Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 28678 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 143(@200wpm)___ 115(@250wpm)___ 96(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28678 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 143(@200wpm)___ 115(@250wpm)___ 96(@300wpm)
I clear my throat and figure maybe I should make more of an effort to get her talking. “How’s your mom doing?”
She doesn’t look up from the notebook. She doesn’t even stop the pen from moving. “I don’t know.”
“You haven’t heard from her in a couple of days?” Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen Sierra with a phone. It seems weird that she doesn’t have one. Even I own a cellphone despite my anti-social tendencies.
“I haven’t heard from her in a couple of years,” she answers. She pauses when Haley delivers the sweet treats, thanking the woman. She waits until she’s gone to clarify. “Got a postcard from Tucson about three years ago. Maybe she’s still there.”
“Fuck, I didn’t know.” Shame and guilt eat at me. I promised Parker to look out for his little girl and I’ve done a piss-poor job of it. The knowledge has bile rising up in the back of my throat. I couldn’t protect my wife and son. Now I see I didn’t protect Sierra either.
She nibbles a cookie and shrugs like it’s not a big deal.
“So, you’ve been in the system then?” I can’t help wondering if that has something to do with why she’s running. She would have aged out at eighteen. Maybe she found herself in a bad situation while she was trying to get on her feet. God knows most foster kids are out on their ass without a hand to help them the moment they’re legal adults. The system needs to do better by them. Hell, we as a society need to do better by them.
I wish she has grandparents that I could introduce her to, but Daphne’s parents passed away a few years back and Parker lost both of his when he was just in high school. She has no one. She’s completely alone in the world, just like me.
She doesn’t answer. She goes back to jotting down her notes. She pauses to sketch the layout of the bakery. “This will definitely be an important part of the tourism website. Eateries are essential, you know?”
I decide to take a different tactic. “Is this what you want to do with your life?”
“You don’t have to pretend you care now that you know my mom is a no-show.” She nods at the drawing, obviously pleased with her work before she flips the notebook closed and returns it to her backpack.
“Dammit, Sierra,” I hiss out a breath. I’m trying to help her, and she’s determined to push me away. Why did she come to me? She obviously wants something from me, and it has nothing to do with a fuckin’ tourism website.
Her gaze flickers to mine. She got his nose but not his eyes. “What do you remember about my dad?”
I lean back in my chair and try to gather my thoughts, but she continues before I can say anything. “I remember less and less about him with each passing year. I’m starting to think he was just this figure I imagined. But then every now and again, I’ll catch a scent on the breeze that reminds me of him, or I’ll hear someone laugh just like him in a video I’m watching.”
The hardest part of grief isn’t just losing someone you love. It’s losing the pieces of them, forgetting the tiny details as time goes on. Sometimes, that’s more painful than losing them in the first place. It’s a million tiny deaths that no one ever sits and grieves with you.
I wish I knew what to say to comfort her. I wish I had something magical I could tell her that would soothe the ache in her heart. “Your dad was a practical joker. He always found a way to make me laugh. He was over the moon when he found out your mom was pregnant. You’d think he won the lottery that day.”
She leans forward, lapping up every detail. “Even though they were in high school?”
It would have scared the shit out of me. I waited to get married and have a child. But not Parker. He dived into the whole family thing with both feet. “He was in love with your mom and looked forward to being a father. I’d often find him after missions, just staring at the latest pictures of you.”
“He liked me?” She asks softly and there’s so much hope in her expression. I see a girl that wasn’t well loved who grew into a woman that doesn’t know her worth. The thought steals the breath from my lungs and leaves me aching for her.
“He adored you,” I tell her, my own voice hoarse. This conversation is leaving me raw in all the wrong ways but there are things I want her to understand. Things her father would want her to understand. “The hardest part of being a soldier isn’t the dangerous missions or the rough conditions you find yourself serving under. It’s not being there for your kids. It’s knowing that you’re missing ballet recitals and little League games and school plays and hoping like hell that one day they understand why you did it.”