Page 69 of Make Me Love You

She had never let the thought form words. It was never a concrete hope, just a wispy feeling, like breath on a cold morning. Eli would make it go away. She hadn’t even considered what would happen later. Hadn’t realized that after an arrest would be eight long years of prison.

Hadn’t realized that she would sever their friendship for just as long.

She buried her head in her hands. “I’m such a mess.”

“We both are. I don’t think you can watch someone you love die by inches and come away unscathed. Sometimes good people do bad things. Sometimes good people are a little bit messy. You are a good person, Emma. Your mom would be so proud of you.”

“Dad.” The word was broken, choked. “I’m not perfect.”

“I know that, honey. We never expected you to be.”

Her face crumpled. “But see, I wish you didn’t know that. I wish you thought I was perfect. You knew I wasn’t perfect because the one thing you and Mom wanted me to be was good at school, and I couldn’t do that. You were always a little bit disappointed in me, but I thought if I could be perfect at everything else, maybe you wouldn’t mind so much. When Mom was sick, I was a perfect nurse for her. I never forgot her medications, never cringed when I had to clean her up. And it seemed to me that no one cared so much about my grades, because of that. But after she died, I was such a mess. I wasn’t the perfect daughter anymore. I couldn’t tell you what I had done, that I had told a police officer you were cooking meth, because then you would know I wasn’t perfect at anything. And I couldn’t face that.”

“Emma.” He wiped at his eyes. “You’re right. We were disappointed that you weren’t a straight-A student and valedictorian and all that other stuff. It was what we expected from our child, because that’s who we were. But, Emma, honey, that’s our failing, not yours. We should never have put that expectation on you. There was never anything wrong with you. I am so grateful for everything you did for your mom, but I hate that we made you feel like you had to be perfect to make up for not getting A’s. We weren’t perfect parents, that much is clear. But, God, Emma, I love you, and so did your mom. Proud doesn’t begin to describe how I feel about you.”

“Even now?” she whispered.

“Especially now. Look at all you’ve done. Look at what you’ve built. And you did all that not because you’re following in our footsteps with school, but because you’re doing something you truly care about. Mom would be proud of you, and proud of herself, too. She always said leave it better than you found it. And she did that, didn’t she? Because she gave the world you.”

Chapter Nineteen

Ei had a feeling that hitting that little box next to Emma’s name in the voting booth was going to be the easiest decision he made all day, and not just because Mrs. Gaither saw him walking up the path to Hart’s Ridge Elementary School and took the opportunity to clobber him with her purse again.

It was because it was the right thing to do.

Making decisions was easy, as far as Eli was concerned. Living with those decisions was a lot harder. He was of the opinion that it didn’t matter how long a person pondered something, unless he could see into the future there was no way of telling how that decision was going to work out. It was better to make the decision fast, and then get on with dealing with the consequences. Which meant Eli was fast to make decisions, but slow to say it was the right one.

This time, he knew it was the right decision the way he knew the sun would rise in the east and set in the west. Emma was the best for the job. That was just a fact. And she wanted to do the job, which he knew because she had told him so with her own mouth.

That was nice for a change.

So, yes. Voting for Emma was the easiest decision he made all day. Simple, direct, black and white.

After that things got a lot murkier.

Was it the right decision to ignore Emma’s text at noon, asking if he wanted her to pick up burritos from Cesar or just order pizza for dinner, and again at three? Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

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