As I passed a wooden hutch, I paused to look at the photos spread across the dark wooden shelves. Years of family memories captured in time. Photos of a young Hutch and Sybil when they were building the cabin. Of two blonde-haired little boys fishing by the river’s edge taken sometime in the early seventies. Of my mom and my dad when they were so young and naïve, their arms around each other as they posed awkwardly for the camera before heading off to prom. Of Sybil and Hutch’s six grandchildren, the twins Abby and Isaac, and me with my brothers and sister. All of us young and smiling.
I picked up a silver framed photo of me and my granddaddy. It was taken just before he passed away. I was only eight but we’d already formed such a close bond. Sybil once told me that Hutch had admitted to her that he felt closer to me than he ever did with my father. My daddy, he said, wasn’t interested in him right from the very beginning. But in me, he’d found a kindred spirit, and I felt exactly the same way. Losing him had punched a hole right through my heart and I’d never gotten over it.
I picked up a second photo. It was of Chance and me taken a week before he was shipped out. Chance was in his Navy uniform and smiling broadly for the camera. I was a geeky fourteen-year-old with no muscles, no facial hair, and no idea I was going to watch my father die in front of me in a matter of months.
Our family had lost so many. Not just our biological family, but our MC family, as well. Losing Chance was not an option.
I thought of Honey and our baby, and a calming warmth swept through me. I put the photo down and took a deep breath. Pulling my sketchbook and pencils from my overnight bag, I stepped out onto the back veranda overlooking the water and sat in my granddaddy’s chair. Looking for some peace and quiet from my own head, I opened my sketchbook and began drawing.
I’m not sure how long I was out there, but it grew dark so I had to turn on the porch light. I took a beer from the refrigerator in the kitchen and lost myself deeper into my art. Frogs croaked down by the water, and bugs buzzed in the air. Farther down the river an owl hooted, calling out to her mate.
When a set of headlights broke through the darkness of the trees, I realized I must’ve been out on the veranda for hours. I got up, the chair creaking and moaning as I climbed out of it to see who was here.
Just as I stepped inside, there was a knock on the door.
It was Honey.
Love bloomed in my heart when I saw her standing there on the doorstep looking unsure and a little vulnerable. She wasn’t sure if she should have come, but she was here just in case. For me.
Without saying a thing, I pulled her into my arms and held her tightly to my chest, burying my face in the warmth of her neck as all my emotions surged to the surface. Until I’d seen her, I didn’t realize how much I needed her right now.
“It’s okay,” she whispered.
I didn’t want to let her go. I wanted to stay engulfed in her. But I broke away and stepped back to let her inside.
“I wanted to check on you,” she said, placing her handbag on the small, round dining table. “I hope that’s okay.”
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I said. I was tired. Emotionally wrecked. Having her here made me incredibly happy. I sat down on the couch and she sat across from me, her legs curled underneath her, the swell of her belly obvious in the dress she wore.
And that was how we sat for hours. Talking. About everything. About Chance and his injuries and what it would mean for him now. She asked about him and I told her how he’d joined the Kings of Mayhem while on a break from his Navy duties before heading into the more specialized field of the Navy SEALs. How he bought me my first tattoo gun.
And in turn she told me about her childhood. How when she was growing up she wanted to be a part of a family because she was always lonely for company when her mom was never home. And when she told me that, I longed to tell her that she could be a part of the biggest family in the state if she would just let me in and give me a chance.
But I didn’t.
Because I wasn’t in the mood to hear her answers.
Not tonight.
Realizing it was after midnight, we moved to the bedroom and my body ached with fatigue, my mind even more so. Moonlight streamed into the room and cast the shadows in a milky white glow, making her skin as smooth as marble. She moved across the room and kissed me chastely on the cheek, wrapping her arms around me as she gave me a warm embrace goodnight.