Devastation rolled through me. What had I done?
I groaned in despair, gripping my head in my hands. She’d never forgive me, and why should she? It had been my stupid, misdirected need for revenge that had started the ball rolling and ended in Haven and Easton’s very public humiliation.
I’d wanted to kill Spencer when I’d approached him after Haven and Easton had left. But his eyes had been wide with shock and shame and he’d said miserably, “We didn’t know they’d be here.” I’d tried to hang on to my rage about the fact that he hadn’t sought my approval regarding the flyer, but I knew it had all started with me, and that I’d been negligent in letting it be printed at all. I was the chief. The fact that that had gotten past me was unacceptable. The buck, so to speak, stopped here.
As a result of me being asleep at the wheel, I’d destroyed Haven, and Easton too. Dear Jesus. I pictured the wounded looks in their eyes, the way they’d both tried so desperately to hold on to their pride and only barely managed to do it. Two people who’d been unwanted all their lives. It felt so . . . callous. Heartless.
All things I’d been called before. And rightly so.
I’d collected all the flyers, telling the crowd they were a mistake, but it was pointless by then. The whole place was buzzing, debate springing up about whether calling out individuals for misdeeds was right or wrong. I’d been too sick about it to engage, my head spinning uselessly with ways I could fix this.
Bree and Archer had approached me, the looks on their faces such stark examples of disappointment that I’d wanted to sink into the floor.
It would have been easy to place the blame on Spencer, and on Birdie Ellis too, but I’d always taken the easy way out, and I sensed, on some cosmic level, that this was my final lesson.
Lose it all, or lose it all.
I’d come to the crossroads, both paths seemingly leading in the same direction.
I looked out the front window of my truck, raindrops streaking over the glass and blurring the old red barn, misery tracking through my veins.
I hadn’t slept a wink and as soon as the sun rose, I’d driven here, trying to grasp some peace, some clarity. Because all I kept seeing was her expression the moment she realized what she was holding.
The look on her face had ripped my heart to shreds, the way she’d stood there, the judgmental eyes of all of Pelion upon her. The place she’d considered such a dream. The place that had brought her peace.
Raindrops streaked, clouds rolled by, and I couldn’t avoid another harsh truth.
Archer had felt that way once upon a time too.
I’d been part of it.
I deserved to feel like this.
Haven did not.
And neither did Easton for that matter.
The flyer had highlighted Easton’s transgressions, but I knew the list had hurt Haven just as deeply, because she loved him. And they’d both been there to ask for acceptance from the town. I let out a staggered breath. The thing was . . . I knew what reading a list like that must feel like because I’d been him. I’d done things purposely to hurt people. I’d left destruction in my wake, and for longer than two years. But unlike him, I’d been embraced, not shunned. I’d been given a second chance. Hell, I’d been given more than a second chance. I’d been offered not only acceptance, but love.
But I’d wanted what had happened at that meeting, or some version of it anyway, not so long ago.
They’d been there to join the community, to be part of something. To risk asking for acceptance when risk was so very difficult for people who’d been through what they had. I’d known the reason they were there the second I’d seen her and it had sent happiness whirling dizzily inside me. I wanted to know how and why and when she’d arrived at the decision because even before she’d seen the things written about them, she looked like she’d been crying. I knew the choice had taken immense courage. Her eyes had been red and swollen but there had been such raw hope on her face.
“Idiot, idiot, idiot,” I murmured, sitting up straight.
The rest of the photo albums my mother had given me still sat on my passenger seat and I picked one up, leafing through it idly, seeing photos of my father and me as a baby and then as a little boy, photos that stopped after the one of me in front of a cake with seven candles on it.
Why are you doing this? To torture yourself? For the reminder that you’re not worthy of anyone’s love?
To remember why he left?
I closed the album. The only other amendment to the original land deed had stuck to the top and I glanced at it. I’d already read it. It posed no threat to Archer so there was no need to burn it. If anything, it posed a threat to me, but I wasn’t concerned. Archer was reasonable, and I knew he’d be willing to overlook or void it. I tossed it aside, picking up the heavy album to set that back on the seat as well when an envelope with my name on it fell out of the back, the handwriting both unfamiliar and immediately recognizable.
