RECLAIM MY HEART(69)

She glanced away. “Lucas, I’m worried. This is moving too fast. We have Zach to think of. If we try and fail…” The rest of her thought faded when she saw the firm set of Lucas’s jaw.
“We’re not going to fail. Not again. It just won’t happen.”
“What about my parents?” she asked. “From the looks of it, they haven’t changed much. But, Lucas, I can’t shut them out of my life anymore. As imperfect as they may be, they’re still my parents. I love them.”
“I know you do. I can live with that. I can’t sit here and tell you that I’ll ever feel about them the way you do, or that I’ll be rushing over there every Sunday for a family meal. But I can tell you I’ll do my best to respect your love for them. And I’ll always appreciate them purely for who they are. Shutting them out of our lives would be a mistake.”
She didn’t miss his choice of pronouns.
“We’ve already made all the mistakes, all the bad decisions, we’re going to make.” His thumb smoothed hot, tiny circles on the back of her hand. “In fact, I say we make a pact right now. We promise not to make any decisions without talking things out, you and I. What do you say?”
Tyne studied his gorgeous face, his warm, intense eyes, her heart filling with so much haith>“Weppiness she felt it might split in two. She pressed her palm to the side of his neck, slid it up to his jaw. Then she leaned in and kissed him softly before whispering against his mouth, “I promise.”
“Ah,” he said, “you’ve done it again, Am?w?. Got me right in the heart.”
Her eyes went round. “You remember?”
He slid his arms around her and pulled him up tight against him. “Like I could ever forget.”
?     ?     ?

“All rise,” the bailiff announced.
Everyone, Tyne, Zach, Lucas, and the Assistant State’s Attorney, stood as Judge Taylor entered the small courtroom and seated himself. The uniformed officer called the room to order, declared that court was now in session and ordered all of them to sit.
“Folks, because we’re running behind today,” Judge Taylor said, studying the file in front of him, “I’d like to get right down to business. So, Mr. Zachary Whitlock, tell me what’s been happening.”
Zach slid out his chair and stood. Tyne gave him an encouraging smile.
“Well, Your Honor, ah, Judge, ah, Sir,” Zach stammered. He stopped talking, turning bright red in the face.
The judge leaned forward. “It’s okay. Any of those will work.” Without cracking a smile, he added, “But we don’t need all three at once, understood?”
“Yes, sir, Your Honor.” Her son’s eyes widened and he clamped his mouth shut, his cheeks and neck flaming to crimson.
“Relax, son,” Judge Taylor told him. “Now, tell me what’s been going on in your life for the past month. I see from your file that you succeeded in keeping your nose clean, so that’s good.”
“My dad took me to his hometown—Wikweko.”
“Ah, yes.” He peered over top of his reading glasses. “I remember now. And your mother? Did she go along?”
“She did, sir. And I met my family. My dad’s uncle. He’s Lenape. And my mom’s parents. My granddad is the mayor of Oak Mills.”
“Meeting family is good. What’d you spend your time doing?”
“My dad taught me to shoot a bow. And I went camping. My uncle taught me to build a shelter and start a fire to cook the fish we caught. I learned about edible plants. I played the water drum during a pow-wow. I heard all about my Lenape history. I whittled a bird out of pine wood.”
Zach continued his litany of activities until Tyne could see the judge was fighting the desire to glance at his wristwatch.
Finally, her son said, “I learned a lot of things, sir. But the best thing I learned, I think, is that I’m responsible for me.”
Judge Taylor perked up.
“I told you before,” Zach continued, “that I didn’t know those guys I was with the night I got into trouble. And I wasn’t lyin’ to you, sir. I didn’t know them. But when I said it, I have to admit that I was trying to, like, blame them. ’Cause I was scared, and all I wanted was to get out of trouble. But I learned that what happened to me was my fault.”
Her son had the judge’s full attention now, and anxiety squeezed Tyne’s stomach until she felt nauseated.
“I learned from my Uncle Jasper that I should never jeopardize my integrity. That my choices matter.” Zach glanced at Tyne, and then at Lucas. “I learned the same thing from my parents. I figured out that they made some bad choices when they were young.”
Lucas turned questioning eyes on Tyne, and she arched her brows and lifted her shoulders the tiniest fraction.
“They made choices that they regret. And it helped me realize that my uncle was right.” Zach rested hiZacftes fingertips on the tabletop. “I’ve decided that I don’t want to get old like them and regret the choices I made while I was a kid.”
Lucas looked pained, his dark eyes glittering, his lips twitching, as he looked over at Tyne and mouthed, “Old?” Her cheeks puffed and she clamped her hand over her mouth. The last thing she wanted to do was laugh. Not at a moment like this. When Zach was trying his damnedest to do a good job of explaining himself to the judge. She faced forward and studied the overly-stiff collar on the bailiff’s olive uniform shirt.
“So I’m going to be careful,” Zach said, “about what I say and do, and who I hang with. ’Cause like my Uncle Jasper says, when it comes right down to it, all a man has is his reputation. If he ruins that, he’s got nothing.”