Page 98 of The Heart We Guard
Greer drops a box of tissues on the step next to me, squeezes my shoulder, then disappears back inside. I grab one and then tip Ember’s chin up.
“What days do you have off work?” I ask as I clean up her face. Another thing I haven’t done since she was a child.
“Monday afternoons,” she says, and then sniffs.
I hand her another tissue to blow her nose, and wait until she’s finished.
My mind flips with ideas. “Monday afternoons. Every week. We’ll meet for lunch. You love books. So, find us one on how parents and adult kids have good relationships. We’ll read it together. Discuss it. I want to understand all of it. How I made you feel. Even if it’s hard.”
The watery smile tells me it was the right suggestion. “But won’t that be hard with your dyslexia?”
“The fix shouldn’t be easy. I’ve done too much damage to get away without having to do the hard work.”
“Listening to audiobooks still counts as reading,” she says. “You’d still be doing the work.”
Even in all her complex emotions, she’s still thinking of me. I’m fucking blessed.
“Thank you,” I say. “For all of it, Em. You’ve always been the best daughter. That won’t change just because I have more children. It’s time I was the best father you deserved too.”
29
GREER
“Greer, even by your standards, that’s a lot to take in,” Wade says when I call him a couple of days later.
I wrap the thick thermal shirt of Butcher’s that I found in the wardrobe tighter around me, as the wind blows through Butcher’s porch. Thank God for the evergreen trees, like the pines, otherwise, the view of the craggy mountains would be bleak.
Butcher’s been gone all morning, and I’ve been playing around with a few ideas. This town is underserved; so are the rural communities. But it’s not that long a drive into Denver. I wondered if I could set up a medical center close to here and have a mobile unit for evening outreach programs.
And then, I wondered when I’d made my mind up and shifted my whole world view to staying here with Butcher. The realization made me want some fresh air and my friend.
“I’m not sure I’ve fully taken it in either. It sounds hokey, and very unlike me, but we have a connection.”
Wade huffs. “The two of you are having a kid together. To say you have a connection is an understatement.”
I shake my head. “Funny. But you know what I mean. Even before he left, even before we knew there was a baby, the connection was there.”
“You know, I’ve never believed in the concept of finding your person because it implies there’s only one, and we all know there isn’t. There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of people you would have enough in common with to build a perfectly great life.”
“At my brother’s funeral, the priest said, ‘What if, when you die, before you enter heaven, God shows you the very best version of yourself you could have become if you’d made different choices?’ I don’t think it was aimed at me. I think it was a well-meaning message aimed at those who came to the funeral whose mortal souls the priest felt were at risk. And you know me. Even back then, my brain struggled with what he was saying. Defined on what criteria? The money you could have made? The number of children you could have had? The number of good deeds you did? Did you cure cancer and save lives? The variables seemed too wide and varied to determine what the best version of your life could have become. But let’s say it’s true. I wonder if that video reel will contain the best person you could have ended up with. Am I foolish for even considering that person is Butcher for me?” I ask, voicing the thing that woke me up in the early hours of this morning.
There’s a long pause. “Who am I to say? You’re there. You’re getting to know Nolan and his friends. Is it a little disconcerting that his road name is Butcher? Sure. I mean, you don’t get a name like that by knitting and playing mahjong with the old ladies at the community center.”
I chuckle at that. “The very idea of Nolan doing any of that is laughable.”
“Maybe. I’m not here for all the religious hokum. So, give me your pros and cons.”
“Really?”
“Really, Greer. Go. Give me five pros about Nolan.”
I smile as I think of him, which is a sure-fire clue I’m in trouble. “He’s naturally protective. He has this old-school gentlemanly way about him. I like the way we talk together. It’s funny. Not banter. Just witty and fast. He has good friends. He makes me laugh. He makes me feel safe. And he’s…”
I can’t believe I was about to tell Wade how my views on sex and the role of it in a relationship are evolving.
“He makes me feel…things.”
Wade laughs. “Were you about to tell me he railed you good, Hansen?”
