Page 23 of A SEAL’s Vigilant Heart

“You can barely see her she’s so covered up. And look at those suits. Mason is wearing his uniform right?” Sophia’s heart skipped. The idea of seeing Mason in his dress whites took her breath away every time. “Earth to Sophia.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” Billy was taking the next couple of things out of the box and carefully opening them. They were obviously pictures. “This is the one of all of us at the Grand Canyon. I’m surprised Mom kept it.”

“She kept everything with the two of us in it. It didn’t matter if Dad was in the picture or not.” Sophia traced her finger over her mom’s face. She looked so vibrant in the photo. They got their smile from their mom. She took a deep breath.

“I think this box is nothing but pictures. Right?” Billy asked.

“Yep.”

“Hey look, there are two photo albums.”

“I completely forgot about those. Mom made those for us when she was getting sick at the end.”

“How could you forget? That doesn’t make any sense.” Billy shot her an almost accusing glance.

“I never told you how bad it got, are you sure you want to know? I guess if you look at your album, you’ll know.” Sophia let out a sigh. “Mom’s cancer went from her lungs to her brain. She had a lot of trouble remembering things. Doing things for herself.” Fuck, she didn’t want to tell Billy this, but he was already opening up the photo album that had his name on the front.

“Sophia, everything is crooked. It looks like a little kid put this together.” She watched as he turned the pages.

“It was the best she could do, Billy.”

“She put in every one of my class pictures, and they aren’t even in order. Her handwriting is so hard to read. Words are misspelled.”

As he turned another page, an envelope fluttered to the floor. It wasn’t sealed, and it had his name written on it. Even that was hard to read.

“Soph?”

“I didn’t know anything about this, Billy. If I had, I would have given it to you two years ago, I swear.”

He opened it, there was one lined sheet of paper. The words didn’t even manage to stay between the lines. Sophia read over Billy’s shoulder. There wasn’t much. Caroline Anderson was confused about the age of her son, that was clear, she wrote to him as if he were still in first or second grade.

She told him how much she loved him and how proud she was of him.

I wish I could have held you in my arms one last time. You and your sister were the two best things I ever did in my life. I know you’ll grow up to be a man I’ll be proud of. I wish I could be there to see you grow up. I want you to live a full and happy life. Find love, Billy. All the rest doesn’t matter, as long as you are happy and find someone who you love and loves you.

“I wish I could have been there with you both. I wish they hadn’t taken me away.” Sophia was thankful they had, this way Billy had only good memories of their mother.

“How bad was it? How long did you have to deal with her like this, Soph?” he asked, pointing to the disorganized photo album.

“Not long.”

“How long?” Billy wouldn’t be put off.

“Probably three months.”

He shoved his album aside and pulled her in for a hard hug. “Sophia, how did you manage to cope? She was so lucky to have you.” Then he started to cry, and she held her brother, who really was still a boy no matter how big his body might have gotten. He was still only fourteen.

Finally, he calmed and gave an embarrassed laugh. “Let’s open your album and see if you got a letter.”

“Billy, is it okay if I read mine in private?” He gave her an assessing look and then hugged her.

“Sophia, whatever you need. What about the other box?”

“Can we get to it later? Maybe tomorrow, okay? I feel like baking.”

“Want some help?”

“You’d still do that? I thought you were getting to old for baking with your sister.”

“Not if I could get some chocolate chip cookies,” Billy said with a grin. They got up off the floor. Billy picked up three different photos, two he put on the mantle and one he put on the side table beside a grouping of other pictures. Sophia left her photo album on the coffee table, excited at the prospect of baking with Billy. It had been a long time since he had wanted to do that with her.