Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92777 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92777 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Another exhale, the blessing of grace. “Thank you,” I breathed.
I returned to the stage, leaning in to the microphone. “I apologize to all of you,” I said. “The ones I hurt. The ones I used. All those things I did were about me, never about you. I wish I’d wised up sooner. I wish I’d been quicker on the uptake.” I paused, trying desperately to contain my emotion enough to make it through this. “Most of all,” I said, taking in a gulp of air and finally gathering the nerve to turn my body to where my brother stood off to the side of the room. His expression was one I’d never seen before and I didn’t know how to read it. “Most of all,” I repeated, “I want to apologize to you, Archer, because you’re family. And I…I was supposed to be there for you. Instead, I made things worse.” I turned the pages on the packet sitting on the lectern in front of me. “If you all turn to page seventy-three to one hundred four, you’ll see every despicable thing I did to Archer. Addendum 1a outlines the times I was cruel. And addendum 2a–3c lists the times I was manipulative. I wanted to break them down so you knew I had considered the difference and how each might have affected you. And uh, well, addendum 4a outlines the times I publicly shunned you, which might have been the worst. You’re my family and I shunned you. God, I’m so sorry.
“Haven said something to me recently about having apologized to you, but I never actually did. So you couldn’t have fully forgiven me. I’ve never said the words, but I am. I’m so incredibly sorry for all the times I looked away from your pain, from your loneliness. If I could go back, I’d do things so differently. Because I hurt you, and I hurt Bree, and God”—I hitched in another breath, a lump filling my throat that I could barely speak around—“if anything I’d done had resulted in those two boys and that little girl not existing, I would have been responsible for ruining not only your lives, not only mine, but ruining the entire world.”
Burt had described the way two people sometimes completed each other perfectly, helping to fill the empty gaps, and that’s what Bree and Archer had been for each other. Her ability to sign had opened up his entire world. And he’d helped her overcome the loss of her father too. I didn’t know the details, but I knew that much.
And I’d attempted to get in the way of that through trickery and manipulation.
The murmurs had stopped, heads swiveling between Archer and me, waiting. Bree came up beside Archer, standing quietly by her husband’s side. As if her presence there had spoken to him in some silent way only he understood, he glanced at her, giving her a smile.
My heart picked up speed, thumping rapidly. I still had something else to say. “Our dad and his brother came to such an ugly end, on a highway, smeared with blood. You were there. You know.” I closed my eyes momentarily. Winced. My hands were shaking. The whole room had grown silent, only the sound of my whooshing blood echoing in my head. I met Archer’s eyes again. “I used to drive out there to the spot where it happened quite a bit…just sit on the side of the road…picturing a scenario where I could have intervened, stopped it somehow. I drove there today, and it suddenly occurred to me that if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, really forgive me, then in some way, we will have stopped it. We will have broken the cycle. I want that for us, Archer. I want that for your sons, and for the ones, God willing, I might have someday.”
My heart continued to pound, fingers trembling as I waited. He glanced at his wife, another unspoken something moving between them, and then he turned, walking toward me. When he’d stepped onto the stage, he raised his hands. None of us can go back, he said. But we’re here now. And as far as new beginnings go, it’s a pretty great place to start from. I’m all in if you are. He walked up to me, placing his hand on my shoulder and then removing it to speak. Brothers till the end, he signed.
I let out a small choked laugh that was filled with the enormous relief I felt. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m all in.” I wrapped my arms around my brother, grasping him tightly, seeing Bree wipe a tear from her cheek, watching us from where she stood. I signaled her to join us and she walked toward the stage. The town might not forgive me or ever trust me again. But I had my family back. They’d given me another chance, and I was going to grasp it with both hands. And now I knew, with absolute certainty, that my dad had loved me. He hadn’t thrown me away. He had never thought of me as second best or someone he hadn’t wanted. I had been loved.