Bradley unfolded the crinkled paper and studied it again. He had always known this day would come, but he still had trouble fitting the words into his world.
Every time he read the letter, his heart and mind filled with a flood of emotions.
Sorrow …
Regret …
Urgency …
Anger …
Mostly anger, he reckoned. He had left that life behind him, and here his mother was, begging him to come home one last time.
Juanita stood from her seat at the kitchen table and walked across the room, slipping an arm around Bradley’s waist.
“You need me to help pack your things, darlin’?” she asked.
She always knew just when he needed her, and just what he needed from her. He hoped he gave her the same comfort.
He thought he did.
Bradley turned toward his wife and pulled her close, kissing her soft lips.
“I don’t want to go back there, ‘Nita,” he whispered.
She pushed him to arm’s length and stared deep into his eyes.
“Bradley, he’s your daddy. Nothing he did or didn’t do, before the war or after, will ever change that.”
Her husband bristled.
“Plantation owners like my daddy are the reason we had to fight in the first place. You know that, ‘Nita.”
She nodded and laced her fingers in his, then tugged him toward the back door of their little prairie home.
“He’s dying, Brad. And without him, there would be no you. No us.”
She motioned toward Blake and Nelly, frollicking through the autumn grass.
Tears welled in Bradley’s eyes as he watched their children, felt the warmth of his wife beside him.
He pulled his wife’s hand to his lips, their fingers a tangled harmony of brown and beige.
“Can you help me pack?”
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