I yawned, my eyelids fluttered closed. “Is tomorrow afternoon alright?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Good.” I smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you then. Have a good evening, Evelyn.” He hung up.
I wasn’t sure if it was the lack of sleep last night or the emotional whiplash from the past few months, but I was exhausted. My breathing evened, and I drifted off to a dreamless sleep—not even my nerves over meeting with Flynn or the eerie feeling in the back of my mind could stop me.
I found Ma knitting on the couch in the living room. She seemed deep in thought as I sat down on the couch next to her. I hadn’t been fair to her. The resentment I’d held all these years toward her was unwarranted. It wasn’t her fault that my father had turned so fucking bitter. At least now I knew the reason behind it.
“I’m sorry.” My voice made her jump, and she put her hand to her heart frantically.
She shook her head as she took a few deep breaths. “Oh, Flynn! You scared the bejeezus out of me! What’re ya sorry for?”
She was a good woman. My heart ached for keeping her at arms length for so long. “I shouldn’t have been so distant with you after I left. And about the letters, you were right. Evelyn deserves to read them. She has read them, all but one. And it’s about how this happened.” I gestured to my leg.
Tears swam in her gray eyes as her chin dimpled. “Oh, honey. I know. It’s okay.”
“But it’s not okay. You’re my mom. I do appreciate you. I don’t want you to think otherwise.” I bounced my thumbs together.
She sat her knitting stuff on the other side of her before pulling me into a hug. Her arms were trembling as she held me. It was oddly comforting. I hadn’t hugged my mother in years. I wrapped my arms around her and heard a small gasp before her grip on me tightened. “It’s okay, son. You’ll always be my sweet child.”
I pulled away and she folded her hands in her lap with a smile. “Are you alright now?”
I nodded. “I’m fine.” I didn’t know how much I needed my mother. She’d provided a sense of comfort I didn’t know I’d been seeking.
“So, what did Evelyn think of the letters?” she asked, her eyes twinkling. The woman was God Sent, but she was still a gossip.
I rolled my eyes. “She wants to meet me tomorrow afternoon at her place.”
A knowing smile played on her lips as she grabbed her knitting tools and went back to knitting. “She’s a good girl. You two have always been made for one another. A mother knows these things.”
“We’ll see, Ma. But, what if she can’t see past my past?”
“Oh, she will.”
I hoped she was right. I knew it was fucked up to hope for it, after leaving her the way I did. But fuck, I needed it. I needed Evelyn as much as I did when I left—more so now than ever before.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out to glance at the screen before getting up and going upstairs to answer it.
“Hey, Oliver. What’s up? Haven't heard from you in a while.” I sat on my bed as I answered the phone.
I heard a deep breath before he started talking a mile a minute. “Man, I don’t fucking know anymore. There’s this emptiness in my heart. It’s a heaviness, like everything is resting on me. It’s like something’s eating me from the inside. Every day I plaster a fake smile on my face and act like I’m fine for Millie and our girl, but I’m dead inside. How the fuck—”
I swallowed the pain in my throat. I could relate, but he was fucking drowning himself. “Oliver, man. Hold on. What happened? I thought you were happy to be home?”
“I was. I mean, I used to be happy about it. Still am, but fuck. Remember that night in Iran, mid-August?”
I squeezed my eyes, willing away the flashbacks that blasted into me full-force. The deafening sound of the gunshots, smell of gunpowder, and their faces flashed in my mind.
“I keep telling myself the bullet did it. The bullet killed them. But I know that I was the one that pulled the fucking trigger. Why did they have to pull a gun on us?”
I buried my hands in my hair. “I don’t know, Oliver. But if you hadn’t shot first, we’d be dead.”
“Yeah. I keep telling myself that, but what if we could’ve neutralized them without killing them?”
“That couple was dead set on killing us. They were prepared to take out our whole squad. You saved us.”