My heart lurched.
I reached for it with shaking hands. My stalled heart suddenly beating erratically.
Don’t read it. Whatever it says might destroy the final piece of you.
But I had to. I had to.
My heart slammed against my ribs as I opened the flap. The seal had already been ripped. This had been read before. But not by me.
I unfolded the letter, my breath hitching. He’d printed the note.
Of course he had—I had only just learned to read that winter. He’d been writing to a seven-year-old.
May 15th
Dear Travis,
This is the hardest letter I’ve ever written but you are a good, smart boy, and so I know that you will try your best to understand what I have to say to you.
Sometimes mommies and daddies get married for the wrong reasons, and sometimes they stay together longer than they should even though neither one is happy. That’s what happened with your mother and me and that’s why we won’t be living together anymore. What will never ever change no matter what, is our love for you. Someday, you’ll know of all the mistakes that were made, but one thing you must never believe, is that you were one of them. You are my inquisitive, insightful little man, and I’m so very, very proud to be your father.
I’m leaving for a little while, Champ, but not for long. I will be back for you because I would never leave you behind. And when we are face to face, I will try to explain all the things that I know you are a big enough boy to understand.
You know the land that I took you to see right on the lake? The one with the red barn and all those rows of fruit trees? When the timing is right, I’m going to build a big house on that plot, and we are going to be happy there. I see it in my mind’s eye, Champ—me and you sitting on the dock with fishing poles in our hands.
Can you see it too?
You hold that picture in your mind.
Between now and then, please trust me. And most importantly, please trust your own wise and tender heart. Listen to that part of yourself. It will never lead you astray.
We have so many years ahead of us, Champ. Years to live and laugh and learn all sorts of lessons, good and bad and everything in between. And when you have questions, or need guidance, I will be there.
I will always be there.
I love you with all of my heart, Dad
I let out a strangled gasp of air, hot tears burning my eyes as I sat, reeling.
He hadn’t left without saying goodbye. He’d written to me, only I’d never known.
My dad had been leaving for a short time, most likely to get Alyssa and Archer to a safe location until both divorces were filed, and hot tempers flared and cooled.
He’d been leaving temporarily in an effort to protect them because he’d been in love.
I’d never understood the lengths a man would be moved to go to for a woman he loved. Because I’d never felt that depth of feeling. I did now though.
The world tilted, everything I’d ever thought to be true turning on its side.
Yes, my father had been in love. He’d loved me too though. I would never leave you behind.
I looked up, staring unseeing at the old red barn, a ray of sunlight streaming through the clouds.
Lose it all, or lose it all.
And suddenly, in an instant, I knew what I had to do.
Fear trembled through me. Fear, and a sense of rightness unlike I’d ever known.
Trust your own wise and tender heart.
I’m going to, Dad.
I turned the key in the ignition. First though, I had a few stops to make. The tires crunched on the wet gravel as I turned, heading toward the road that led out of town.
**********
My mother adjusted the bags in her hand, digging in her purse for what must be her keys as I stepped toward her. It was barely ten a.m. and she’d already been out shopping.
She startled slightly, blowing out a breath when she saw it was me.
“Travis. You didn’t tell me you were coming over.”
I held up the envelope containing the letter from my dad. Her brows knitted as she again, adjusted the shopping bags in her hands. “What is—” I saw when understanding dawned. “Oh, I see.” She gave her shoulders a small shake, stepping toward her door. But I’d also noticed that her face had suddenly lost some color beneath the heavy makeup.
She flicked open her lock, stepping inside and I followed her. “You kept it from me,” I said. I’d driven the whole way without considering what I’d say to her, so many thoughts and emotions running rampant through me that I had no room left to plan for anything. I only wanted to know why.
