The Long and Winding Road (The Seafare Chronicles 4)

“Be a cop. Seeing some of the things that you do.”

“Ty doesn’t either. He worries. He understands why, but he doesn’t always get the how. But as long as we have the former, I can deal with the latter.”

“He told you this?”

Dom laughs quietly. “All the time.”

“Do you fight about it?”

“Not really. Not anymore.”

“Because of the why?”

“Because of the why.”

The why being Dom having witnessed his father murder his mother. It didn’t need to be said out loud, and in the end, I don’t know that it’s my business anyway. Dom’s childhood was filled with more horror than I could ever understand, and the fact that he’s standing at all, much less that he’s as strong as he is, is a testament to who he is. I remember the bitterness in the Kid’s voice, the anguish when Dom had told him what he wanted to do with his life. Ty had been so scared for him, the idea of Dom putting himself in harm’s way on purpose almost unfathomable. And I don’t think that fear ever truly went away, especially with today’s climate toward cops in general. Dom, though. Dom was one of the good ones.

“What happened when you got to the house?”

“By then,” Dom says, hands folded on top of the table, “another call had come in to 911. A little girl, saying that her mom and dad were fighting, and that her dad had hit her mom. Her mom was bleeding, and she was scared and needed help.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“She was very brave,” Dom says. “And she did the right thing. By the time I pulled up, another officer was already there at the front door. He was knocking, and I could hear a woman crying inside through an open window. It only took a moment before the door opened, and there was the little girl, staying on the phone like she was told to until the police arrived. She was only seven years old, and she was scared, but she was doing everything she was told to do. She was very brave. Her mom already had a nasty bruise on her cheek, and her dad was sitting on the couch, his face in his hands. He didn’t try and resist. He came willingly, and you know what I thought then?”

I shake my head.

“I thought about you and Ty. That, while there was no physical abuse, there was abuse just the same. That the both of you had been through as much as you had, and you came out all right in the end. And I told myself that this girl, this brave little girl could eventually do the same. Because she reminded me of the both of you. She asked a lot of questions. What was going to happen to her. To her mom. To her dad. If I ever turned on the sirens just for fun in my patrol car. If I had to eat a lot to stay as big as I was.”

“Your grocery bill is terrifying.”

He rolls his eyes. “Most of that is Ty’s food. Being a vegetarian is expensive.”

“Why did you tell me this?”

“Because, Bear, she reminded me of you. And of Ty. But also of Izzie, okay? Because you and Ty had to deal with your mother for as long as you did, but eventually, she left. And while it didn’t seem like it at the time, it was the best thing that could have happened to the both of you. You were free from her.”

And it hits me then. “Izzie wasn’t.”

He shakes his head. “She wasn’t. For years, Julie McKenna was all she knew. I guarantee you that you’ll probably never know the extent of what that woman did to Izzie. Because abuse doesn’t have to be physical. You of all people should know that. So her being here might be scary for you and Otter, and it might be overwhelming, especially with all that’s going on, but it’s got to be worse for her. She’s only ever known your mother. She didn’t know any of us before she came.”

“Otter loves her,” I tell him. “As much as Ty and I do.”

“I know he does,” Dom says. “And people say stuff they don’t mean all the time. All you need to do is look at me and Ty to prove that. We should have—it could have been different, I think. But things happen for a reason. The road we took to each other—the road all of us took—wasn’t an easy one. But we’re here, you know? And we’ve been here. For a while. Izzie hasn’t. She’s still new to all of this. She just needs to be reassured of her place sometimes. You guys have a lot going on. Don’t forget about her too.”

“I haven’t always been nice to you.”

He looks amused at that. “You had your reasons.”

“Maybe. And I can’t say I wouldn’t be the same if I had to do it all over again.”

“I wouldn’t expect any different.”

“But I don’t think I was right. Not always.”

He arches an eyebrow at me. “That so?”

“I should have seen it from where you were coming from. I didn’t do that. I only thought about Tyson.”