Page 63 of I Am Salvation

He cracks a small smile. “It’s nicer now than it was then. The area has gentrified a lot, but somehow this little dive keeps standing.”

“What happened next? With Mike, I mean.”

“He asked me what was wrong. I told him I got mugged, and he told me off. Told me I couldn’t go walking around this part of town in my expensive ostrich boots and expect not to get mugged.”

I’m still confused. So this guy was rude to my father? Why is he telling me this story?

“He said I was asking to get mugged, or I wouldn’t have come around here.” Dad laughs. “And damn, he was right.”

“Why would you want to get mugged, Dad?”

“I was messed up in the head. I had just met your mom, and I didn’t feel like I was good enough for her.”

“Dad…”

“Let me finish, Dee.” He takes another sip of bourbon. “I got pissed, said Mike didn’t know what he was talking about, and got up to leave. And he said—and I’ll remember this until the day I die—‘running away is never the answer, son.’” Another sip. “So I stayed. I stayed because I’d heard those words before, from Uncle Joe and Uncle Ryan. From others, when I decided to enlist. I looked into his watery blue gaze. They were eyes that had seen a lifetime.”

I blink. I don’t think I’ve ever heard my father talk like this.

He takes my hand, gives it a light squeeze. “He told me I needed to face whatever was troubling me, to never give up. To suck out the marrow of life, as Thoreau said.”

“Stop and smell the roses,” I say.

“To put it in a more eloquent way, yes. He said to concentrate on the good things, no matter how small. To never give up when something is worth having.” He grabs his glass off the bar and takes another sip. “So that’s why I come here, Diana. To remember the words of that wise old man—words I needed to hear at that time in my life. Words I still need to hear sometimes. And when I do, I come here. This place means the world to me, and that’s why I want to share it with you.”

I open my mouth, but no words come out. I simply grab my glass of red wine, clink it to my father’s, and we drink in silence as I allow the story he just told me to settle into my brain.

Present day…

I replay the conversation I had with my father that night five years ago as if it happened yesterday.

I understand so much better now why he was so troubled all those years ago. It wasn’t just what he had seen during his time overseas with the military, and it wasn’t just his budding feelings for Mom. It was his past. How he’d been abducted, abused, violated as a child by those three horrible men.

No wonder he was so screwed up.

But that place, and that old man, had such an impact on him that he wanted to share it with all of his children. Teach them the wisdom of never giving up.

And I’m not going to give up.

I’m not going to give up on Dragon. I’m not giving up on talking to his mother. I’m getting his whole story.

If my father can get through his tragic past, Dragon can as well. But I can’t help him if I don’t know.

I knock again.

And again.

Finally I pound on the door.

“Mrs. Locke!” I yell. “Open the damned door!”

I sigh, finally relenting. I turn?—

“Jesus Christ,” a voice says. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, waking me up at this hour?”

Chapter Seventeen

Dragon

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