Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 98345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
As if on cue, he walked back into the kitchen. His eyes were filled with concern.
“Dirk, what’s wrong?” my mother asked, making her way over to him.
“Brock’s on his way over here.”
“What?” the rest of us all said in unison.
“Why?” Bradly asked.
“I guess Stella told him we were all coming over for dinner. He texted and asked if we were done eating. I said we were. He said he was on his way over with something to discuss with me.”
My mother bit her lip. “We need to let Stella and Ty Senior know.”
Dad nodded, turned on his heel, and headed back out to do just that.
“Oh dear,” Mackenzie said.
“Oh dear, is right,” Mom said as she walked over to me and wrapped her arm around mine. “I think we’re going to get an answer to that question you asked a few minutes ago, Avery.”
I nodded. “The one about the uncles’ reactions?”
“Yep,” she said, popping the P. “That very question.”
Chapter Eight
BECK
I sat quietly in a chair as Stella and Ty sat on the sofa in his office, reading through the letters. I had put them in my jacket pocket and retrieved them before we headed to Ty’s office. Stella softly cried as she read them, and Ty had wiped a few tears away as well. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself, so I just watched them, wondering what was going on in their minds. What was it like for them to know that their son had been so in love with someone they’d never met?
Stella got to the last letter, the one from the Marine Corps. She stilled, then after a few moments, lifted her head and looked directly at me. “I received a letter like this as well.”
“I’ve been thinking about that letter ever since reading it. Clearly, they knew who my mother was. Like, my dad must have told someone about her. The last letter she wrote to him…it wasn’t open, so they hadn’t read it. But it was the letter in which she told my dad that she was pregnant.”
Stella buried her face in her hands.
“I’m so sorry that I’ve brought you so much unhappiness. I understand now why my mother decided not to reach out to you.”
Ty looked up at me sharply. “You haven’t brought us sadness, Beck. It’s the opposite. Are we sad that our son never knew he was going to be a father? Yes. Are we sad that we missed out on watching you grow up? Absolutely. But are we sad that you’re sitting here right now? No, not at all, son. You’ve brought such joy to us, you’ll never truly know how much. You’ve given us a piece of our son back, and that means the world to Stella and me.”
Stella drew in a few deep breaths. “Ty summed that up nicely. I’m sorry I’m a water bucket of tears. For years after your father died, I refused to speak about him. I couldn’t bear even the thought of talking about him because it only made me hurt more. I wasn’t trying to forget him. No, I thought about him every single day, from the moment I woke until I put my head on my pillow.
“It wasn’t until Lincoln came into our lives and pretty much forced me to talk about your father that I slowly realized…speaking about him didn’t make me sad. It made me feel better. It made me feel like he was still here. I think your mother was like me, and she didn’t have anyone to force her to talk about him. If she had, things might have been different. Maybe she would have searched for us, I don’t know. I’m so sorry we weren’t there for you, Beck.”
I quickly stood and made my way over to them. Crouching, I took her hands in mine. “Please don’t feel like I was let down. My mother made sure I had a wonderful childhood, and she did talk about my father. I could see the hurt in her eyes, though, when I asked questions. I think the older I got, the more I noticed, and maybe that’s why I stopped asking about him.”
Ty studied the military letter. “Stella, do you think Beck knew Heather was pregnant?”
She looked at him. “What makes you think that?”
He stared at the paperwork. “This letter. Do you think they’d send this type of announcement to just anyone who sent him a letter?”
Stella took the letter again, then frowned. “Maybe they knew Heather was his girlfriend, but surely not that she was pregnant.”
“Mom said she’d met his Marine Corps buddies, so it wouldn’t surprise me that the higher-ups knew about her. As a matter of fact, I remember when I was about eight or nine, four guys came to visit Mom. They were friends of my father’s, I remember that clearly. They took us bowling, and at one point, one of them was sitting with my mom, talking to her while the others bowled with me. He handed her something, then hugged her because she started crying. After that day, I never saw them again.”