“I mean it too.”
“Then what’s the problem? When two people love each other, everything can be worked out.”
“Not when one of them is the Tin Man.”
“Stop it with that reference, already. Your heart is fine. You just said you love me.”
He touched my cheek then, caressed it carefully as if it were made of porcelain. “It’s not my heart that’s the problem, sweetheart. It’s my soul.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bryce
My soul.
Yeah, my heart was fine. I wasn’t lying. I loved my mother and I loved my son as much as I always had. And I loved the woman before me. So damned much.
But where my soul once was lay only a black hole. I felt used up, empty, as if my physical body no longer housed something full of light. Now, only blackness lived inside me. The blackness of my father and the guilt he’d left me.
Marjorie took my hand, entwining her fingers with mine. Her flesh was warm and inviting. Loving.
Marjorie had a soul, a beautiful soul full of love and light. I couldn’t tarnish her. I just couldn’t.
“You’re being way too hard on yourself. You have a soul. You know you have a soul.”
“It’s an illusion,” I said.
“Maybe all souls are illusions. Maybe it’s something we’re taught so we can believe something continues to exist after our bodies die. No one knows, Bryce.”
“Semantics don’t matter, Marj. Whatever I once had inside me that made me feel full and happy—it’s gone now.”
“You’re feeling guilt,” she said. “That’s all.”
“Oh, yeah. I feel guilt. But this goes beyond guilt. It’s these memories of my father. They torture me. All the damned time.”
“What memories?”
“From my childhood. All that time, he was doing horrible, awful things to innocent people. Young people, Marjorie. And at the same time, he was teaching me things.”
“What things?”
“Things a father teaches a son. Things I’ll teach Henry someday. How to camp, fish, shoot a gun. How to be a man.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “I learned how to be a man from a monster.”
Finally, my guilt poured out of me and into this lovely woman. She’d walk away for sure.
Hell, I wouldn’t blame her if she ran away screaming bloody murder.
I was a fucked-up mess.
“That’s not your fault,” she said.
“But…he was a good father. To me. And at that same time…”
“Hey, it’s okay.”
“God. None of this is okay. Not even a tiny bit.”
“Your father was a monster. You’ll get no argument from anyone.”