Page 82 of The Rest is History
We reach a suburb that looks like it was cut out of a magazine. Not the ones with million-dollar real estate. The ones that depict small cottages out on the prairie. The place you go to when you want to cut yourself off from the world. It's not extravagant. Hardly middle-class, even. But it is absolutely beautiful. I love it. It’s how I always dreamed of living.
Mrs. Cameron is already at the small white gate when we pull up.
“She must’ve spotted the car up on the hill when we came around the bend,” Asher says with a smile.
I hardly hear him. All the years melt away. All the shame and guilt melt away. I yank open the door and fly around the car. Her arms are already open, and I collapse into them.
All the tears I’ve refused to cry all these years come pouring out of me. This woman, who is not my mother, holds me in her arms like her long-lost son has returned.
I cry into her neck.
“Oh, baby. You’re home now. You’re home, Reece honey,” she soothes. Her soft touch, patting my head and smoothing my hair down makes me cry harder. I never felt this much emotion even when I saw Asher again for the first time.
“Oh, honey,” she coos in my ear. “You can let it out, honey. Let it all out, baby.”
“I’m so sorry,” I wail into her hair. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“You were just a baby. What should you be sorry for?” she scolds gently.
“It was my fault. Our secret came out because of me. And then I denied everything because I wasn’t brave. Everybody’s lives got ruined because of me.”
“No, honey. Not you. Never you. You were never supposed to hide in the first place. Now come inside so I can take a good look at you and feed you some food.”
I lift my face from her shoulder, feeling like a giant fool. A grown man crying on the shoulder of a woman half my size on the side of the road.
She takes my hand in hers and leads me through the pathway to the front door. Asher trails behind us.
Inside, she turns and holds me at arms length. “Too skinny, my darling.”
I laugh, wiping my wet cheeks. “I haven’t eaten your food in over ten years.”
Asher is in the kitchen, checking out what his mother has cooked for us. He always inspected the pots and pans like that, even then.
Mrs. Cameron pulls me to the living room, seating me next to her on a couch. Asher comes into the living room with two glasses of water. I hardly notice him. My eyes search the face of the woman before me. I don’t know where to start.
“I’m sorry about Mr. Cameron,” I blurt out.
She smiles. “He’s in a better place and he watches over me every day. I believe that.”
I am overcome by tears again. “If he never left Arizona maybe he would’ve gotten the right treatment.”
Her smile remains. “It happened the way it happened, sweetie. I don’t question it.”
“Asher never played college ball,” I say through my tears because she can’t keep making excuses for me and my father.
“He still found his happiness. He just went in a different direction.”
I cry harder, dropping my head to her lap.
“Oh, baby. You're still so sad.”
I raise my head, trying to keep my emotions in check. “I got married,” I tell her sorrowfully.
“I know, baby.”
“I loved Ash, but I married someone else.”
“He did too, but sometimes it just works out like that.”
