Mom.
My body runs cold as I realize Charlie’s mom has letters from my mom.
I shake as my eyes move over the lines, the emotions of her younger self, before I was even born, bleed through the pages. She’s crying out for help, sometimes just crying with big tear-stained drops marring the letters of some of her words.
She’s talking about my dad.
I scan the next letter, and then the next, only picking out words like abuse and rage and threats.
My father was a monster when he was around, he was better at life when he was out living it. The times he was actually home he felt like a caged animal, irritable and stalking the fence looking for an escape route. My mother protected me from his fits of rage as a child, but after the car accident I was left to deal with him alone. Thankfully, he worked even longer hours after she passed, and spent his free time negotiating deals in dark corners of bars instead of our kitchen table out of respect for me. I always knew where I could find him, and by the time she was gone I was able to raise myself. I recognized even then that my own instincts for life were better than his, but it didn’t prevent the slow pain that gripped my chest when I thought of how I’d been forced to raise myself at too young an age.
And here, Charlie was still being mothered with so much love and tenderness, it all felt foreign to me. And now I had it as much as confirmed in my hands that Charlie and his mother had spoken about me, knew who I was, knew the darkness that trailed me like a cloud.
A ball of nerves lodged in my throat as I dropped the old letters on the table and then launched myself up the stairs. I was off the boat and heading down the boardwalk in the opposite direction of Charlie’s truck, hot tears staining my cheeks as I tried to dodge him.
“Holly!”
I didn’t stop, tears spilling harder.
“Holly, wait a minute!” He’s too fast for me. I can hear his shoes pounding on the boardwalk behind me and I crumble. I want him to catch me, but I’m afraid to fall for him, for this life, for the happiness he’s offering me.
“What’s wrong?” He’s breathing hard, hand clutching my elbow. “Please, tell me.”
“You have me in a whirlwind!” My tone is accusatory. “What am I to you? Some broken girl with daddy issues that’s easy for you to dig your claws into?”
“Holly, no. No, no, no.” His eyes fill with concern. “What happened back there? What did I miss?”
“I-I found…” My heart hammers as I think about what I did find. Evidence of the epic crash and burn of my childhood?
“Found what?” He hums, gathering me in his arms but keeping his gaze trained with mine. “What did you find?”
“These letters...well, first: you didn’t even tell me it was your birthday!”
His grin widened, humble shrug lifting his broad shoulders. “Surprise?”
The anxiety running through my veins cools then, and Charlie opens his arms and pulls me into him. “Tell me what else you saw back there.”
“Letters. Your mom wished you a happy birthday and included some old letters, they were addressed to my aunt but I bet she gave them to your mom because she didn’t want me to find them at the house. I know you said your mom and my aunt were close, but they were so close. And my mom said awful things about my father in those letters, she was so desperate to be out from under him but she couldn’t bring herself to raise me without a father. Everything she said was true, but it kills me that someone else knows...that you hold pieces to the tragic parts of my past. I hate it.”
“Oh, Holly.” His fingers lace with mine as he brings my wrists to his lips and places soft kisses there. “You are so full of warmth and love, those kids and even the reindeer dogs running around this town are drawn to you. And you’ve got me transfixed. I want all of your parts. The dark and light, the sunshine and the chaos. Bring it all. I’m not scared.” He reaches a hand in his pocket then, pulling out a small velvet box wrapped with a satin bow. “This is what I forgot in the truck.”
He opens the box and staring back at me is a multi-faceted pink diamond in the shape of a heart. Tiny pave diamonds surround the stone.
“It was my grandmother’s.” Charlie’s hot gaze holds mine. “It’s yours. All of it. I knew one day I would meet the girl I would marry and it would feel like being hit like a ton of bricks. You’re like an entire truckload charging through my life and turning me upside down and inside out. I love you so damn much it takes my breath away, Holly. We met on Candy Cane Lane, and if you’ll have me, I’ll marry you there. Be mine forever. Be my wife. Let’s share our grand-puppies together and have a whole litter of kids of our own and raise them right here in Cherry Falls.”