“His heart did stop,” I explain.
He looks at me with so much pain in his eyes. “You told me he was in Heaven. You didn’t tell me killed himself! You didn’t tell me that he didn’t want to be with us anymore.”
I take Logan’s face in my hands. “No, he loved you and wanted to be with you!”
“You’re lying,” he cries. “You made us move here. We didn’t want to come here. We wanted to stay in our home.” His tears stream as my heart breaks. “I want my dad back!”
“I know you do. I wish he never left us either.”
“You can’t say that!” he yells. “You love Zach!”
“Logan,” Zach says, touching his arm. “Your mama loved your daddy so much. She told me about how much she misses him. She told me all about what a great man he was. How he took care of you, took you to hockey games.”
“My daddy was the best!” he says with defiance.
“He had to be if he had you and Cayden.”
Logan looks away with tears falling.
“Logan,” I say with tenderness.
“He was yelling at you! Daddy never yelled at you!”
“What’s wrong?” Angie asks out of breath with Cayden’s hand in hers. She sees all of us with tears running down our faces. “Logan?”
“Tell her, Aunt Angie!” he begs. “Tell Mom that Daddy didn’t kill himself!”
Cayden’s body locks and Angie holds him close. His eyes dart to mine and Angie’s.
“Lo,” she hiccups. “It’s so much more complicated than this.”
Wyatt, Cooper, Mama, and Daddy arrive behind her.
“Mom?” Cayden asks.
“You’re all wrong!” Logan screams. “He . . . he . . . he . . .” Logan turns his head into my chest. “He wouldn’t kill himself!”
“Cayden,” I say softly with my arm open.
He charges forward and wraps his arms around me. “Why?” he asks. “Is it true?”
Angie looks at me and her lip quivers. I beg her with my eyes to say something. I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m losing everything all over again.
“You know that your daddy was my brother,” she says as she walks forward slowly, “and that I miss him every day, but sometimes things happen that we can’t explain. It’s hard and it hurts, but know how much he loved you both.”
“He loved my mom!” Logan yells.
This is so out of character for him. He’s always been the docile one. Reasonable and intuitive.
I cling to the boys as I grapple with the wounds I’ve caused. I was protecting them, or so I thought. It would’ve been hard and hurtful if I’d told them in the beginning, but maybe it would’ve been fine by now. I’ve been dying inside from carrying all of this on my own.
Angie looks at me, and her breath catches as tears pour down her face. “He did.” Her voice is low and broken. “He loved us all so much. But he was very sad, baby.”
A sob breaks from my chest. “He loved you and Cayden so much!” I pull them tight. “Never ever doubt that.”
No matter what Todd chose, I will never let them feel unloved. I wonder if he loved us so much that he couldn’t bear to witness us suffer. I think about the man he was, and how much we were the center of his world. Someone who loves that hard doesn’t choose to walk away that easily. As much as his choice destroyed things, it brought me here. It gave me my family, friends, and Zach. Todd may have broken a part of me, but he also healed a piece that was already damaged. I wish it never had to come to this.
Cayden begins to cry harder. “I don’t understand. If he loved us, how could he leave?” His voice trembles.
I think he knew once all his lies were exposed, he would’ve lost me in some way, so he let me go the only way he could. On his terms.
“Sometimes there are no answers. Sometimes we have to love that person and find comfort that he’s not suffering anymore.” I wipe the tears that fall. “He’ll always be in our hearts and our memories. That’ll never go away.”
My daddy enters the barn slowly and sinks next to me. “Do you remember what I told you boys about a daddy’s love?” They both look at their granddad and nod. “Remember I told you that the why doesn’t matter, it’s the forever?” He reaches his hand out and touches my face and then looks back at them. “Whatever your daddy’s reasons were don’t matter. What you need to remember is that he loves you forever. And he’ll live inside of you. He’s watchin’ over you, givin’ you love when you need to feel it. Like right now.”
The rest of my family comes around us.
“We all love you,” Mama says. “More than my own life.”
“But,” Logan says.