She tossed the bags onto the couch, facing me. She’d regained her composure. It’d only taken a moment. “It wouldn’t have done you any good, Travis. It would have only poured salt in the wound. You were seven years old. Later, I forgot it even existed.”
I shook my head, in disbelief that anyone could be so incredibly, blindly self-absorbed. “It would have meant everything to me,” I choked. “You didn’t keep it from me because you thought I was too young to understand. And you didn’t forget about it. You wanted me to carry the same bitterness toward him you did because it worked for you. He left you. He couldn’t stand your lies and manipulation. But he didn’t leave me. He never left me. And all my life . . . all my life, I’ve carried the grief that came from thinking he did.”
She fiddled with her bracelets, two spots of color appearing on her cheeks as her eyes narrowed. She was gathering her anger. And her anger was a shield, I supposed, but it also shot daggers. It was meant to protect . . . and to wound. And I had never been exempt from it. What happened to you? I wanted to ask. But it didn’t matter. She was never going to change. She’d had opportunities to become better—to reinvent herself—and she’d never taken them. “He didn’t even want you!” Her words fired out. “You should have seen his face when I told him I was pregnant! It was like someone had punched him square in the gut.”
“Because you tricked him into it!” I yelled, and drew satisfaction from her flinch. I knew what it was like to be strapped to this woman, so I didn’t have to wonder how he’d felt. He’d made mistakes too, but he’d tried to do the honorable thing. And I wasn’t going to let my selfish mother convince me that, though I was unplanned, he didn’t love me. My heart told me differently. I’d felt his love. And believing he’d loved me and then left anyway had created a deep pit of devastation inside, one I’d carried since I was a child. I wasn’t going to carry it any longer. I took a deep, cleansing breath, blowing out the anger, the resentment. I wasn’t going to hold on to that either and risk turning into her. “I burned those amendments you gave me,” I said. Except one. But I wasn’t going to tell her that.
Her eyes widened, lips twisting. “You did what? My God! I thought I could trust you by giving you the originals! Do you know what you’ve lost? Do you even know?”
“No, you’re the one who lost, Mom.” I took her in, one final time. “If you’d loved me at all, you would have given me this letter,” I said, holding it up again. “You were so unwilling to let go of trying to control everything and everyone, that you lost. You lost it all. Including me.”
And then I turned and walked away.
As the road back to Pelion—back home—stretched before me, her words echoed.
I thought I could trust you, she’d said.
You can’t, I thought.
But maybe I can finally start trusting myself.
**********
I made a few other quick stops, notably one to the firehouse where I had some explaining to do, and a favor to ask, and then I headed home.
It was strange being in my house again, surrounded by all the things that felt both familiar and not. It didn’t feel like home anymore. Not the way The Yellow Trellis Inn had, that house full of misfits and laughter. Affection, and even love.
And it went without saying, plenty of hooch.
I took a seat at my dining table, pushing a letter from my landlady aside. I’d deal with that later. My computer sat in front of me, and for a few minutes I simply stared out the window at the trees that blocked the lake beyond. There wasn’t a clear lake view from here, but I could see tiny sparkles of blue through the feathery branches, and feel the peace that the water brought. How many countless times had that lake comforted me? Too many to count. How many times had the people in this community comforted me, in one way or another? Far too many to count.
I thought about what Burt had told me about Betty, and about her lost words. I thought about how they completed each other, each providing what the other was missing.
I thought about Haven, and about Easton too.
I thought about how they were nomads, searching for a home.
And how I was a man with a home I’d never fully appreciated until I saw it through their eyes.
I felt ashamed, and grateful, and devastated, and humbled.
I let it all fall over me, soaking into my skin, filling my heart, weaving into the fiber of my bones, who I was and who I might become. Who my father believed I would be.
Listen to your wise and tender heart.
I thought about all the ways I’d taken the multitude of gifts I’d been given for granted, abandoning all faith and embracing the very worst parts of myself.
And I no longer wanted to be that man.
I wanted to be someone better.
I slipped on my reading glasses, opened a document, and began to type.
