A Healing Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

brings the pain back. I think the hardest part for me is wondering why and how I was the only one to survive.”
    He looked deep into my eyes; I could feel his intensity all the way down to my toes, warming me inside. “You feel guilty for surviving?”
    “ Yes.”
    “ Why? I’m pretty sure there is a reason why you made it. A purpose for you.”
    I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s just something that I don’t think I’ll ever understand.”
    He pointed toward Riley, drawing my gaze in that direction. “If you hadn’t survived, then that little boy over there would never have known you. Isn’t that something good?”
    I thought about it for a minute. Truthfully, I really had never wondered if there was a reason why I made it. I had always been consumed by my loss, often wishing I could have joined my family; it would have been a lot easier. Living through it was hard, so very hard sometimes. It took Collin, a relative stranger, to point out something so basic, something no one had been able to get through to me before.
    “ Yes, I guess it is.”
    “ And I never would have gotten to meet you,” he said with a big grin on his face.
    “ Okay, now you’re pushing your luck.”
    “ But it made you smile again. You have a great smile, by the way. It lights up your eyes. Are your eyes blue? I could have sworn they looked almost green yesterday.”
    “ They seem to change colors. Depends on what I’m wearing or my mood, maybe the weather too. I’ve never really figured it out.”
    “ They are intriguing. I like that.”
    “ Okay, my turn.”
    “ Your turn for what?”
    “ Questions. You now know a big chunk of my background, and I know so little about you.”
    “ What do you want to know?”
    I smiled. “I’ll start easy. Where did you move from?”
    “ Sacramento, this time. We move a lot. My dad’s in construction, and we tend to move where the jobs are. He also picks up evening work doing whatever he can find. He’s rarely home. He says it’s to make sure there is enough money to put food on the table, but that’s just an excuse. I see through it for what it is.”
    It was my turn to prod him to continue. “So what do you think is the real reason?”
    “ To keep himself from thinking about Krista, our mom. He loved her more than anything, but she was always selfish, never satisfied, always looking for something bigger, something better. I guess she loved us, in whatever fashion she could. My dad hung on to what he could, he made it work. Tried always to please her. Then she got pregnant with Lacey. My dad was so excited when they found out it was going to be a girl. He was so sure that the new baby would be good for my mom, that it would be that missing piece she was always looking for. She would have a little girl to love. Lacey was born, and she’s amazingly almost a spitting image of my mom——same hair color, facial structure, and eyes. Instead of bonding with her, my mom wanted nothing to do with her. The doctors said she had postpartum depression, that she’d come out of it. She never did, it got worse and worse. My dad and I were the ones taking care of Lacey while she was off shopping or doing whatever whim drove her next.
    “ When Lacey was eighteen months old, my mom packed up all her stuff and left. It ripped my dad apart. Part of him died that day. He’s never really been the same since. Now, he mostly keeps his distance, working all the time. We always have what we need——food, clothes, baby-sitters for Lacey——but the one thing Lacey needs the most, the love of both of her parents, she won’t ever have. I try to make up for that the best I can. Lacey is so shy, so afraid of new people, new environments. We never stay very long in one place. As soon as she starts feeling comfortable, we end up leaving again. I’ve begged my dad for us to stay in one place, but I think, in some ways, it’s his way of coping, of running away from everything.”
    “ Wow, you had to grow up