“Heard you had a daughter. About the age of mine, sixteen?”
She didn’t know. He glanced at her and then shook his head. “Not anymore,” he said through a tight throat.
It had been two years, and he still couldn’t talk about it. Still hadn’t really processed it, and that was why his department head at the college had teamed up with someone from HR to find this program for him. It was his last chance to heal before he’d lose his job that he’d gotten worse and worse at.
He’d agreed to do the program despite its location, because Mama was gone and his father had moved away. He wanted to heal for the sake of his students who’d come to be his whole world.
But those of his students who’d gotten too close had seen the ugly, damaged side of him, had scraped his emotions raw. He couldn’t let that happen again. Couldn’t let anyone get too close.
He had to make sure that these people who’d known him in younger days didn’t worm their way into his heart.
“What happened to her?” Bisky asked quietly.
He’d dodged that question a million times, but for some reason, he couldn’t dodge it when it came from Bisky. He cleared his throat, hard. “She was shot by an intruder who broke in to steal a TV. She was taking a nap and surprised him, from what the police could figure out.”
Bisky’s face contorted with horror she didn’t try to hide. “You poor, poor man,” she said, tears in her voice and eyes.
“Don’t feel for me. Feel for her.” He didn’t deserve the sympathy of Bisky or anyone.
She ignored that. “As a mother, I can only imagine... Oh, William.” She leaned close and hugged him again.
Maybe it was because of the familiar, salty smell of her, or the fact that she knew him from childhood, but something broke off inside William then, a tiny piece of his grief. His throat ached and tears rose to his eyes, even though he tensed all his muscles trying to hold them back.
“You can cry in front of me,” she said, patting his back as if he were the child. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
She was right about that. He remembered, then, the rabbit he’d kept as a pet, what his father had done to it and how he’d beaten William for crying. William must have been seven or eight, and he’d run to his best friend for comfort. She’d hugged him and cried with him then, just like now.
He pulled out his bandanna, wiped his eyes and blew his nose. Then he smiled at her, a real if watery smile. “Thanks. I guess I needed that,” he said.
“You’re here for the Victory Cottage program.” It wasn’t a question.
He nodded. “The woman who runs it wanted to seek out people who had a connection with this place. I’m the perfect candidate according to her.” He quirked his mouth to show Bisky he didn’t think he was perfect at anything.
“You are,” she said thoughtfully. “There are plenty of people who’ll be glad to see you.”
“That I doubt,” he said. “My family wasn’t the most popular.”
“No, but most folks knew you were cut from a different cloth. Come inside.” She gestured toward the house across the road, where her family had always lived. “I’ll make pancakes and coffee. Sunny could use a meal, and I could, too.”
The thought of sitting around the table with Bisky and her daughter—her alive and healthy daughter—tightened a vise around William’s insides. “Thanks for the invitation,” he said, “but I won’t be able to. I need to get going.” He ignored the puzzlement in Bisky’s eyes as he turned and strode away.
He couldn’t let himself get that close, feel that much.
Don’t miss the continuation of Lee Tobin McClain’s
The Off Season miniseries, coming soon!
Copyright 2020 by Lee Tobin McClain
ISBN-13: 9781488068904
Christmas on the Coast
Copyright © 2020 by Lee Tobin McClain
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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