“Can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course.” I was his wife, and wives always kept their husband’s secrets.
“I think my dad is lying to me. Micha too.”
My nose crinkled. “About what?”
“Member when my mom died and I was in the hospital?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
That was last year. My dad said Mason’s mom did it to herself ‘cause she was crazy. All I knew was that Mason missed her and he cried lots. If I could’ve brought her back for him, I would’ve.
“I remember things.” He dropped his head back on the wall and stared out the tower window. “Things like Micha yelling for me to wake up, and Mom singing while water rushed in. I think we were in the car with her?”
“You mean when she…” I didn’t want to say it, so I looked to the side and swung my hand out.
Mason nodded.
That didn’t make sense. If Mason and his brother were in the car, then how come they got out and their mom didn’t? Then again, they were in the hospital for a couple days and no one would tell me why. Even Mason didn’t know why he was there. Maybe he was in the car?
Mason sniffed back a sob, but I could see the tears in his eyes. “Do you think if my mom tried to hurt me, that she still loves me?”
“Yeah.” Mother’s always loved their kids. “Sometimes grown ups do dumb things.”
Trying to hurt your son was a really dumb thing.
“Your parents don’t hurt you,” he argued.
Daddy spanked me sometimes when I was bad, but that was punishment. He didn’t hurt me.
“No,” I said, “but they fight lots.” I always heard them yelling. “And they still love each other.”
Sean didn’t think so. He said Momma and Daddy were going to get a divorce, but they still slept in the same bed. And you didn’t sleep next to someone you didn’t love. That’s why when we had campouts I slept beside Mason.
“But they don’t hurt each other,” Mason argued.
He had a point. I looked up at the roof and said, “Maybe she just didn’t want to leave you here without her?”
“You won’t leave me, right?”
I puffed my chest out and shook my head. “Nope. Never.”
His eyes narrowed. “What if your dad tells you to? Or your brother?”
“Then I’ll run away,” I stated confidently. “I don’t need them, ‘cause I have you and you’ll protect me from anything…”
I stumbledback and fell down to my knees. That drawing taunted me with the words of the little girl who made it.
‘You’ll protect me from anything.’
Mason trusted me with his secret. He had no problem confiding in me. And when it came time for me to be put to the test, I failed. He was the one person I needed, the one person I tried to say something to. Even if it was in a cryptic drawing, I came here. To him. And when he came to me with questions, I blew him off.
All because I believed I was protecting him. At the time it made sense. Mason was a little boy. But did it make sense anymore? Or was I just scared that if he found out the truth, he’d hate me more.
They’d all hate me.
I wasthat annoying kid that woke up at the crack of dawn ready to take on the world. I’d come flying out of my room and jump on my parents’ bed. The sooner they woke up, the quicker I’d get to see her. Harper was the reason I started my day, and the person I dreamt about when I closed my eyes at night.
