Preacher looked to the windows as a tear slid down his cheek. “Your mother.”
My regret was instantaneous. I shouldn’t have brought her up. My only intention had been to stress to my father how grateful I was for him and what an amazing job he’d done, especially having to do it all as a single parent. But now, seeing him still crying over a girl who’d been too immature to take responsibility for her own actions, I hated her even more.
“Daddy, no,” I said. “Don’t get upset. Let’s talk about something else.”
Preacher’s sorrow-filled eyes found mine. “I lied to you,” he whispered.
I squinted at him. “I don’t understand. You lied to me about what?”
His eyes closed for a moment, and when they reopened—full of regret, full of guilt—my heart began to pound. All at once, I knew what he’d lied about,whomhe’d lied about.
“Your mother,” he croaked. “I lied about your mother. She wasn’t no junkie. Her name wasn’t Deborah… and she loved the hell outta you. Loved us both…”
I pulled my hand out from under his and took a small step backward, suddenly breathless. “What?” I whispered, my voice shaking.
“I didn’t lie about everything,” Preacher said. “She was a runaway. That much was true.”
He turned away, his gaze on the window once again. As he stared, looking off into the distance, more tears rolled down his cheeks. And as the minutes continued to tick by, I could only assume the worst.
“Did she die?” I heard myself ask.
He turned back to me, his expression conflicted.
“I gotta start at the beginning. Lemme start at the beginning, baby girl. Lemme tell you the whole damn story.”
Wrapping my arms around my middle, I glanced wildly around the room, not really looking at anything and unsure if I wanted to hear this or not. Yet I couldn’t deny the hundreds of questions that I found myself wanting to ask, or the sudden desperate need to know the truth about my mother. Starting with, why the hell had my father lied to me?
Blowing out a breath, willing my emotions to stay in check, I forced myself to take a seat at the edge of Preacher’s bed. Our eyes locked. “Okay, Daddy. Let’s hear it.”
Closing his eyes, he let out a hoarse sigh. “I’d gotten locked up at twenty-two, did two years for possession. I’d only been out a couple of months when I met her…” He chuckled softly. “When she tried to steal my wallet,” he added.
“Pretty little thing,” he continued. “Long brown hair and damn big eyes.” His eyes opened and focused on me. “Lookin’ just like your eyes, Eva, ’cept hers were brown. Fact, you got a lot of her in you, only you got some of your grandma, too.”
As he continued describing her, I found my own eyes closing as I tried to picture her. Trying to picture… my God…my mother.
Part One
“I’ve never particularly liked the idea of looking back;
I’d rather look forward.”
- Jane Asher
“At the end, we should all go back to the beginning,
if only to remind ourselves that we once lived.”
- Damon “Preacher” Fox
Chapter 1
Back to the beginning
It was his last day.
Two long years he’d spent reading more books than he could count, pacing in his six by eight cell, wearing the same gray shirt-and-pants uniform, day in and day out.
Two years of eating shit food, having his every move monitored, forced to defend his right to simply exist.
