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“Alex, what’s happened?” Nana Mama demanded.
“Just tell me why you all lied to me,” I said with a groan. “That’s all I want to know.”
Chapter
32
“I swear to you, I knew nothing about this!” Nana Mama cried after Bree told her what we’d read in the files. She looked to my aunts, said, “Is this true? Did you know?”
Aunt Hattie and Aunt Connie were holding on to each other in such a way that they didn’t have to say a word.
“Why?” Bree asked.
“Because,” Aunt Hattie said, her voice shaking. “Those terrible things that went on, they were so traumatic, so horrible, that you, Alex, blocked it all out. It was like you’d never seen what happened to your father. We figured it was nature’s way of helping you deal with it and that you’d be better off believing your mom died from the cancer and your dad from the drinking and the drugs.”
“But why lie to me?” my grandmother demanded, as shaken as I’d been.
“You’d been through so much already and gone so far in life, Regina,” Aunt Connie said, choking. “We didn’t want to make you suffer any more than you had to. Alcohol and drugs, you could understand. Jason had been headed for that early grave already. But his killing Christina, and then the way he died. We just couldn’t tell you. We thought it would break your heart when your heart needed to be strong for Alex and his brothers.”
Nana Mama gazed off into a distance, her lower lip quivering, then looked at me and started to weep.
I went to her, got down on my knees, and laid my head in her tiny lap, feeling her anguish as my own, feeling her tears splash on my face as I said, “I’m sorry I called you a liar.”
“I’m sorry ’bout everything, Alex,” she said, stroking my head the way she used to when I first went to live with her. “I’m sorry about every bit of it.”
There was a heaviness in the air when we finally got around to eating. No one said much the rest of the night. Or at least, I don’t remember anything specific until I went to my aunts after dessert and forgave them. They cried all over again when we hugged.
Aunt Connie said, “We didn’t mean all this to come out.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s okay.”
“You sure?” Aunt Hattie asked.
“You were trying to protect me,” I said. “I get that.”
Aunt Connie said, “But you still don’t remember anything?”
“I’ve been getting flashes,” I admitted. “But not much more than that.”
Aunt Hattie said, “Maybe that’s all God wants you to remember.”
I nodded, kissed them both, and went out the door after my family. Jannie was already heading up the porch stoop to our bungalow. Bree was walking along with Ali and Naomi. Ali saw me, turned, and ran back.
I put my arm around my boy’s shoulder, said, “See the lightning bugs?”
“Yeah,” Ali said, like he didn’t care.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s the matter?”
“Dad?” he said, not looking at me. “Can we go home?”
“What? No.”
“But I don’t like this place,” he said. “I don’t have any friends, and I don’t like how it hurts you to be here. And how it hurts Nana.”
I picked up my youn
gest and held him tight to me, saying, “I don’t like how it hurts either, son. But I promised I’d help Stefan. And in this life, a man is only as good as his word.”
