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It was so simple. Her voice was so sure.
Strength didn’t come from the ability to kill a man, from being able to stomach blood or throw a punch. Or even learning how to take one.
Strength came from people who squeezed your hand when you were weak.
He walked down the path.
Knocked on the door.
And waited to face his past, while he had his future firmly in hand.
Caroline
There are so many beautiful reunion videos floating around the internet, shared many times over, to spread the beautiful version of a hello after a long goodbye.
This was not beautiful.
Mary answered the door.
She first smiled at me warmly, then moved her eyes to Liam. The smile froze on her face. Her eyes went up and down the man in front of her, the color draining from her carefully made-up face. Liam was frozen beside me too, squeezing my hand with enough force to bruise my bones. Despite the trauma that she had to endure, the years had been kind to Mary. Probably because of her religious skin care routine and the fact she didn’t drink, didn’t sit out in the sun without a wide-brimmed hat and heavy SPF and believed in beauty sleep. So though she had aged over the past decade and a half, her hair graying and covered my tasteful highlights, she looked much the same as she did when Liam left.
Obviously the years had been a lot less kind to Liam.
But that didn’t stop her from recognizing him immediately.
She let out a strangled sob lifting a shaking hand upward, stretching out to touch Liam’s scarred face, as if she wasn’t sure she’d encounter real flesh. When she did, her limbs collapsed from under her.
Liam caught her.
They both sank to the floor, her looking extraordinarily small in his arms when she’d always been such a big and vibrant presence.
I stood, watching, tears streaming down my face as Mary clung to the leather of his cut in a death grip now she was faced with life.
Witnessing the sight wasn’t easy, it was a private pain that wasn’t meant to be seen, but I had experience with private pain. It was my job to make it public.
Eventually, Liam stood, helped Mary up.
Neither of them had spoken yet.
Mary stared at him with a toxic mix of pain and joy, each fighting the other for control. I knew this because still, it was a battle I waged when looking at Liam. She lifted shaking hands to cup his face. “My boy,” she croaked.
“Honey, who’s at the door? Is it finally Trevor with that part for the lawnmower he promised he’d give me. He better have a cold one—” Kent was cut off when he reached the door.
His eyes met mine, light and happy, then he moved his gaze to Liam.
He froze too. Not quite like Mary
She moved to face Kent. “He’s back,” she cried. “Our son is home.”
Jagger
“You hate me,” he said into the night.
It had been a long day, to say the least.
It had been a fifteen-years packed into a day. He thought going off to war was bad, he thought enduring unthinkable torture was unbearable, that living a separate life and forgetting the one before was tough, losing his brothers was agony, and loving Caroline was torment, but this was all of it mixed into one.
Never had Jagger had to expend so much energy into staying upright, into making sure his hands didn’t shake.
Holding his mother in his arms was home. She smelled the same, of flowers and lemon.
He had been terrified of rejection. Of his mother glimpsing his scarred face, his scarred soul and shutting the door in his face. For causing her pain. Or whatever was beyond pain. Because making a parent believe their child was dead was beyond pain. And he was responsible for that. He deserved the door in his face.
He didn’t deserve to feel his mother cling to him like he was worth clinging to, have her tears of pain and joy.
He didn’t deserve his father’s immediate acceptance, some form of understanding gathering on his face when his mother released him so he could face his father. A man who had brought him up tough, yet fair. Who loved him in his own way. Different than the coddling, tender way mothers did.
Jagger didn’t know what to do in that moment. “I’m sorry,” he croaked, his words cracking at the edges.
His mother let out another sob, she was now in Caroline’s arms.
Caroline’s presence was the reason he got up from his knees, why he remained standing.
“Oh son,” his father rasped. The words were a prayer, a thank you, an ‘I forgive you.’
Then his father took two strides and yanked his son into his arms.
His mother joined.
Antonia had not had the same reaction. It was after the tears, after they stood awkwardly, unsure of what to do, what to say. He was a stranger as much as he was their son. He knew that. He knew that they knew that.
