“Okay,” she said with a smile. “We’ll be here waiting for you.”
“I know you will.”
The Bootleg Springs Cemetery was on the outskirts of town behind a rickety old fence that had once been white. Generations of Bootleg residents had been laid to rest here. Some had grand headstones marking their resting places. Others had simple grave markers made of concrete or stone.
I walked up the path that I hadn’t set foot on since we’d buried my dad. Before he’d died, I’d come out here once in a while to lay a flower on my mom’s grave. But since Dad’s casket had been added to the family plot, I hadn’t been back.
Today I didn’t have flowers for my mama. I had a more important reason for coming.
Shoving my hands in my pockets, I stopped and stared at the names on the grave markers. Jonah Daniel Bodine. Constance Faith Bodine. Small rectangles of concrete in the grass with names and dates. That was it. That was what was left.
“I know you thought I ruined your life,” I said aloud. “Having me changed everything for you, in ways you never wanted. And I gotta say, taking it out on me, on a kid, was a shitty way to handle it. I didn’t ask to be born, and I sure as shit didn’t ask for y’all as teenage parents.”
Taking a deep breath, I paused. “I can’t stand here and say you did the best you could, because you didn’t. But I’m done being angry about it. Maybe Scarlett’s had it right all this time. Maybe it’s better to keep the good stuff in here.” I tapped my chest. “And let the bad stuff go.
“I ain’t perfect, not by a long stretch. And there’s probably a fair bit I don’t know about y’all that made you who you are. There’s a lot of both of you in me, whether I like it or not. But I’m not going to get anywhere if I stay chained to the past.
“Y’all let one turning point in your life, having me, halt everything. Full stop. Y’all never got past it. That resentment you carried colored everything you did from there on out. But hell if I haven’t been doing the same damn thing. I let the yelling and the fighting and the anger stop me in my tracks. I’ve been living there, wallowing in it, my whole life. But no more. I ain’t standing here fixin’ to forgive you for you. I’m forgiving you for me.”
I paused again, rubbing my chin, my chest blooming with emotion. I sniffed it back and cleared my throat.
“Tucked in there, among all the bullshit you put us through, was some good stuff. I can admit that now. That’s what I’m going to take with me. As for the rest, I gotta let it go. Me wishing things had been different for all of us won’t change the past. All I can do is make a better life for myself and the people around me. For my family. I’m my own man and I get to choose who I am.
“Dad, thank you for saving Callie that night. Mom, thank you for helping him. Thank you for risking yourselves to protect an innocent girl. I wish it hadn’t led to more loss and pain. But I know if you were here now, you’d be proud of her.
“You were right to hide it from me. I might have done something stupid and gone to prison for it. So Dad, you did two good things for your son. You protected me from myself. And when you saved Callie, it meant she’d be around to come home and save me. She’s the reason I’m standing here—the reason I have it in me to make peace with y’all.
“Not sure what else I have to say, except despite yourself, y’all made a bunch of damn good kids.” I chuckled, shaking my head. “Bowie is a good man, all the way down to his bones. He’s the guy I’m gonna look to when I wonder about how to be a good husband and father someday. He sets the standard.
“Jameson’s got so much hidden under that quiet demeanor. All that artistic shit ain’t just creativity. It’s goddamn love and it’s fucking beautiful to see.
“You never really knew your son, Jonah. He has your name and I’d like to think he’s a bit like the man you