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“Even if you revive her, you realize that much of her memory could be fragmented.”
“Some of her is better than none at all.”
“I agree wholeheartedly. Kaleb?”
“Yeah?”
“You and your mother are the lights of my life. If anything had happened to you yesterday—”
“It didn’t.”
“Just know that no matter what happens here I love you.” He put his hand on my shoulder.
“I love you, too, Dad.”
I pulled the chair he’d been sleeping in up to her bedside. It was the same one I’d sat in when I tried to take away her pain— too little, too late. This time, it was going to be different, because this time, I was going to restore her joy.
I took both of her hands in mine and kissed her forehead.
Closing my eyes, I focused my energy on gathering up all her most precious emotions and memories, bundling them up carefully.
And then I pushed.
I pushed with all the love and determination I had. I focused on giving them back chronologically, as close as I could get for the parts I hadn’t personally experienced, and one at a time. Clarity was the top priority, after bringing her back.
Her skin began to warm against mine, and her breathing grew labored. I finished with the memories I didn’t understand, one in particular, and held on, afraid to open my eyes.
The machine monitoring her heartbeat sped up, and an alarm went off on another machine.
“Dad?” I stood, stepped back, and looked at him instead of her, but I didn’t let go of her hands.
Anger. Fear. Despair. Pain.
The rush of emotions sucker-punched me. I might have gone down if they hadn’t been followed by love. Gratitude. Joy. Relief.
Her blue eyes, the mirror image of mine, opened. She was smiling.
er 53
The second Teague and Lily turned away, I rushed Jack.
He wrestled with me, digging his fingernails into my arms, kicking at my shins. I grabbed his face with my good hand, ready to let my ability open up wide. He anticipated my plans.
And opened up a world of pain instead.
Every ocean in the world roared in my ears as he pushed memories on me. Mom, when she heard about Dad, wrapped in grief, curled up on the floor. My face when she told me what happened. Dad, his fear the minute before Jack erased five years of his life.
Showing me Dad’s memories was Jack’s first mistake.
Those five years were so fresh I could see them perfectly. Taking back the emotion that went with them was like siphoning the foam off a cold beer. Pulling the love away brought memories, all of them. I held them inside me, and then I was riding a wave through Jack’s brain space.
Now I knew what to look for, and finding my mom’s memories was easy. They flowed like water, slipping away from Jack and into me, making me stronger. My dad, movie sets, shared kisses in her trailer, their wedding on a beach in Bali. My birth, me as a toddler learning to walk. Laughing, with peas smeared all over my face. From a preschooler to a teenager in fast forward, with my dad aging the same way. More images: cooking together, watching me swim. Then ones I didn’t understand … a white house on a hill … swamps … an older couple … a much younger Teague?
I slowed down the flow to try to examine that image. It gave Jack enough equilibrium to push back.
His defense involved showing me things I didn’t want to see. Emerson broken and burned. Michael and my dad confiding in each other, Dad clamping his hand on Michael’s shoulder. The word son.
The pain was so quick and sharp that I almost faltered. Then somehow, I knew it was a lie.
