See How She Runs (The Chronicles of Izzy #1)(19)

With all that I am,

Mommy





I sat motionless and numb for longer than I could imagine. By the time I finally pulled myself out of my reverie I realized I was no closer to understanding anything than I was before this letter. I glanced back at the paragraph about Kennan. I had wondered why he left when I was young. Though, with the feelings that kept surfacing toward him, I was kind of glad he left when he did. How creepy would that be? Uncle Kennan.

No thank you.

I was not quite ready to deal with the feelings brought on by my mother’s words. Kennan, I could handle. The overwhelming sense of love that poured from her every word scared the bejeezes out of me. I read through the letter twice more before glancing at the clock. I realized four hours had passed without my notice.

Now that I was pulled back to the present, I heard a constant thwack noise coming from outside. I got up and moved to the window noticing that Kennan was chopping wood, and by the grace of God himself he was shirtless. I had seen him without a shirt before. But this was different.

This was the real Kennan, not the mockery I had been seeing for the past two years. I gawked at the intricate tattoos that started on his back and looped in and out across his broad shoulders and down his arms. The knots seemed to have no beginning and no end. They spoke of old magic and times long forgotten. His muscles rippled and glistened as he swung the axe to split another log.

He stacked the split logs on the growing pile behind him. He turned toward where I was standing and winked before he went back to chopping. Shocked that he knew I was there and more than a little mortified at being caught gawking, I blushed crimson. Yep, certainly glad he was not dear, old Uncle Kennan, because that would be super skeevy.

Determined to calm my hormones and distract my mind from everything happening, I moved into the kitchen to fix some sandwiches. One for me, and three for Kennan. A growing man needed to eat. After I piled everything up on two plates, I stuck my head out the door and hollered that lunch was done. Kennan picked up his shirts and wiped his face before heading into the cabin. Between the drizzle and the sweat he was drenched.

He walked past me toward his bag and pulled out a plain tee shirt. I was suddenly struck with the desire to be that shirt clung to him as tightly. Maybe I needed a cold shower. This was getting out of control. Two years of nothing and then whammy, hormone overload.

Trying to distract myself, I headed back to the kitchen and filled two cups full of water. I sat down and stared directly at my sandwich. Not willing to make eye contact for fear of blushing again, I dug into my sandwich.

Kennan lowered himself into his chair with more grace than should have been afforded the mountain that he was. He snickered at me.

“You alright there, Red? You look a little flustered. Thanks for the grub by the way. I am famished.”

“Nope, not flustered, totally fine. Just feeling a bit weird about the whole Mom letter."

Even to my own ears I sounded tightly wound and ridiculous. Luckily for me, Kennan did not press the issue.

“So, what did it say? Anything that might help us figure out what to do next?" he asked around a mouthful of sandwich.

Must not look at his lips.

“Hm? Oh, well, she said she could not see through the fog or something like that. Most of the letter was about you actually. Were ya’ll really close when I was younger? I mean, I have these vague memories of someone that must have been you being around. But nothing that is clear. It gets kind of fuzzy where you are concerned." I looked into his eyes, realizing the truth of it. My memories had been hacked again.

“We thought that it would be best if you did not really remember me. It would make it hard for you when you got older to treat me like a peer or a friend. If we had known back when you were born that I would be your Guardian, I would never have stayed as long as I did. We are meant to be the same age as the one we protect. So when I left, I took the memories of a girl that radiated sunshine and you were left with vague memories of a family friend." He went back to eating without saying anything more.

For a while we sat in silence. Both lost in our own memories. But a question that kept tugging at my mind would go unanswered no longer.

“Wasn’t it weird for you though, I mean to see me again and have to act like you didn’t know me? Don’t you see me like the five year old you left, the daughter of your best friend? I just don’t know how we are meant to be on equal footing when you have borne witness to my entire life. You still have all of the memories that were taken from me." I looked at him, hoping my question was not a foolish one. With everything else happening, it somehow seemed petty to even spend time thinking about it.

“I was afraid it would be. After Grams died, I knew that I had to come back into the picture. That first night you came into the bar, I immediately knew it was you. The same hair as your mother, the same eyes as your father, and the same sense of lightness that seems to cling to you, I knew. But you were so different from the last time I saw you. I did not watch you grow up, I couldn’t or I would have aged as well. So I got reports from Grams and from everyone else. I knew how well you did in school, and all of the little events that made up your life. But I was not witness to you. Just the events." He got up from his chair and moved toward the kitchen. I could see him weighing his next words and wondered what would come next.

“Izzy, I do have the memories of a little girl, a bright ray of sunshine. You were always so happy as a child. I think that I only ever saw you cry twice. But the you that came into the bar, you aren’t the same person. You had not lost the sunshine, but you were grown. You were a woman, tempered by loss and tragedy. Your brightness not gone but dulled by a life of loss. Even right after you lost Grams and came down to the bar, you still had a sense of optimism that I would have recognized anywhere."