watching how his hair moved in the breeze.
“But that was all before…before I knew what dreaming would cost me,” he said, shaking his head.
A cold tingle went up my spine. “What did dreaming cost you, Jackson?”
“Everything. It cost me everything.”
He stood then and reached his hand down to pull me up. “Let’s go in, and get some breakfast.”
With that he was done sharing.
Jackson was the expert at speaking without ever really saying anything.
Chapter Twenty-Two
While Jackson showered, and Cody slept, I wandered down the hall toward the library Jessie had told me about the night before. I had imagined a few crowded bookshelves, but not this. This was an actual library. I’d never seen anything like it. The floors were a perfectly polished hardwood. Though every wall was covered with shelving, the room was n
ot dark like I would have assumed. Instead, the ceilings were littered with skylights—admitting a naturally filtered light to illuminate every square inch of it. I stood in one place, turning in a circle to take it all in.
One shelf in particular caught my eye. Though there was order to every linear space, the books on this shelf seemed to be set apart—almost like a shrine. They were red hardbacks, gold lettering down the spines—five in total. I walked toward them.
“The Quinton Chronicles…by Everett Jr.,” I said, moving my hand over the spine of each volume. That title jogged a memory. I’d seen these books before at Rosie’s house. She had raved about them, but there was something else she had said. I narrowed my eyes, trying to remember what it was. It was something about-
“Best crime novels ever written in my opinion.”
I jumped a foot in the air, gripping my chest.
Jacob lifted his hands, simultaneously apologizing and calming me. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
“No…that’s quite alright. Jessie told me I should visit the library, maybe borrow a book?” I shrugged, feeling my face heat from the surprise.
“Of course, this is about the best reading property you’ll find. This room is what sold us on the house. Jess and I are avid readers.”
I smiled. “I would imagine so—with the family publishing house and all.”
“Yes, my grandparents and parents passed on their love of books and reading to us at a young age. I think Jackson was barely four when he learned to read.”
The image of Jackson as a toddler squeezed my chest. “Bright kid.”
Jacob nodded, walking toward the shelf I was standing beside. “Turned out to be a pretty bright man, too.”
There was sincerity in his tone and in his words. Everything about Jacob was gentle and genuine. In many ways he was opposite of Jackson, yet they were both strong—both natural born leaders.
“Have you read them?” He pointed to the red books.
“No. I was just remembering my best friend talking about them, though—I haven’t read much in that particular genre. I usually stick to light fiction—happily ever afters.”
All Who Dream (Letting Go) Page 14