Come to Me Softly (Closer to You #2)(88)
Author: A.L. Jackson

“I know,” he said, his voice strangled. “I know that now.”

Restlessly, he propped his forearms on his knees and wrung his fingers between them. “When your grandma passed, I had to pull myself together because Courtney had no one left. I packed up our stuff and headed to California, looking for a new start. But it didn’t take me long to realize that start wasn’t moving away. It was realizing how badly my child needed me. Those couple of years messed your sister up. Scarred her. She wasn’t immune to any of it, either, and I knew it was time I was strong for her. But once I finally found that strength, I soon found I needed to be strong for myself, too. I was never going to truly get over your mother until I allowed myself to move on. Moving on was impossible, though, knowing you were out there. There’s been a void inside me for years, and not just the one left behind by your mom.”

I reeled, my fingers digging into the back of my neck as my head dropped.

“When I met Mary . . . she loved me through a lot of crap, Jared. She also helped me come to terms with what was missing from my life.”

I crammed the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to stop the emotion welling there. My f**king throat burned and tingled and throbbed.

“But I’ve been struggling with the guilt, not knowing how I had the right to ask you to become a part of my life after what I’d done. I had to find you, I knew it, but guilt kept holding me back. When I saw you yesterday . . . it was like looking at myself, Jared, seeing all the same guilt I’ve carried for years.”

He huffed a heavy breath from his lungs. “I love my wife, Jared, but no one will ever replace your mother. She was the love of my life. My soul mate.” He shook his head with a soft chuckle. “Didn’t believe in any of that shit until the day I met her.”

I smiled a little. Now that I could relate to.

“But I had to find a way to live again. Had to finally accept Helene would always be missing from my life.”

Sadness deepened the line between his brows when he looked at my knuckles. “You’ve got to let your guilt go, Jared. You’re almost there, son. I can see it. Feel it. I may not have seen you in almost seven years, but I recognize you. Recognize the boy who always made me and your mom proud. I can also see him clinging to the past, afraid of letting it go because it might mean letting your mom go. But guilt doesn’t do anything but destroy what’s good. Neither Aly nor your baby deserve that. You don’t deserve it, either.”

Tears gathered in his eyes. “I’m sorry, son,” he said, the words raspy as he pushed them up his throat. “So sorry I left you to deal with what was never your fault. You were just a boy . . . a boy who made a mistake.”

His admission tore through me.

Shit.

I couldn’t tell if his words comforted or cut.

Emotion tightened his voice. “Don’t ever feel guilty for loving someone, Jared. I have to believe your mom can see us now . . . have to believe she’s looking down and sees the happiness returning to our lives. I have to believe it makes her glad and she wants that for us. That she knows she’s getting ready to be a grandma and you’re living the life she wanted for you. Don’t let your guilt over what happened destroy that for her. Don’t let it destroy it for you.”

I felt pinned by the magnitude of his stare. “Don’t repeat the mistakes I made. Fight for what you love. For what’s important. Cherish it. Only a fool believes there’s a good enough reason to let love go.”

He climbed to his feet and gently settled his hand on my shoulder, spoke out into the distance behind me. “I know you can’t forgive me overnight. I have a lot of years to make up for. But I sure hope you let me try.”

That rock of unspent emotion raged like a ball of fire.

“Yeah,” I whispered hoarsely. “I’d like that.”

He squeezed me once before he turned to walk away.

I watched him make his way over the grass, his head hung low as he retreated.

My heart pumped hard. Too hard.

All the years of guilt and pain knotted at the center of my chest. It surged and spun, my mother’s voice the softest echo in my ear. God, I’d loved the sound of it, loved the way she’d sit and listen and whisper her belief into me. I drifted on it, like I could feel her here, like maybe just like my dad had said, she was looking down.

Maybe she knew how lost I’d be without her.

Maybe she knew how much I would need Aly.

I lifted my face to the subtle warmth of the winter sky. Sadness twisted up my expression, but somehow it was still a smile.

And I felt shocked, almost horrified, when that rock of unspent emotion finally broke free.

Tears burned hot, dragging all the torture inside me finally out into the light.

Into her light.

And I just f**king sobbed.

Sobbed like a baby because it hurt so bad.

Because I missed her and I wanted her back and I wished I could change what I’d done.

But I couldn’t.

Fuck, I couldn’t.

But I also couldn’t hang on to the guilt any longer.

I thought I’d gone to my father for mercy.

But he’d shown me that mercy was buried somewhere deep inside of me.

And I knew, just like I was sure my mother knew.

Just like Aly knew all along.

It was time I forgave myself.

TWENTY-FIVE

Aleena

I froze when I heard a key slip into the lock.

I stood at the kitchen sink, facing out the window into the backyard. Rays of late-afternoon sun slanted into the dimly lit house, and my arms were soaked with the dishwater I had my hands buried in, desperate for anything to distract my distraught mind. Over the last four days, I scrubbed every surface of the house, multiple times, knowing I had to keep my hands busy if I didn’t want to lose my mind.

Or lose my nerve.

So many times I’d been close to begging him back, my finger poised at my phone in the weak moments when I was missing him so much that I’d take him any way I could. But I knew the error in that, knew I was only inviting the same trouble back into our home, and I had to wait for him to find his way.

And I knew . . . knew with all of me, Jared wanted to find that path just as fiercely as I wanted him to. So for the past four days, I continued to breathe belief into him, pouring all of my thoughts his direction, praying he would hear or that fate would somehow intervene.

That intervention had come in a tangible form to my door- step.

Now my stomach twisted in anticipation, and I listened acutely to the rattle of the knob as it was turned.