Five
Micah sat down in the booth across from the old man and stretched out his hand. “I’m Micah. Micah Rose.”
The old man accepted his hand with a shaky, weak grip. “Salvador…O’Brien.”
“It’s good to meet you, Salvador.” Micah twisted his cup on the table. “O’Brien. Is that Irish?”
“Yes,” Salvador whispered, his tired eyes sinking to the piece of paper. The pen wobbled in his shaky fingers and his eyes glistened.
Micah put Ben and that whole unpleasant experience in the back of his mind. His heart went out to the old man. “Is something wrong, Sal?”
Swallowing thickly, Salvador mumbled, “I…I’m trying to write a letter to my kids.” His voice trembled. “But I’m afraid my hands don’t work so well anymore.”
Micah touched the photo that lay on the table. “Are these your kids?” The photograph was worn and faded as though it had been handled much. The care with which the old man treated it, Micah suspected it rarely left his feeble hands.
Salvador nodded and picked up the photograph with trembling fingers. “This is the only photo I have of them.” His eyes watered, and his voice faded out a bit. “I…I left them shortly after this was taken.” His lips tightened and quivered. “I haven’t seen them since.”
“May I see?” Micah whispered.
The old man gave him the photo and Micah found himself staring at three young faces. Two boys and a girl. The oldest boy had reddish-brown hair and couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven. The second boy appeared to be a couple years younger with muddy-blond hair, possibly with a tint of red. The little girl’s strawberry-blond locks were tied up in pig-tails and looked a year or two older than Eli, maybe five or six.
“They’re beautiful children.” Micah returned the cherished photo.
Salvador’s fingertips trembled against the table top, his weary eyes swimming. “They were my angels.” He blinked back some of the tears, but his pain remained, emanating forth. His throat worked as he gazed distantly at the photo and whispered brokenly, “I didn’t deserve them.” He swallowed hard, his tears thickening. “And they deserved so much more…than me.”
Micah quaked within. “Why do you say that, Sal?”
His chin quivering, the old man’s voice broke with emotion. “I did them wrong. I-I was a different man then, a…a horrible man.” He bit his lower lip as his chin trembled harder, the tears barely holding back. His fingertips shuddered over the single photo, his focus on his oldest son. “The last thing my boy ever said to me was…I hate you.”Salvador’s head sank down until his chin touched his chest, his feeble body shaking with grief. “I-I gave him every reason to.”
The old man swam before Micah as his eyes filled, his own past flooding in with memories of hateful words and thoughts slung at his own father.Justifiedhate toward the man. Yet sitting here with Sal, watching the old man crumbling beneath his guilt, shame, and regret for what he’d done to his family…it hit Micah where it hurt the most.
Sal raised his eyes. “Don’t pity me,” he whispered. “The Good Book warns us we will reap what we sow.” He blinked rapidly. “It doesn’t lie.”
Micah hung his head and wiped away tears. “It also tells of forgiveness and redemption.”
“Some things can’t be atoned for.” Salvador’s anguish and loss aged him beyond his years. “I have no right to expect their forgiveness. I have no right toaskfor it.”
Micah slid his hand over his mouth and held it there, unable to banish his tears as his heart came apart inside him. “It isn’t about expecting forgiveness…but simply being sorry for hurting them. Sometimes…” A tear escaped and rolled down his face. “Sometimes, that’s all they need…to just know that you’re sorry.”
“How can that be enough?” Sal trembled. “I threw my family away, Micah.” A sob shook his frail frame. “I hurt them and abandoned them. My boyhatedme.” His head sank forward, and he covered his face with both hands, shaking. “He…he was so sweet and tenderhearted. He just…he just wanted me to…to love him and…and be proud of him.” Sal pushed deeper into his hands, his fingers burrowing into his thinning hair as sobs shuddered through him. “He had such a beautiful heart and…and Ibrokeit. I taught it tohate.”He choked on a soft cry. “To hateme.”
The old man’s torment infected Micah, constricting his throat as he struggled not to break down. “You said…” Micah cleared his throat and swallowed a couple times. “You said you were trying to write a letter to your kids. What did you want to say to them?”
Salvador shook his head without looking up. “I…I don’t know,” he whispered. “I-I’ve been trying to write that letter for so long…trying to find the right words.” He shuddered with a small sob. “But there are no right words.”
“What’s in yourheart?”Micah reached across the table and gently touched his arm. “What would you say to them if they were right here…asking you to be honest with them?”
The old man sobbed openly. “I-I would say how…how much I love them, and that…that I wish so much to go back and undo what I did to them…and then never leave them…neverleave them…” He trembled hard. “And never give my boy cause to hate me.” Sobs quaked him. “Never darken his bright, beautiful heart.”
Blinking rapidly, trying to focus his eyes, Micah let loose of Sal’s arm and let his hand settle on the creased paper then slowly slid it across the table. “Then tell them that,” he said with a tremor and picked up the pen. “And anything else that’s in your heart.”
Salvador lowered his hands and raised his head. Tears streaked his haggard face. “You…you’ll help me…tell them?”
Micah swallowed thickly, smiled, and put pen to paper.
∞∞∞
A half an hour—and many tears—later, Salvador O’Brien’s heart lay scripted across the worn sheet of paper, blanketing front and back. The old man wilted in his seat, emotionally exhausted, radiating a tentative hope in his watery eyes.
