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A mother?

My daddy’s image fades. Slowly, slowly he drifts into the silence and my mother’s scent is here.

On the gentlest of wings, soft as a butterfly, love drifts down, like a sigh from heaven.

Where the tornado ravaged, leaving death and destruction, where the bodies lay strewn across the ground, where nothing was left standing, now the smallest flutter of life pushes through the soil.

The storm clouds begin to break, and I blink through the haze. A tiny dove carrying peace settles in my upturned soul, and for the first time in a long time, I step into the light. Morning breaks.

I blink several times and meet Mrs. Jenny’s worried eyes.

She waits, and I look around. “What day is it?”

Present Day

20

Taron

“You’re sure it was heroin?” The woman sits across from me in her small office, gray hair like spider webs threading the part of her severe, brown bob.

It’s quiet as she waits for my answer, the only sound a trickling fountain behind her desk. I’ve been coming here a long time—once I accepted I was going to die if I didn’t change my behavior.

Once I decided I didn’t want to die.

“I know what it was.”

“And you had no desire to take it?” She shifts in her seat, smoothing her hand down the front of her blazer.

My jaw tightens, and shame is a knot in my throat. “I considered it. For a whole minute, I let myself remember what it was like not to feel, to completely disconnect from the pain.”

“And?” Dr. Curtis’s dark eyes zero in on me over her heavy, brown reading glasses. The withering glare of Dr. Charlotte Curtis, daring me to lie to her.

“I walked out the door.” I shift in my chair, cautiously allowing a moment of pride. “Seeing my friend in that state, knowing it’s the end, the ultimate outcome… I think it helped me. Or at least it put it in perspective.”

“Don’t downplay this achievement.” Her tone is clinical, but knowing how stingy she is with compliments, I do a mental victory lap. “You’ve come far, Taron. Do you know how hard it is to kick an opioid addiction?”

“I’m not planning to relax just yet.” The shame of how far I’d sunk six years ago never leaves my mind.

If I ever try to let myself off the hook, I only have to remember Noel’s face. Her tears, her shattered expression. The things I said, the way I shouted at her, hurt her… Again, I shift in my chair, trying to escape what I can never forgive.

“Is the acupuncture helping with your back?” Dr. Curtis reads from her computer screen, not smiling.

“I think it is.”

Her eyes flicker to mine. “I don’t want you self-medicating with alcohol. More than six drinks a week is heavy drinking. Give your liver a break.”

My lips tighten, and I nod. “I’m thinking of leaving town.”

“Is that so?” She leans back in her chair, steepling her fingers in front of her lips. “Any particular reason?”

Noel…

“I haven’t been happy here in a while. I’ve made more money than I can ever spend in one lifetime. Patton doesn’t need me anymore.”

Despite what he thinks… Why he thinks he needs me, I’ll never know. I owe him more than I’ll ever be able to repay. He’s a slave to his sense of guilt over what happened to us, but it’s so unwarranted.

“I’m concerned you still aren’t seeing anyone. You’re a handsome man.”