“I do.” He smiled but it was a little sad. “I have been pretty sure he loved you since I saw his face at the farm that night he came to visit. But love without honesty is a trap, Helen.”
“He told me the truth. About the songs and how it all happened.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I do.”
“Do you believe he’s tried to redeem himself for what happened?”
“He’s taking all the money he’s making from sales of the album and putting it in a trust for Bea,” she whispered. His eyes went wide.
“Oh.” He wrapped his arms around her. “That’s really something.”
“He tried to tell me,” she said. “So many times. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”
“Only you can answer that, honey.”
The truth was, that wasn’t even what was really bothering her. How did she know this was real? That was what she was scared of. “What if I am interesting right now because of the songs and the way I was making him feel and it all goes away?”
“Sure,” Jonah said. “That’s the risk, with love. But what if it doesn’t go away? What if it gets better and you build something amazing? And that’s the reward?”
The picnic, without a doubt, was a huge success. And more than that, it was a well-run and orderly success. No surprises. No drama. Lines ran smoothly. The raffle items were going for double and triple the prices listed. The guitar signed by Band of Outlaws was going for more than five grand, and when she walked into the pavilion where all the items were laid out she was surprised to see Alex walking around, schmoozing and shaking hands. Accidentally she met his gaze and she made a super awkward effort to pretend she hadn’t. She turned away only to find Bea with Micah in the crowd. Like he was a magnet and she could only look at him. He was sitting on one of the plastic little kid chairs and Bea was reaching up, her tongue between her teeth as she carefully painted a gigantic butterfly on Micah’s face.
Oh my god.
Her insides quaked and she clutched her clipboard to her chest to keep herself from…she didn’t know. Hurling herself across the park and into his arms.
“Hey.”
She turned to find Alex standing beside her.
“Hi,” she said, her voice pitched somewhere only dogs could hear.
“Quite a picnic.”
“Glad you like it.”
“I never knew Micah and Mom came to Haven House when he was young.”
“He was keeping that a secret?” she asked. “Wow, the guy likes his secrets.”
“They are not secrets,” Alex said, jumping to his brother’s defense. Which was strange for the guy who left him to fight his fights. “I used to think they were, but recently I’ve been thinking something else.”
She turned, giving him her undivided attention.
“He’s written twenty songs about our mom,” he said. “And everyone thinks they’re good old mama-boy songs but no one ever hears how angry they are. I never heard how angry they are.” He gave her his best heartbreaker grin and it was good. Really good. But she’d had some practice lately looking behind rock-star personas and she saw something else there. Something dark behind the devil-may-care face he gave the world. Something sad and a little bit sorry.
“He processes everything by writing about it. If he doesn’t write about it, it sits in his stomach for years and he pretends it didn’t happen and, yeah, he keeps it a secret. But they’re the kind of secrets that hurt him more than anyone else. Unless he writes about them.” He shrugged. “If the money he’s willing to give you doesn’t sway you, maybe that will.”
“Sway me toward what?”
“A second chance,” he said. “My brother would really like a second chance.”
“Mom!” Bea shouted from the face-painting tent. “Look at Micah!”
Micah turned to face Helen and Alex, and they both gasped. A lopsided pink butterfly took up the whole of his face. The wings on his cheeks. The body his broken nose. There was a lot of glitter.
“Good god,” Alex laughed. “It must be love.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The bachelor auction was starting up and Josie was the MC. She had a little PA system and a lectern for her notes.
“Let’s hear it for the bachelor auction, ladies and gentlemen. The Athens Fire Department has pulled out all the stops this year, so let’s bid high and let’s bid often. Get your oil changed and support a good cause.”
The sun was setting, and the food tents were running out of food and all day people had been coming up to her with their lockboxes full of cash, terrified of how much money was in them. They’d started emptying the lockboxes into a gym bag that she had in the trunk of her car. And Jonah had taken the gym bag to the safe at Haven House. Twice.