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Halley in bed with Ladybug—I had taken that one. Golden hair and fur blended as one as they slept soundly. Halley’s pink cast kept a clunky hold on our beloved pet, a reminder of everything she’d been through. Everything she’d survived.
Another photo of me and my father sent a wave of emotion funneling through me. I was asleep on his shoulder. Curled up and peaceful after an afternoon of sparring at the park. His arm was slung around me, his head tipped back against the couch cushions, eyes closed. I didn’t think he knew the picture had been taken. Caught and captured, forever immortalized.
I missed that. I missed his warm, safe arms around me, protecting me, even as I slept. Dreamful and free from burdens.
And then there was a photo of just my dad.
Sitting on a park bench, his hair caught in a breeze. Bones the Beanie Baby was a blur clutched in his hand, partially cut off in the frame. He was looking at the camera with the barest smile, his eyes as close to sparkling as I’d ever seen them.
Looking right at Halley.
The photo was rimmed with a heart in blue Sharpie, and beside it, three words bled into the cardstock:
He sees me.
My breath caught.
It was so raw. A candid, real-life moment. There was feeling there. Tangible feeling I could almost reach out and touch. I felt it in my chest, in the tainted chambers of my closed-off heart. Life seeped inside of it, relighting the shriveled-up organ. Defibrillator paddles sparked it anew.
Warm tears rushed down my cheeks in rivers of remorse.
All this time.
Years had flown by while everyone else had moved on with life and I’d remained idle. Idle and stagnant, too comfortable in my hatred. Too stubborn in my staunch beliefs.
I’d painted my father a monster in my mind, and he hadn’t steered me any differently. Maybe he was waiting for me to see the truth. Words were useless when falling on deaf ears. Only I was able to allow the honesty inside…when I was ready.
Am I ready?
God, I wanted to be. I was so done with this. I was over living with this pain that constantly possessed me, day in and day out. It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t safe.
It was poison.
My mother squeezed my hand, dusting a thumb over my knuckles. “Do you see it?” she asked me.
I chewed on my lip, sinking the heel of my palm into my eye socket as the other eye leaked more tears. “See what?”
“What you need to.”
I nodded because I did. I saw it. I saw everything and more. “How did you accept this so easily?” I croaked out, my words shaken by grief.
Mom sighed, swallowing down her own pain. “Forgiveness comes a lot easier when you’ve had practice. I spent years learning to forgive myself. I was the betrayer once. I was the enemy. Life is fragile, choices are reckless, and forgiveness is always hard-fought. Your father isn’t perfect, and neither am I. Neither are you. Neither is Halley. Imperfections are what bind us together. Our common thread. We’re all capable of screwing up, but we’re all capable of forgiving, too. That’s what makes us stronger humans.”
I sniffled, still bobbing my head, letting her words touch all of my cold, sealed-tight places. “They really love each other, don’t they?”
She smiled gently. “What do you think?”
“I think I made it a lot harder for both of them. I ruined something beautiful when beautiful things in life are so fleeting. Halley moved away because of me. Dad stayed behind because of me.”
The verity of my willful convictions haunted me. They had given me power once. Resentment held power. Negative energy held power. People mistook that power for feeling, but all it really did was suck away the feeling and drain us dry. I was barren. A shell.
“Do you think it’s too late?” I wondered, lifting my bloodshot eyes to my mother.
She didn’t even flinch. “Do you?”
“You keep answering my questions with questions.”
“That’s how we find answers.”