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“Yes, I see it. What’s the point of this, Alex?”
“Hold on. I’ll explain soon.”
I was baffled and knew that the only way I’d understand this was when he explained himself. So, I waited as Alex drove us back to the opposite side of town. He pulled up to the curb and glanced nervously at me as he turned the car off. “Let’s get out. I want to show you something.”
“I’ve come this far. I’m not stopping now,” I replied with a grin and got out to stand on the curb, glancing around. There was a rundown church with a large building behind it. In the distance, I heard children playing. Alex came around to my side and started to walk. I joined him, and a block down, he turned the corner, glancing at the church.
It was an old Methodist church. I had been in it once, many years ago, for a wedding.
Alex stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and stared across the street. Behind a fence were about thirty children of all ages playing. Some were playing ball, others hopscotch. A few girls were doing cartwheels, and a couple of the boys were running around the area.
“I used to live there.” He pointed with his chin.
“What?” I glanced at him and then back at the kids.
“I used to live there. It’s an orphanage. When I was two years old, I was left on the church steps in the middle of the night. The woman who gave birth to me had left a note tucked into my blanket saying that she couldn’t take care of me and wanted me to have a better life.” He grew quiet for a moment, and I feared moving a muscle because I didn’t want him to stop explaining.
He shifted his gaze to me. “All those houses I showed you, I lived in those for a short time. They were foster parents, but most of the time, I lived over there.”
“Were you ever adopted?”
“No. When I was a child, I had medical issues. No one wanted a child with those, and the state paid for my treatments. I’m okay now; I grew out of most of it, but I never got to play sports or things like that.”
“Alex, this is where you want to donate your money?”
He nodded. “That second house I showed you, the green one? That was where art was first introduced to me. Mike and Donna Hellman. Donna was an art teacher, and she noticed very early on that I had a passion for it.” He smiled as if he recalled a fond memory. “Donna passed a few years ago. I went to her funeral. She was probably the closest I had to a mother.”
“Alex, I’m—I don’t really know what to say.”
He shook his head. “You don’t have to say anything, Mya. I just wanted to show you. You asked me what my why was, well, this is it.”
I stepped in front of him, taking his face in my hands. “Thank you so very much for sharing this with me. You have no idea how much this means.”
He brushed his knuckles over my cheek and then shifted to look at the playground again. “I want to get that building fixed up. If I had my way, I’d tear it down and build them a new one, but right now, fixing it will have to be enough. I also want to give them a better playground and a place where kids can learn art. I even considered getting my degree in education so that I could be an art teacher there.”
I think I fell a little in love with him as he said that. I stared at his brandy eyes that held so much emotion, and I wept inside for the little boy he was. He never had a mother or father or a family all his own, and I realized how much I had taken for granted in my life.
“Alex, thank you for sharing your why with me. Now it makes sense, and this might sound weird, but you make more sense to me too.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because you are private. You keep to yourself, and I know that trusting someone is hard. You trusted me, and I will never break that trust. I promise you. I will be someone you can trust.”
Alex wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly for a few moments. I leaned against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart, and knew that with each one, I was falling harder for this man.
