His expressions tended toward stoicism. But there was always a world of feeling in his eyes.
“Do what?”
“Turn out so…good. Most kids who grow up like you did end up behind bars or”—she had to stop and swallow—“worse.”
“Dunno.” He shrugged with his eyebrows. “Guess I just don’t have the heart for crime.”
It was more than that, though. So much more.
Where others offered judgment, Hew offered grace. Where others gave up, he stood firm.
He didn’t deny the dark side of life. He’d lived it. Been born in it. Been raised in it.
And still…still he’d chosen the light.
He was…incandescent, she supposed was the word. And she’d spent months warming her frozen soul beside his glow. Looking for it when she felt herself getting lost in the deep black shadows of her own trauma and grief.
Now, she swallowed thickly and turned back to the fluffy white clouds. She couldn’t continue to look at him, to see all the hurt and the horror that hid in the shadows of his eyes. It hurt her too much, and she knew he’d stop and comfort her if he understood how close she was to breaking down into a ball of tears and chest-heaving sobs.
And this wasn’t about her.
It was about him.
“Didn’t you have grandparents who could raise you?” she asked, hoping he couldn’t hear the huskiness in her voice as she battled the lump in her throat.
“Ayuh.” His accent deepened. “Mom’s folks took me in at first. But my gramps died of an aneurysm when I was about eighteen months old. Gran followed not long after of a broken heart.”
She slid him a quick look and caught one corner of his mouth twitching.
“At least that’s how my five-year-old self remembers the story my social worker told me when I asked her,” he explained. “I suspect the truth is, Gran died of a heart attack.”
So much death. So much upheaval before he’d even been old enough to learn his ABCs.
“I wish I remembered them.” He sighed. “I have some stuff I found online. Obits from the newspapers and such. And about ten years back, I called my parents’ old high school. Asked to have a copy of their senior yearbook shipped my way. I love lookin’ at their pictures. They were nothin’ but babies themselves. Far too young to be bringin’ a baby into the world. But, even still, I like to think I was made in love.”
“You were,” she assured him. “Your mother kept you despite her tender age, and your father was found shielding her in the end. That tells me everything I need to know about them. They loved each other, and they wanted you.”
It sounded sticky when he swallowed. “I took a lot of comfort in that when I was a kid.”
She suspected he took a lot of comfort in that still. But she didn’t say as much.
Instead, she asked, “What about your dad’s parents? Why didn’t they take you in after your mom’s folks died?”
“My dad’s ma couldn’t handle the loss of him, apparently. Went to the grave six months after buryin’ her baby boy. His dad hit the bottle hard after losin’ both of ’em. Wasn’t fit to take in a puppy, never mind a toddler.”
“Jesus,” she whispered.
“Not exactly a Shakespearean comedy, huh?”
“What were their names? Your parents, I mean.”
“He was Thomas Birch. And she was Natasha Smith. Although the yearbook lists them as Tommy and Tasha.”
“Tommy and Tasha,” she repeated reverently. Together they’d made the most beautiful man she’d ever known. “Will you show me their pictures when we get home?”
“Ayuh. If ya want me to.”
“I want you to.”
