Nero gives a chirpy little meow before he hops down from my lap to slink his way to a sunny spot on the porch. Nan appears again with two cups of her chilled sweet tea on ice.
I take one. “Thank you.”
Nan settles in her chair, bobbing one bare foot as she sips her tea. “Brandy was in a few days ago. Said Martin was getting low on that red currant jam he loves.” She eyes me over the rim of her glass with those unique dark blue eyes of hers. “I think she came in to tell me about you and that man. The man who’sstirring all kinds of emotions in Sunset Falls.” She chuckles, soft and low. “I’ve heard a bit about him. Some good, some bad.”
“Mom always did like to run her tongue to you.”
Nan chuckles, but there’s a deep sadness to the current of it where faraway memories lurk under the surface. “Got her and Willow into trouble more times than not, that’s for sure.”
Willow was Nan’s daughter, Dakota’s mother, and Mom’s soul sister. Mom and Willow were close. Sister close. Willow had been an aunt to me, even though there was no blood relation between Mom and Willow. They are family and our binds are strong.
“Used to drive Willow crazy.”
Nan’s smile is sad even as it’s filled with the joy of memories, bittersweet now as they’re tainted by death. “That it did.”
There’s a beat of silence. A moment of quiet as we remember.
A warm breeze floats over the porch, a gentle kiss of spirit, Nan would say. I take a sip of my tea. “He’s not a bad man, Nan.”
“No one is wholly good or bad.” Nan’s loose silver braid falls over her shoulder as she leans forward to give Nero a scratch. “People are a funny bunch, but I believe the majority are driven by good intentions. By cravings for connection and belonging. For purpose.”
I love Nan’s perspectives on life, a blend of cultures married long ago when her Caucasian mother fell inlove with her Syilx father. I could listen to this woman speak endlessly. She’s the most beautiful person I know, inside and out. One day, I want to be just like her.
“I know bad, Nan,” I tell her quietly.
Her unique eyes lift to mine, but she says nothing as she waits.
I pull in breath, sip my tea for courage, and tell her what I’ve not told a soul. “Michael was a bad man.”
There’s a tightness to her face that tells me she knew this. I see myself in my mind, a memory playing like a video on screen, as Nan walked me to Michael’s car after dinner with my family. She’d pulled me in tight, her hand curling around the back of my head as it had since I was a child. She’d hugged me.
She’d whispered in my ear,“Careful with your heart, child.”
My voice lowers. “You already knew that, didn’t you?”
Nan’s eyes drift over the land, seeing what so many don’t. “Michael felt inauthentic to me. His eyes—there was something I did not like when he looked at you. But no, I didn’t know he wasbad. At least, I didn’t know until you came home.” Her eyes come back to mine. “Will you tell me what he did to you, my girl?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know how.”
“You just speak, child.”
It’s my turn to look away. There’s a salty burn in my eyes as I watch sunlight spill through branches,dancing in a shimmer of gold on a dusty land. “I’m so ashamed.”
Nan pulls in a deep breath that she looses on a heavy sigh. “It’s never failed to shock me how we’ve fallen into this trap as a society. That the wronged is the one to feel shame. The abused the one to suffer the sting of dishonour. The victim the one to wither under the weight of humiliation. That is the true disgrace. That is when the wrong wins.” Nan’s hand curls around my own. “We cannot allow the wrong to win.”
“I let him make a fool of me.”
“He took advantage of your love. You did notlethim do anything to you, Lilah Bellamy.” Nan purses her lips, her smooth, warm skin wrinkling just a little. “I was lucky to have loved my husband and be loved by him for the whole of his life. But I’ve watched more than one soul crumble to rubble under the weight of shame. I won’t watch you crumble, Lilah, you hear? You’re too strong. Too good to let him win.”
“I just don’t know if I can trust again, Nan.”
There’s silence. Then Nan and her wisdom speak. “There is pain in life, but that does not mean that life is not worth living. I have suffered the greatest pain there is to suffer in this life. I’ve suffered the loss of my child. My beautiful baby girl and the love of her life, there and gone in a heartbeat. And not a month later, God saw fit to take my husband, too. He left me with a young boy to raise alone in my grief. A boy who would leave me to live with you?—”
“Nan—”
She holds up her thin hand. “He was always meant to leave me, my girl. I was not what he needed when he needed it, my grief too deep. Your family was always Kota’s family, and for that I will forever be grateful. What I am trying to tell you, Lilah, is that life is rich with pain. But if I could go back and choose to live a life with no pain, I would need to choose to live a life absent of love. Do you understand what I am saying to you?”
“You wouldn’t take back loving them all—even knowing you’d lose them.”
