Page 231 of The Right Wrong Promise

In the end, he was a teacher, and he left us lessons he couldn’t just give us in life.

Gramps couldn’t have known I’d meet Kane at the lake house, but he knew I struggled to slow down, to stop and breathe and find myself.

He called me May. Not just because I resemble Grams, but because he’d laugh and tell me I don’t slow down.

Being at the lake house made me hit pause.

And yes, it brought me Kane, but if he hadn’t been there, I think I still would’ve walked out of there in a better place emotionally. Assuming the Babins didn’t burn my body, of course.

Gramps made a lot of mistakes, no question.

Yet there’s no doubt he loved fiercely.

Just as fiercely as Ethan and Hattie.

Just as fiercely as Kane and me.

Reading his journal with time and space to reflect taught me a lot. It’s given me the chance to understand Gramps in a different way.

The way he and Mom left off, too. She wouldn’t even look at him or come to his big house in Portland to pick us up when those long summers ended.

Ethan leans forward, his hand covering Hattie’s on his shoulder.

“Does that mean you forgive him?” he asks.

The trillion-dollar question.

My breath stalls.

Ares perks up and whines, his thick tail slapping the floor.

Mom dabs her fingers at the thin, wrinkled skin under her eyes. When she drops her hands, I see the moisture gleaming there.

Unexpected and scary.

“Not today. Not yet. I can’t,” she whispers, but there’s something in her voice. Genuine regret? “It’s still too raw. Reading this book, looking at these shoes, they—they beat me to a pulp again. And that man has done enough of that for this lifetime.”

Devastating.

Kane tightens his grip on my hand, his thumb stroking my skin.

Mom looks at me, and her face softens.

“But someday… someday,maybe,” she says. “Maybe I just need time.”

Holy crap.

Nodding, I wipe away a tear with my own shaking hand.

Time.

I can give her that.

We all can, if that’s what she needs.

This isn’t a slamming door.

It’s an opening, one tiny step in the right direction.