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I couldn’t help but glance up at the painting on the wall.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Things were good with her for a while. She didn’t know that I knew who she really was. She was working as a singer in this club… she’d sneak me in at night so I could watch her perform… she was so beautiful and talented. I just thought she had the most amazing life. But then I started noticing things about her.”
“Like what?” I sat down and put my legs on either side of Ford’s.
“Men would flock to her when she was singing and a lot of times she’d send me home while she went home with them. Or she’d bring them home with us and I’d go to my room while they went to her room. The next morning she’d be telling me about the guy and how much she loved him and that he was going to marry her and take care of her. I think… I think she said stuff like that to the guys because they never came back. None of them ever physically hurt her or anything, but I think she was so desperate to be loved that she would just build this perfect life in her head. When they left and didn’t come back, she just fell apart. She’d cry and say that no one loved her. A few times I heard her call my mom and beg her to let her come home. She’d say she was sorry and she shouldn’t have left Pelican Bay and she should have done what my mom had said and she just wanted to come home…”
“But your mom wouldn’t let her.”
Ford shook his head. “I don’t know why she kept supporting Aunt Grace financially.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell Ford it was likely so his mother could manipulate her sister, but I kept my mouth shut.
“I told Aunt Grace the truth about Theo and everything I’d done. When I asked her if I could stay with her, she promised me she’d figure out how to make that happen. We started making all these plans. She wanted us to start fresh somewhere, so we began picking out cities we thought would be fun to live in. I felt like it was my chance to start over and be a better person, no matter what it took. I never wanted to be like Jimmy ever again. I really believed I could change. But a few weeks later when I woke up one morning, Aunt Grace was sitting at the kitchen table just staring at the wall. She told me I had to go home. Just like that… no explanation. Just that it was ‘time.’ I begged her to let me stay with her, but she just kept saying I had to go home… that that’s where my family was. Then she left the apartment to go to work and I never saw her again. When I talked to my parents on the phone a couple days later, my mom said that if I didn’t agree to go to Reverend Page’s church, then I couldn’t come home. It was a choice that wasn’t really a choice,” Ford said.
My heart broke for the boy who’d been made to choose between being who he was and being completely alone in the world. I’d had my own problems with my family, but there’d never been any question about my father’s hatred of me. He’d been an abuser like Ford’s brother, but he hadn’t been a master manipulator like Edith Cornell. I’d thought Jimmy was the one who controlled Ford, but I’d gotten it all wrong. It was his mother who kept Ford dangling on the end of the line like he was nothing more than a fish she couldn’t decide if she wanted to keep or toss back into the water.
I sighed and looked at the mural that depicted everything Ford didn’t have.
Unconditional love.
Acceptance.
Real family.
“Why did you paint this, Ford?”
“Because of you, Cam.”
His words caught me off guard and I snapped my eyes back to his. He wasn’t even looking at the painting. “Because you make me want to choose something that is going to cost me everything.”
Chapter 24
Ford
I expected him to deny it… to say I’d always have him or that I could live without my family and I wouldn’t end up like my aunt Grace, but all he did was scoot closer to me so that his long legs were on either side of me. His upper body dipped as he wrapped his arms around me and skimmed his lips over my cheek.
“Come back inside with me, Ford. We’ll have dinner with the guys and I’ll let Newt paint my nails and then we’ll go to my house and have dessert until it’s time for you to go home.”
