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This will be as hard to read as it is to write, but you are strong. The strongest person I have ever met, and for that alone, I’m unable to express the right words for how proud I am. But even in strength, the truth is still hard to hear.
Your father, I thought, had loved me. I had wanted him to so badly, but that was before I knew it was wrong. A grown man, already with a wife and a family, should not love a child as a mistress. Nor should he take advantage of someone my age and deprivation of education.
The man turned into a monster. I knew this later. He was a forceful and brute of a man, Alina, my pirate. He was not a parent I would wish on my worst enemy.
I killed him because I had to protect you. He came back for you, Alina, but I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let him poison you. I was fearful he would twist your mind into believing the lies he told. I know I should have let the law handle his punishment, but nothing short of suffering would have been any sort of justice. I will never be sorry he would never know you, my daughter, because he had the darkness, a devil that fed inside him on his own contempt.
Our home is now yours, for you to do what you want with it, bless the house with new, good memories, or rid yourself of it to run from the old bad ones. I wished it had ended differently for us and all our dreams could have come true there.
I will always love you, Alina, so please forgive me for leaving the world without sharing the truth from my lips to your ears.
Don’t let anyone dull the light within you.
Love always,
your Momma
I hadn’t realized I had company until the foliage was disturbed by Callum ducking under the branch. He didn’t say a word or ask a question, not about the rivers of tears running tracks down my cheeks or about me still sitting out in the pouring rain. Not a single word. Instead, he sat beside me, shuffling back to rest against the tree trunk.
“She was raped, and that’s why I am here. Did you know that?” I turned to face him.
His continuing silence spoke volumes, and the look of pity in his eyes affirmed he knew or had, at least, suspected.
“So, not only am I the bastard child of the town kook, but I’m also the child of criminal parents. One for rape and the other, the murderer of her rapist.”
Suddenly feeling restless, I pushed to my feet while Callum remained seated and silent. “It’s no wonder the people in town talk, you know.” A bitter laugh escaped me. Even to my own ears, I sounded insane. “They probably wouldn’t even realize how close to the truth they are in the things they say about me. Hell, I didn’t even know for almost my entire life.”
“No.” Callum’s voice came to me from close behind.
I hadn’t heard him stand but sensed the electricity charging between us. It was like every fiber of our beings was humming to the other, a force of connectivity that could only be fed by the other.
“Those people are cruel and ugly, Alina. You are none of the things they say, not one damn thing.” He spun me around, causing me to stumble a little, but with speed, I was caught again by his strong hands. “Everything they are, you are the complete opposite, darlin’. Do you hear me?”
His eyes pierced me with an intensity so unexpected the wind was knocked out of me. I could only nod, uncertain whether to believe him.
“Where’s Charlie?”
“Charlie?” He looked at me, confused, like I’d grown a second head or spoken in a foreign tongue.
“Yes. Your brother?”
“Oh, he had to leave.” As he answered me dismissively, his gaze didn’t waiver from mine the entire exchange.
“Why?” I interrogated Callum with a childlike fascination.
Asking simple questions with simple answers felt like a lighter load to process than what I had already blurted out to Callum. No doubt he’d want to ask me questions too, but I already wished time could fall away and he’d never come to find me up here.
The tree was my quiet, safe place. It was the last place I’d shared with my mother in our innocence. It was the last place we’d been together before it involved handcuffs and the cloud of a life sentence that changed things forever.
“Because it’s getting late.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t noticed that the light had faded like a performer gracefully sliding behind the velvety curtain of the stage, but it was, and another long night loomed ahead of me.
“Will you let me take you inside, darlin’? You’re shivering.” His hands glided down my arms, the skin turning to goose bumps at his touch before his hand slid into mine.
“Callum?” He halted our trek down the hill and turned to face me. “I can’t handle uncovering any more lies.”
He squeezed a flash of a grimace before his face relaxed again, and his eyes burned into mine. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”
