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Pressing her palm to my jaw, she holds me close, with tenderness and protection. “Nineteen years ago, I was drinking lemonade on my front porch with your mother…with Caroline,” she says, stroking my face as I go still. “She’d caught you feeding the neighbor dog pieces of your pancake through the fence in your backyard that morning, petting its nose and giggling. She’d scolded you, of course—told you it wasn’t safe and that the dog could bite your hand.” Nostalgia laces her words. “But you didn’t care. You said the dog wanted love…and if you got bit, that was okay. At least you gave it love.”
I vaguely recall that moment.
It was only days before my world unraveled.
She sighs, still holding me close. “You’ve always put love first, Brant—regardless of the consequences. Regardless of the fact that you might get bit.” Her tone shifts, riddled with a tinge of grief. “Three days later, Caroline stopped by again, hysterical. She had bruises all along her abdomen from where Luke had kicked her in a fit of rage. She begged me not to call the cops, fearful of what he might do…but she was finally done. She was going to leave him.”
An icy chill sweeps down my back.
“Tomorrow, it will be June. June always feels like a new beginning.”
My mother’s words echo in my ears—words I didn’t understand then.
Words that hold such a double meaning now.
And it kills me that she never got her new beginning, the one she was finally brave enough to take. She never got to leave.
He wouldn’t let her leave.
“Caroline told me that if anything ever happened to her, she wanted us to raise you,” Samantha continues, brushing her fingers through my hair. “She’d watched Theo grow up, she’d witnessed the bear hugs and piggyback rides from Andrew, T-ball in the front yard, endless barbecues and laughter, the bike rides and picnics in the sun…and she wanted the same thing for you. A good father, a loving home.” She swallows. “I think she knew, Brant… I really think she knew her time was running out. A mother’s instinct.”
I wipe the emotion from my eyes, sniffling into the front of her blouse.
“Just like my own instincts told me that my daughter was never going to be your sister.”
I go still, lifting my head a little. Inhaling a shaky breath, I ask, wondering, “How did you know?”
“Moments,” she says quietly.
“Moments?”
Samantha nods, then scoots away, forcing me to sit up straight. “I’ll be right back.” She pops the pen back into her hair and makes her way down into the basement.
When she returns minutes later, her arms are full of shoeboxes, all stacked on top of each other.
I frown. “What are those?”
She moves toward me as I straighten more, my back flush with the wall. She plops the stack of boxes beside me, lowering herself to her knees. Black permanent marker is scribbled along the side of each box, the ink smudged and worn.
Numbers.
Years?
Reaching for the first box, my heart beats swiftly as I read off the number. “Two-thousand-and-three.” I pull off the top, my nose assaulted with must and age. Inside the box rest dozens of index cards. Hundreds. I glance up at Samantha, my frown deepening with unspoken questions.
She smiles. “Moments,” she repeats.
My teeth scrape together as I pluck a card from the box.
March 4, 2003
Theodore got an A+ on his science project. He made a solar system and named the planets after video game characters.
June fell asleep in Brant’s lap watching The Little Mermaid. She slept for three hours, and Brant refused to move from the couch because he didn’t want to wake her. He told me his legs felt like a mermaid fin later that night, but that it was worth it.
September 16, 2003
June had a nightmare about a giant bug that tried to eat her. Theodore and Brant spent an hour calming her down and telling her funny stories. When I checked on them the next morning, I found them all curled up together, fast asleep.
