Chapter 8 - The Scars We Carry
Summer bled into late autumn in Middle Tennessee. The oak and sweetgum trees along the perimeter of the estate turned deep shades of copper, amber, and blood red.
For four months, I lived by Megan’s terms. I slept in the guest room on the far west wing of the main house, leaving the master bedroom completely locked and abandoned. Every morning at six, I walked across the dewy grass to the guest cottage, leaving a basket of fresh organic produce, milk, and medical supplies on the stone porch, then stepped back twenty paces before she unlocked the front door.
Gradually, the invisible fortress Megan had built around herself began to lower its drawbridges.
It began with Mason. The older twin was bold, fearless, and possessed an insatiable curiosity for anything with wheels. One afternoon, while Megan was sitting on the wooden veranda nursing Hazel—who was now completely free of the nasal oxygen tubes—Mason came toddling across the clover on his chubby legs, clutching a broken wooden toy truck. He stumbled over a garden hose, scraped his knee, and looked around in surprise before letting out a sharp wail.
Instinct took over before my brain could process fear. I leaped off the garden bench, scooped Mason into my arms, brushed the grass clippings from his small knee, and held him against my shoulder, humming the old Appalachian lullaby my grandmother used to sing during winter storms.
Mason stopped crying within seconds, sniffing against my neck and burying his small face in my flannel shirt.
Megan watched from the veranda, her hand resting on Hazel’s back. For the first time in months, her eyes weren't guarded or hostile; they were soft, filled with a deep, sorrowful wonder.
“He has your temper,” she said softly across the lawn. “When he doesn't get his morning porridge quickly enough, he bangs his spoon on the high chair until the whole kitchen rings.”
I carried Mason slowly toward the porch steps, kneeling so that the boy was at eye level with his mother.
“I’m teaching him how to fix broken axles,” I said, managing a faint smile as I held up the wooden truck. “His grandfather built these from walnut wood. If you let me, I’d like to build three sets of them in the woodshop behind the barn.”
Megan looked at me for a long moment. She reached out and touched my wrist—the first time her skin had touched mine without grief or fear since the night I threw her out into the rain.
May you like
“Come inside, Garrett,” she said quietly. “Bryce is trying to feed his banana to the cat, and I can’t handle both boys while Hazel is nursing.”
That afternoon, I sat on the cottage floor for four hours. We didn’t talk about Walter Briggs, we didn’t talk about Tiffany Vance’s upcoming prison transfer to the Western Tennessee State Penitentiary, and we didn’t talk about the divorce papers that still sat in the county records office. We simply built wooden block towers, fed the boys mashed sweet potatoes, and watched Hazel fall asleep against my chest while the autumn rain tapped gently against the windowpanes.
