Page 149 of Crash

“I’m fine. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to be alone with my son.”

Son. One word. Three letters. It shattered something inside me.

Once the nurse left, Sarah motioned me closer.

“Doctors can’t be sure. Best guess, a week.”

Aweek. God, I’d almost put this visit off for another month.

“I’ve been hoping to see you since…”

“The day you left me,” I finished.

Her eyes filled with torment I knew too well.

“That was the biggest mistake of my life.” Tears spilled onto her hollow cheeks. “After, I tried to petition the foster-care system, but they said it was too late.” She’d tried to get me back? “Said I wouldn’t be allowed to contact you until you turned eighteen.”

“That’s when your letters started.”

“I don’t blame you for never responding. When you make the biggest mistake of your life, you can’t assume people will listen to your apology.”

Still. “Why didn’t you tell me you had cancer?”

“I thought about it. But it wasn’t appropriate for a letter. And your silence told me a visit would be unwelcomed.” She squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry, Blake. I should never have left you. At the time, I thought about how you and your sister had already lost your parents. I didn’t want your heart broken, watching my degenerative illness take me too. I thought I was protecting you, but I was wrong. I’d give anything to go back and change it.”

Her words untangled years of resentment.

“The day you left,” she continued, “my world collapsed. And when I tried to get you back, it gave me reason to live. I couldn’t die until I got you back. So I fought. First with the foster care system. That one I lost. But cancer?” She smiled. “Beat two recurrences over the years.”

While I’d been building walls, she’d been fighting to stay alive. Fighting for a chance to see me again.

Something broke inside me, a dam letting healing waters rush through. I wished I could go back to that teenage boy all those years ago and tell him everything would be okay, tell him not to waste years on bitterness.

“I love you, Sarah.”

I stayed with her every night after. Four days later, as I held her hand, Sarah took her final breath.

Some might see that as tragic. And in terms of years lost between us, it was. But Tessa helped me see the blessing. All Sarah wanted was to see me again. To apologize. And to be forgiven.

She’d gotten that. And my wounds had healed too.

Life could be both tragic and beautiful.

Like Sarah teaching one final lesson: sometimes, the bravest thing is to let love in, even knowing it might hurt.

77

TESSA

The scent of fresh paint mingled with the comfort of old books as I arranged another stack on my custom shelves. My library. God, I still got a little thrill just thinking those words. My very own library, complete with that rolling ladder I’d always dreamed about since watching Beauty and the Beast for the first time.

“You missed the boys,” I said. “I can’t wait for you to meet them all.”

“I still can’t get over what Eli did,” Scarlett said, lost in thought.

I blushed, remembering Blake’s whispered confession about Eli. About protection and love and the lengths someone would go to keep their family safe. And when Eric Voss died in Blake’s ER, I had my suspicions about that too.

Police now had their own suspicions about missing women in the area. That knife in Voss’s thigh? His latest victim had survived to tell detectives that Voss had bragged about other women who hadn’t been so lucky. Women whose bodies hadn’t been found.