Preacher's Daughter - Flora Ferrari Page 0,31
make you this way? We were doing great. Right up until-”
“I trust you, Noah. I really do, but…” she starts to say.
And I get it, a flood of memories and emotions grips me. Maybe she knows, somehow.
I don’t know how though.
I’ve spent a lifetime trying to forget. I paid for what I did.
Spotting a rest stop, I pull over.
If Faith Holding is gonna have Noah Templeton and all his demons, she may as well be introduced.
I should’ve told her, but how? And why on earth would I bring up the past. It’s not the kind of conversation that excites romance.
I notice Faith looking behind us still as I pull off the highway, sure she has her own secrets too.
Everybody does.
“Faith, ever since the hotel you’ve been looking over our shoulder like you expect something or someone to be following us,” I observe.
“I don’t want any secrets between us, but I don’t see either how something that happened before you were even born could make you so jumpy, without me even telling you either,” I continue, noticing her confused look as she tries hard not to look around behind the truck again.
“I don’t know what you mean...” she starts to say, but my look says it all.
“You first then” I demand. “What’s gone and got you so spooked? Tell me, Faith and I’ll tell you about the ghosts that follow me,” I tell her, calmer, almost relieved I’m halfway to telling her already.
“You first,” she blurts out, looking more worried than ever suddenly.
I’ve never been one to beat around the bush so much, but with Faith, I really do want things to be just perfect, like her. And it pains me to see her worried about something I’m sure is in her imagination.
“Not a lot to tell,” I begin. “Like I said, I never had a real family. The earliest memory I have is being in state care.”
I notice Faith’s look soften. The look.
I always get it as soon as I mention my childhood to anyone, which is why I rarely do anymore.
“Anyways, I grew up like most other kids just without the regular parents, until I was eventually put into foster care. A nice couple, or so everybody thought.”
I stop for a second, not sure I want to go there again, but Faith needs to know and I need to stop being so protective of my own past. I need to leave it where it is, in the past.
“I was a big kid, early bloomer too. Turns out foster my Dad liked to use my foster mom as a punching bag when I wasn’t around, until one day I came home early from school.”
It’s still fresh in my mind. Raw. I feel my hands knotting into fists as I realize too that Faith’s the only person I’ve ever even told this to.
“What happened?” she whispers, putting her hands over mine, relaxing them in an instant.
“I suggested he pick on someone his own size, maybe bigger. I damn near beat him to death. The temper I had back then… I really let him have it.”
We sit quietly for a minute, and Faith figures that’s the story, she starts to explain that she doesn’t feel frightened around me. She knows I’m not that kind of a man.
“That’s not all of it,” I tell her. “It was gonna be Juvie for me, but the sisters at Saint Theresa’s, the ones who looked out for me when I was real young, they offered to take me in so I wouldn’t end up in the system.
“So, you were raised in a convent?” Faith asks, looking super confused and making me chuckle.
“No. Not exactly,” I tell her, smiling and noticing her relief.
“But the oldest Sister, their superior, she retired not long after that, and I ended up staying with her until I was old enough to be out in the world on my own. She was like a Grandmother to me, I guess. The only family I never really had.”
Faith’s brow creases.
“She was a hard lady, Faith. Helped me a lot, but she didn’t dote on me. Far from it. I had to earn my keep and I learned a lot about the meaning of hard work and keeping my mouth shut.”
“What happened to the foster parents?” she asks, and I take a breath before answering.
“Oh, he was alright in the end, physically I mean. But things changed for them both once it hit the papers, he lost his job and his business contacts through it.