“I remember the panic I felt when I heard him leaving the house. I ran down the stairs and out of the house after him. I caught up with him at the garden gate. I pleaded with him not to leave. I could see how much it was hurting him in that moment. I didn’t want him to leave. I was hanging on to his jacket, but my mother pried me off of him. Before she dragged me inside the house, my grandpa knelt in front of me, took my face in his hands, and told me that it would just be this one weekend that I wouldn’t see him. He promised me that he’d be back the following Saturday to pick me up. Told me that he loved me, and he’d always take care of me. Then, he hugged me, and he got in his car and left.”

I discreetly wipe away the tear on my cheek. “He came back,” I whisper. “He kept his promise.”

“Yeah, he did.” Liam’s expression softens. But then his eyes harden. “But I didn’t see him for three months. My mother kept her word and wouldn’t let him see me. I knew he was fighting her for access. I saw the letters from the lawyers. I might have been ten, but I knew he was fighting for custody. And…I hated my mother for keeping me from him.” His voice catches.

I look at him, and I can see the agony clear in his eyes.

“I told her I hated her.” His pained gaze comes to mine. “I argued with her a week before she died. I told her that I hated her for keeping my grandpa from me. I didn’t speak to her for a whole week. I ignored her, pretended that she didn’t exist. And then…she didn’t anymore.”

I catch another falling tear, rubbing it away with the back of my hand. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“My last words to her were my fault. They were in anger, yes, but a part of me meant them at that time.”

“You were ten, Liam.”

He lifts a shoulder, like that doesn’t matter. “My mother died, thinking I hated her. I never got the chance to tell her that I didn’t.”

“She knew you didn’t hate her,” I say the words softly.

In my opinion, his mother didn’t deserve his love. She didn’t deserve him, period. But he did love her…still does, I think, and it’s important to him that she knows that even though he thinks she doesn’t.

And I understand needing those you loved who are gone to know just how much you loved them. How much they meant…still mean to you, and just how sorry you truly are for everything.

I’m willingly, without regret, giving up my life to show the ones I love how sorry I am for the way I hurt them.

“She was a lot of things…but she was my mother, and I did love her.”

“She knew, Liam,” I emphasize the words to push them home. I want him to know this.

He shakes his head, like he’s clearing it of those thoughts. “Things were crap in those last three months without my grandpa around,” Liam says quietly, the ache painfully evident in his voice. “I mean, they were never particularly great before, but they got bad. Grandpa cut my mother off financially after she’d stopped him from seeing me. I know now that he was trying to make her see sense. But cutting her off meant he cut me off. I didn’t eat well in those three months.” His eyes slide to the ground. “The money she did get from the government would go straight into the needle that went into her arm.

“I didn’t see my grandpa again until the day my mother was murdered. That morning, I’d gotten up, gotten myself ready for school, and left the house. She hadn’t gotten out of bed, but that wasn’t unusual. And, from what I know, from what the police told us, Russ turned up at our house at lunchtime. They got high on heroin. Then, they got into an argument. Russ had been accusing my mother of cheating on him for a while now. I’d heard and been witness to the fights—some physical.” He meets my eyes. “They argued that day about the same thing…him accusing her of cheating. Guess the drugs were fueling his paranoia. When Russ was arrested, he said they were arguing, he hit her, she fought back…and the argument…got out of hand. Then…” He trails off, lifting a shoulder.

“Was she cheating on him? Not that she deserved to die because of it,” I quickly add, worrying how that could sound to him.

Liam shakes his head. “No, I don’t think she was cheating. But, that day, Russ believed she was. And he stabbed her to death in our kitchen. Our neighbor heard the commotion, saw Russ running from our house, covered in her…blood.” He exhales harshly. “My grandpa got the call. He was actually listed as my mother’s emergency contact. I guess he was the only family she had. Me, too. I was still at school. The teachers made me stay after everyone had left for the day. I was sitting in the headmaster’s office. I remember the way he kept looking at me. I knew something was wrong. Then, my grandpa turned up and took me straight to his house. He sat me down and told me what had happened to my mother. He hugged me for what felt like forever. I stayed at his house, and I never left.”

“Your father…”

He shakes his head. “He didn’t even come home for her funeral. He and Grandpa haven’t spoken since.”

“What about you and your dad?”

He lets out a laugh, a sardonic-sounding one. “I fund his lifestyle. Grandpa cut him off, and his trust ran out. I was a man by that point, and my business was doing well. He came begging.” He shrugs. “My father has never worked a day in his life. He wouldn’t even know how to earn money. I might have my issues with him…but he’s my father, so I couldn’t see him on the streets.”