Gladys touched my arm, trying to coax my attention, but I ignored her. “Love your kids without end. And if you’re given a chance to raise them once more, then protect them. Even if it means protecting them from yourselves.”
My chest heaved, the regret and pain I harbored nearly splintering me apart at the seams. “Be better than me and give your kids much more than I gave my boy.”
My son had deserved the world.
I’d given him hell instead.
If only I could go back…
A boulder formed in my throat as I met Gladys’s gaze. “James,” she whispered, her weathered hands shaking the slightest bit. “Forgive yourself.”
My eyes slid closed.
Shaking my head, I shoved my keys back into my pocket before looking her way one last time. “I don’t deserve forgiveness.” And I didn’t. Not from my son or myself. “I’ll never ask for it either. As far as I’m concerned, my soul is already condemned.”
It was the truth.
I’d been given the greatest gift a person could ever receive, and I’d pissed it all away. I’d wasted years, over a decade, drowning my sorrows when I should’ve been basking in all that life had given me, instead of focusing on what it had taken.
“Not true. Everyone deserves a second—”
Holding my hands up, palm out, I took a step back. “I’ll see you next week, Mrs. Gladys.”
Without waiting for her to reply, I faced the crowd. “Do better before it’s too late,” I said, willing them to listen. “If you don’t”—I swallowed—“then you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting every beautiful thing that you single-handedly destroyed. Trust me,” I whispered, giving them all my back, “I know.”
My head was pounding.
Seated on the concrete steps in front of the community center, I stared at the empty street before me, elbows resting on my thighs. Blood pressure climbing, my temples throbbed. “Jesus Christ,” I mumbled, running my sweat-slicked palms down the sides of my face. “If I don’t calm down, I’m going to have a stroke.”
“You better calm down then,” a familiar voice said, penetrating the fog of misery that threatened to descend over me. “Don’t know about anybody else, but I’m not in the mood to be planning or attending your funeral.”
Shoulders tensed, I jerked my head up.
Wide-eyed gaze landing on the last person I expected to see, my heart began to race for a different reason than before. And it did so because standing at the bottom of the steps, less than twenty feet away, was my boy.
My son.
“Hendrix…” Needing to pull my shit together before he bolted, I sat straight and cleared my dry throat. “Guess I won’t die then. Wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.”
My oldest kid, smartass that he was, smirked.
Lifting my chin, I looked from his face—a younger version of my own—to the plastic bag dangling from his fingertips. “You pick up something to eat?”
He shook his head. “Nah. Morning sickness is kicking Maddie’s ass, so I ran out to pick her up some Gatorade. She can’t keep much down, but I’m hoping I can get a few sips of this in her.”
The smile I wore fell.
I’d known Maddie, Hendrix’s fiancée since she was seven years old, and even though I’d done a shit job of showing it, I loved her to pieces. Hearing that she was having such a hard time riled me right up.
“You buy her any Popsicles?”
“No.” My kid’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“They should be easier for her to keep down than regular liquids. It’s what I used to give you when you were sick to keep you from getting dehydrated.”
But only when I was sober enough to function.
Sliding my hands into my pockets, I descended the steps, coming to a stop in front of him and nodded toward the drugstore across the street. “Want me to go pick up a box or two? I can drop them off at your apartment on my way home.”
It was a bold offer to make considering the amount of distrust and resentment that still existed between my son and me, but I prayed like hell that he’d let me help Maddie, and by extension, him.
It was the least I could do.
“Yeah, Pop.” His quick answer surprised me. “Swing by anytime you want.”
At his words, I swayed the slightest bit.
There was no way for my son to know just how much those words meant to me, but it was more than most anything in the world could. Close to choking up, I tore my eyes from his. “I’ll be there in a few minutes then. You need a ride back?”
I hadn’t been paying much attention, but I hadn’t seen his truck close by when I first burst through the center’s exit, my lungs screaming for fresh air.
If I had, I would’ve looked for him.
“Nah, the truck is parked around the corner. I ran into the florist shop to grab my girl some flowers before walking up here.”
I smiled like a loon.
Thanks to my bullshit, the odds had been stacked against Hendrix from the beginning, but I had zero doubt that my kid would be a good husband one day.
Hell, he already was.
It didn’t matter if he and Maddie weren’t legally married yet, they’d loved each other since the third grade. Far as I was concerned, they were already hitched, something I’d never be again.
Thanks to the life I’d lived, I would never know the love of a good woman, something my ex sure as hell wasn’t. The first time I hit my son in a drunken rage, destroying his childhood, I’d thrown any chance I had of happily ever after right out the window.
For what I’d done, I deserved to die alone.
Not to mention, miserable.
“You’re a good kid, Hendrix,” I whispered, proud as could be of the man he’d grown to be. “You always have been.”
His eyes dropped to the ground as memories—all of them bad—bombarded him, one after the
