My attention jumped around, like I could find a safer focal point than looking at the sight of them.
The definition of beauty.
Goodness and light. Purity and faith.
My gaze landed on another one of those bears like Greyson had, this one a patchwork disaster of pinks that lay on the edge of her bed. I couldn’t help it—a smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.
“What’s that?” I asked her, desperately needing to change the subject before I went out of my mind.
Before I said or did something I couldn’t take back.
Because I wanted it . . . I wanted this feeling so badly I thought I might die without it. This comfort that spun through the room like a cold winter’s dream, blanketed and protected. Something safe and sacred. Something right.
Something that was actually worth living for.
But that was impossible. Only thing I would bring was destruction. My due a burden.
She snatched the ratty bear and held it to her chest, rocking just a little like touching it soothed some of the madness.
“Make it if you want it to matter,” she whispered.
I was moving forward when I didn’t have the right, too compelled to remain in the shadows when I ached to stand in the light.
Too bad the light only exposed the demons.
Called them out of hiding.
But maybe it was time they saw exactly who I was.
“Make it if you want it to matter?” I rumbled, repeating the sentiment like a question. A squeak climbed from Mia, and I realized she was holding back a sob.
That her entire being convulsed like she’d just been struck from out of nowhere.
Whiplash.
“My mommy made it,” she whispered, peeking at her mother who gave up the fight on the tears, not that they’d been a stranger to her today. Her face blotched and red and scarred with the fear of losing what was most important.
“She did, did she?” The words were tight. Gravel.
Penny nodded emphatically against her pillow before she pushed up to sitting. “See.”
She held it out.
Like she was beckoning me forward.
Bringing me to my knees.
I was there, on the carpet, kneeling down close to her.
I didn’t dare reach out and touch it, just let my fingertips flutter in the air like I could feel the soft, worn fabric, the inconsistent patterns of pinks. Blush and rose. Strawberry and hot pink. The lanky bear was threaded together by a thick yarn, the lines almost purposefully haphazard.
“Your brother has one almost the same, except it’s blue,” I mused.
She nodded again, tears dry for the first time, like for a moment she’d been distracted from what might have been. “Yeah.” She gazed down at it before looking back at me with eyes that were so much like her mother’s. “Every new baby in our family gets one. It represents new life . . . there is one piece for all the people who make up the family. And this?”
She dragged her finger along one of the jagged seams of yarn.
“It represents the love the binds them all together, as imperfect as it might be.”
She glanced at her mother for approval. Like she was wondering if she got the story right.
My stomach twisted. Jaw clenching tight.
“Look, Leif,” she murmured with soft, childlike awe.
God, I needed to make an excuse and bolt.
But I inched forward, eyes following her small finger that ran over the material. “This is my grandma, and this one is for my grandpa. They were the ones who were there for my mom when she had me.”
She was looking at her mother with those astute eyes again. Like she got it. Like she understood the sacrifice they all had made.
She fluttered her fingers over another patch of fabric. “This is my uncle Lyrik. And these over here are my mom’s aunt and uncle.”
She hesitated before she touched a spot where the fabric had frayed and partially come loose. “This one is my daddy.”
Did it make me a fucking psycho that I wanted to jump to my feet and rant and rave and claim? Jealousy boiling my blood into venom and rage?
Why, yes.
Yes, it did.
My teeth grated. “It’s beautiful, Penny. Every single piece.”
She nodded more. “And one day, when I have a baby, I will make him or her one of these, just like my mommy did for me and my brother, just like my grandma did for her and my uncle.”
“Because you make it if you want it to matter.”
She nodded tight, and those knowing eyes lifted, filled with their innocence and wisdom, tangling with mine. “I might get to do that one day because of you, Leif.”
Her mother whimpered.
I wanted to die.
“No, Penny.”
Her lips pursed. “I thought . . . I thought I died already, Leif, because nothing hurt, and then I was so scared, and then I felt so safe when I realized it was you.”
“Penny.” Wanted to beg her to stop.
To spare me this grief.
To stop this reminder.
“I just wanted to say thank you. For being brave.”
My eyes squeezed closed like it could stop the assault.
The images and the sorrow and the unending grief.
Like the day had become too much, Penny hiccupped a sigh and then yawned, the child flopping to her pillow in sheer exhaustion.
For a moment, I just sat there, watching the lines on her face fall into peace.
My pulse jumped when her lips moved. “Do you sing songs, drummer dude?”
I almost laughed at the nickname Brendon had given me, it sounding so strange coming from her tongue. “Yeah, Penny, I do. It’s part of my job.”
She snuggled deeper under her covers, her voice drifting like her own melody. “Good. Sing me a song.”
A war went down inside me. A violent battle of what I’d done and what was to come.
I glanced at her mother who watched on with quiet belief.
Fuck.
What was the matter with me?
It was just a song.
I searched inside myself to find something that was fitting. Clearly none of mine would do.
I should have picked a random Carolina George song that Richard or Emily had penned. Something innocuous that meant nothing but I knew the words.
But I remembered . . . remembered the voice that had once sung to me.
The lyrics so contrary to what I knew.
But I thought maybe they had been meant for a child exactly like this.
Leaning forward, I took in a steeling breath and quietly began to rasp the words in a way I was quite sure they’d never been sung. A country ballad meant for a mother to her child.
I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womack.
The lyrics were low as I grated them from my tongue.
But I saw it—the way the song wrapped her in comfort.
A prayer that I meant.
A prayer that cut me apart.
And as I watched her drift to sleep from the sound of my voice, as I felt Mia’s spirit twining with mine, I felt something inside me break away. Something burst and come flooding out.
Darkness.
Joy.
Grief.
Hope.
If only I were worthy to give them that.
Twenty-One
Mia
Even though he was singing painfully low, his voice still flooded the room. The words gruff and hard and bleeding melancholy.
The song scraped from his throat with pain and grief.