AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I watched my mom, saw flashes of my past. The advice my mom gave to us as kids. She never pushed, never told me what to do, but simply gave her counsel—from when I was six and so angry I hit Eric Garcia because he pulled up my skirt on the playground to when I was contemplating reenlisting eight years ago. The first time she said she couldn’t fault me for hitting Eric, but every decision had consequences. Then she took me to a movie—a rare treat when we were little—the day I was suspended from school. Eric was suspended for two days, so I felt that was fair. School rules. Sometimes they could be broken, but you had to face the consequences, even when you were right.
And then when I was going back and forth about reenlisting. Some shit happened on base and I was angry—but I hadn’t lashed out like I had when I hit Eric. I stored everything inside until it nearly killed me. I considered the Army not only my duty, but my second family. Yet... I felt betrayed by that family.
My mom is the one who gave me the idea to serve in the Reserves. To come home and find my true calling. “You needed the structure of the Army,” she had said, “and the sense of belonging, accomplishment, duty, and honor. And I think you wanted to prove to yourself that you could be someone without the family name. It’s hard to live up to expectations all the time.”
At the time, I had never once thought I wanted to get away from my family. I loved my family, my brothers and sisters and parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and dozens of cousins. The Angelhart/Morales clan was huge. Family was everything to me, and I was proud to be an Angelhart, proud of my parents. But when she said it, there was some truth. Who was I without the family? Was I special? Could I succeed without the name? Because no one in the Army cared if you were an Angelhart. My mother saw a truth I hadn’t even acknowledged.
“Everything your father loved about the Army, you love about the Army,” she had told me. “But both of you are independent—too independent to always follow rules. This can be a good thing, but it doesn’t always conform to the structure of a bureaucracy. You have the discipline now that you didn’t have at eighteen. Go to school, learn a trade, or find a calling. If you choose to reenlist, I will support you. But if you choose a different path, I will also support that decision.”
So I didn’t reenlist, opted for the Reserves, and while it took a while to get my PI business off the ground, I found that it was my calling. Working for myself was exactly what I needed, warts and all. Helping people like Annie Carillo and Logan Monroe. Two people couldn’t be more different than the young abused mother and the wealthy entrepreneur, but they both needed my expertise. And when I helped them, I felt complete.
Maybe my mother understood me better than I thought.
Now Mom held Jennifer, patting her back as she would if Jennifer were her own daughter. As if Jennifer were me. Offering advice without pressure, with the foundation of nearly six decades of life experience.
I missed my mom. I missed what we had before my dad confessed to a murder he didn’t commit. I missed our arguments, our laughter, our family dinners.
I didn’t know how to forgive her, but I needed to find a way.
Jennifer’s sobs turned to sniffles, then she pulled back, frowned at my mom’s wet shirt. “I ruined your blouse,” she said.
“You certainly did not,” Mom said, wiping Jennifer’s face.
“Can I—I don’t want to impose, but can I stay at your house tonight? Just to get my head on straight and figure out what I want to do?”
“Of course.”
Because that was also my mom. She could be a hard-ass in court, she was the disciplinarian in the house when we were growing up, and she had high expectations for all of us. But she would help anyone who asked.
“If you decide to go with your father, Jack will take you to the airport, make sure that everything is kosher, okay? You’re not alone anymore, Jennifer. Or do you now want to be called Virginia?”
She looked surprised. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Then you will sleep on it. In the morning, you will know what is right.”
My mom had been my role model my entire life, until three years ago when everything fell apart. Had she changed...or had I? Could I forgive my mom for—for what? For accepting a decision my father made to confess to murder? For not fighting for him? Not searching for answers? For the truth?
Jennifer hadn’t known everything about her father and the reasons he made the decisions he made. There weren’t a lot of comparisons between the Bonetti family and my own. The Bonettis were criminals. The Angelharts fought criminals. Yet...they were family, and decisions were made because of family. Vincent Bonetti was asking for forgiveness, even though he didn’t believe he deserved it. He understood his daughter’s grief—over the loss of her mother and her best friend. Their pain was tangible, the circumstances complex, but not the love. The love was simple, straightforward, real.
My mother caught my eye for a split second, and I thought for certain she could read my mind—like I believed when I was little and she always seemed to know when I snuck cookies to Jack when he was grounded, or when Tess and I found a lost dog and decided to keep him in the shed thinking no one would know, or when I hid Luisa’s favorite stuffed animal because she ratted on me for breaking curfew.
I loved her. I missed her. I missed my family. Because even though I had relationships with everyone individually, the weight of my father’s incarceration had suffocated me, strained the bond that had united us for so long. Because of me. Because I had walked away. Because I said I couldn’t live with her decision to let it be.
I didn’t know if I could abide by her dictum, but I knew that even if we were on different sides of the line, I wanted my family whole again.
We locked up the office and left. Thomas Bonetti was waiting outside, without his father, and Jennifer excused herself and walked over to him. He said something to her and she started crying again, then hugged him. My phone vibrated and I read the message. It was from Theo.
Your guy is here.
Fifty-Seven
Margo Angelhart
I followed Jack to St. Dominic’s. We arrived twelve minutes after Theo’s text, just after 9:00 p.m. I’d called Theo from the road and he hadn’t answered, so I called Uncle Rafe and he hadn’t answered, either. Fear crept into my head during the twelve-minute drive, and not because Jack far exceeded the speed limit on both Highway 51 and then the side streets leading to the church.
As soon as Jack exited his truck he said, “There was no call to 9-1-1. You said he called 9-1-1.”
“I told him to,” I said, fearing for Theo.
