“For a very long time, buddy. For years, I thought if I’d just gone back inside, if I’d helped my daddy carry Emma, maybe they’d both be alive. I hated myself. I thought I was a murderer.”
“But you were just a kid,” Marcus said.
Something shifted in his eyes. Just a tiny bit. Just enough.
“Can I come sit closer to you?” I asked. “I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to. But I’d like to be near you. Because I know exactly how you feel right now. And I don’t think you should feel it alone.”
Marcus didn’t answer with words. He just launched himself at me. This tiny, broken boy threw himself into my arms and buried his face in my leather vest and sobbed.
I held him. Wrapped my tattooed arms around his shaking body and held him like I wished someone had held me forty-six years ago. I rocked him back and forth on that kitchen floor while the firefighters watched with tears running down their faces.
“I want my mommy,” Marcus cried into my chest. “I want my mommy back.”
“I know, buddy. I know.”
“She can’t be dead. She was just talking to me. She told me she loved me. She told me to run. She can’t be dead.”
“Your mommy loved you so much, Marcus. So much that she used her last breath to save your life. That’s not your fault. That’s her gift to you. The most precious gift any parent can give.”
