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“I’ve been looking for him, my real father,” I confessed. “I never knew his real name as a kid, but I caught glimpses of it on our mail sometimes. Like I said, I’m positive he drove us out of state and we’re so close to Mississippi and Tennessee it took me awhile to find him. He was never charged with what he did to us. Or to my mother.”
“You found him?”
I nodded stiffly. “Only yesterday.” My mouth went dry thinking about it.
“What are you going to do now? Will you arrest him?”
I shook my head. “No. That would be unethical. A conflict of interest. I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I guess I just want some kind of closure.”
Wren nodded, her bottom lip catching between her teeth as we stared at each other in silence. Her face crumpled in anguish as she said, “I know it’s absolutely awful what happened to your little brother.” She sniffed and her eyes shone with pent-up tears. “But I am so very grateful for Crew.”
I pressed a thumb to her lip, gently releasing it from between her teeth. “What do you mean?”
“I have always believed that everything in life happens for a reason. Every little thing has a purpose, whether we can see that purpose or not.” She put a hand on her chest. “It’s how I always kept going when things got too hard to handle and I felt hopeless.”
My heart swelled. Wren was breathtaking. Beautiful to her very core.
“It’s not right what happened to your brother. It wasn’t fair. It was an utter tragedy but—” She met my gaze as tears slipped quietly from her lashes. “But Crew saved you, Atlas. He saved you and Ty.”
I wiped away her tears with my thumbs, fighting the burning in my eyes.
“His death wasn’t in vain. If he hadn’t gotten sick, then your father wouldn’t have taken you away from that house and you never would’ve been adopted. You would’ve died in that house.”
Her tears came harder, a steady stream down her cheeks, sliding to her neck so quickly I couldn’t catch them all. I leaned toward her and kissed them away. They were salty and sweet, and I think I would drink all her tears if it meant she’d never have to cry again.
“And if it wasn’t for Crew,” she choked out his name, “if it wasn’t for him, then I would’ve never met you and for that—for that I am forever grateful.”
I pulled her close as she sobbed and buried my face in the crook of her neck. I breathed her in as I let my own tears come. I’d never thought of it like that before. I’d always felt nothing but pain and anger when I thought of what had happened to Crew. I never thought of what had become of that tragic event. I’d never thought of his death holding anything but hurt and guilt.
But maybe Wren was right. Maybe it held more than that.
Purpose.
I shut my eyes and said a silent thanks to Crew. Because as much as I had failed him on this earth, he had never failed me.
