Hold on to Hope

Her face pinched in disbelief. “No, Frankie, this is exactly why you should have come. Because this is what you need to see. What’s really important to you. Maybe then you’ll stop faking it and go after what’s real.”

“I already know what’s important . . . it was Evan who didn’t grasp it.”

She huffed, her voice held in a tight whisper. “You aren’t really going to stand there and act like that’s the truth, are you? Have you looked at him with that baby? Have you seen the way he looks at you? I promise you that man knows exactly what is important.”

“He left me,” I defended on a low hiss.

“And maybe he had to in order to become strong enough to find his way back to you.” She hesitated, her eyes dropping in the glow of the flashlight as she sighed. It took her a few seconds to look back up at me. “I know you needed him, Frankie. I know what he did sucked balls and was all kinds of wrong and part of you wants to hate him for it, and that’s okay. But I think you have to ask yourself how much time you two are gonna waste.”

Grief constricted my heart, right along with the hope that wanted to burst up from the depths. I felt like I was suffocatin’ on them both.

She stared me down for a second, waiting. I was completely incapable of answering her. She shook her head. “I really do have to pee.”

Like the good friend that I was, I held the light while she squatted, and then we silently stumbled back through the rocks and dirt to our tent.

At the flap, I paused to peer out on the camp, the fire burning bright within the ring of rocks, all the faces of those who I loved lit up in the flames.

My chest clutched.

I gulped around the sorrow, crawled the rest of the way inside, and slipped into my sleeping bag. Carly climbed under hers and shut off the flashlight.

A few minutes later, her breathing evened out.

Voices carried, growing quieter and quieter the more time that past. I had no idea what time it was when the orange glow finally burned out the same as the conversation did.

Everyone calling it a night.

Footsteps crunched around the camp as everyone retreated to their designated tents.

It was almost silent when a cry jolted into the air.

Everett.

He was whimpering, crying these little bleats. “Ma-ma. Ma-ma.”

Oh God. I could feel that little boy’s pain. His own abandonment. The child so full of joy but also knowing he was missing something essential.

Evan’s voice covered it.

Soothing.

Sweet.

Loving.

Everything ached.

So badly that I curled over onto my side in a ball.

And I let myself weep.

Quietly.

Trying to hold it in while I listened to the comfort bleeding through the thin tent walls.

Carly reached out and brushed the hair out of my face, her voice a desperate whisper. “I’m so sorry, Frankie. I know it hurts.”

“It hurts so bad,” I gasped, choking around the confession. “It hurts so bad.”

“I know. I know.”

Twelve

Frankie Leigh

Five Years Old

Frankie Leigh inched down the hall, her back pressed to the wall, trying to make herself a secret.

She was supposed to be asleep, but she couldn’t sleep when she could hear the voices coming into her room.

Quiet voices.

She didn’t like the way they sounded, and her tummy felt funny as she moved closer and closer to the kitchen where the lights were shining bright.

She stopped right at the end of the hall, hidden in the shadows, her ear listening to her daddy who was talking to her new mama. Her good mama and not the bad one that was so, so mean and scary that Frankie’s tummy got sick thinking about her, too.

Her daddy’s voice was low, and she peeked out to see him sitting on a chair from the kitchen table that was turned around to face her mama. His elbows were on his knees and he was scrubbing both his hands over his face.

Her tummy twisted up.

“What do you mean?” her mama asked, sinking down onto her knees in front of him, touching him soft, trying to get his hands away so she could look at him.

“It’s horrible, Rynna. That poor little boy. They don’t think he’s gonna make it through the night.”

“Oh God.” Her mama pressed her fingertips to her lips, and Frankie could see the tears making a stream down her face. “What happened?”

Her daddy shook his head. “There was some kind of altercation with his biological father. He had a cardiac arrest. They did emergency surgery, but things aren’t looking good. Kale is a disaster.”

What were they talkin’ about?

Frankie tried to listen harder, to make sense of it when her mama started crying loud there on the floor. “Oh, poor Evan. Poor Hope. I just can’t imagine.”