Page 53 of Long Past Dawn
I probably knew what I was looking for if I wanted to admit it to myself. I was looking for peace. I hadn’t had peace in twenty years. That letter and the man behind it didn’t offer me peace. All that letter did was create more turmoil and pain. No matter how hard I tried, I was on a slippery slope, and I still hadn’t found a foothold to grab.
I turned my face to the sky.What do I do now, momma?
I waded into the water to let the cold waves lap over my feet. Momma always told me I should look for her in the birds as they flew in the sky and the water as it rippled over my toes. I walked into the water until it touched my knees. The cold, stark reality of Lake Superior gripped my calves and turned them numb almost immediately. It only took a few more steps before I was up to my hips. My hands balanced on the water, the waves tippling over my fingers as the sun shone down on me. It was beautiful. The water was peaceful. It would be more peaceful under the water, I bet. There, no one would demand anything of me. No one would expect from me the things I couldn’t give them. Under the water was where momma lived. She lived in a place that was peaceful and full of promise.
“Beau!”
“Momma?” I asked the air as I lowered myself to my chest.
“Beau! Stop!” the voice called again, closer this time.
It was Dawn.
“Go home, Dawn Lee,” I yelled without turning. “You don’t want any part of this!”
“You’re wrong,” she yelled back. “I want every part of this. I read the letter, Beau. Come back to the beach and talk to me.”
I shook my head, my hands bobbing in the water. “I’m where I need to be, Dawn. You don’t need to be here. You’re interrupting my search for peace. I don’t want you here.”
“You’re not going to find peace under that water, Beauregard Theodore Hanson. Turn around and come back to me. We can talk this out. We can find a way through it.”
“Leave me the hell alone, Dawn! I didn’t ask for your help!” I yelled, anger bubbling up inside me. “Go home to Heavenly Lane and forget that you ever met me. You’re far better off that way. Everyone is!”
“You’re wrong,” she said from behind me. Dawn was closer now, and I scrunched my eyes shut to keep from turning around. “Blaze is holding Heaven, trying to offer her comfort as she cries tears of worry. Cece and Amity are cooking aimlessly to have something to do while they wait for us to find you. Tex is riding the ridges, fixing holes in the fences, and taking care of the animals because he knows you’d do the same for him. Ash is standing on this beach, ready to pull your crazy cowboy butt out of the water if he must. No one, most especially me, is better off without you, Beau McAwley.”
“Hanson. It’s Beau Hanson! Hell, if you read that letter, it’s Beau Pollard, bastard son of a murderer!”
“No. You’re Beau Hanson by birth, but you are Beau McAwley. That is the man you are in your heart,” she said from behind me.
When I spun to face her, she was up to her waist in the frigid water. One strong wave was going to drag her under and out into the lake. I didn’t even care. I warned her to walk away. Instead, she walked in. That wasn’t on me. That was on her.
Think about that, son. Instead of walking away, she walked in. What does that tell you?
I glanced up at the sky, looking for the voice but finding nothing but puffy, white clouds. “Dawn, go home. Go home before you get hurt, or this water freezes up your joints. I didn’t ask for your help, and I don’t want it.”
Dawn swung her head back and forth, her hair blowing in the breeze. “You didn’t ask for my help, and that’s the problem, Beau. When you read that letter, you should have run to me, not away from me. You promised me you would always run to me. We could have talked about it together instead of you risking your life out here.”
“Can’t a man just be alone?” I exploded, throwing my arms up into the air. “I just want to be alone.”
“A man can be alone when he needs to be,” she agreed, without wavering. “But that is not what you need right now. Right now, you need your family. You need to be surrounded by people who love you. You need to be surrounded by people who know who you are, even when you don’t!”
She’s right, son. They all know who you are. You might think you don’t know who you are, but you do. Listen to her. Listen to me. Listen to the water and the birds. You are my son. You are the adopted son of Amity and Ash. You are no one else’s son.
My eyes closed, and I inhaled deeply through my nostrils at the voice. “I’m no good for you, Dawn,” I said, opening my eyes to find her gaze trained on me. “I’m just like him!”
Dawn rolled her eyes. She just stood in the middle of such a powerful force of nature like Lake Superior and rolled her eyes. That gave me pause.
“By him, I assume you mean the man claiming to be your father in that letter?” she asked. “I say assume because you don’t know that he is. Even if he is, who cares. It’s not going to matter in another few weeks when he leaves this earth. You matter. What you do matters.”
“And the first thing I thought to do when I read that letter was fly to Dallas and kill him! I wanted to kill him with my own hands just like he did my mother!” My anger made me shake more than the cold water. I was numb to everything but the truth. “I’m just as evil as the man who made me, Dawn. You don’t want me in your life. I will ruin and tarnish the beauty that you are. You can’t trust me that way. I could hurt you without even thinking about it.”
“No!” she exclaimed, her body shaking. Whether it was with anger or cold, I couldn’t say, but her fierceness hushed me instantly. “You would never hurt me, Beau. That is one thing I know for absolute sure.” She’d stuck her finger in my chest, but after I blinked, she had disappeared.
“Dawn!” I screamed, searching for her under the water, the numbness in my fingers and legs making it harder than it should have been to grasp her coat when I brushed against it. I hauled her up and into my arms, struggling through the waves to get her onto the beach. “Daddy!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. The massive body of water stole the word, so I screamed again. “Daddy!”
Ash snapped to attention finally and started running toward me.
“You’re right. He is your daddy,” Dawn said, wrapping her arms around my neck while her teeth chattered. “That man is your father. No one else, Beau Hanson McAwley.”
