Page 119 of Beautiful Broken Love

He walked toward one of the shelves, studying the images in their frames. I stood by the island counter, watching as he picked one of them up. It was a picture of me and Lew at Niagara Falls. I loved that picture, because it was captured randomly by a photographer on the boat. Lew was looking at me like I was the only girl in this world, his face soft, eyes low. I was cheesing hard, not even realizing he was looking at me.

“He loved you. I can tell,” Deke said, glancing at me. I walked toward him as he set the picture on the shelf again.

“If this is weird for you or anything, we can go somewhere else,” I said.

“It’s not weird to me, D. I’ve always wanted to see your place. Is it weird to you?”

I hesitated. “A little ... but I’ll get used to it.”

“I don’t think you should hide him,” Deke said. “He was a part of your life for years. No one can take that away. Not even me.”

I pressed my lips as he took my hands. “I’m glad you understand. I mean, one day I will put most of the pictures somewhere else, along with the boxes full of his clothes and hats and stuff. Just not right now. I don’t think I’m ready.”

Deke smiled down at me. “Take all the time you need.”

SIXTY-THREE

DEKE

When Davina invited me to her place, I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready for it yet. I was hit with a wave of discouragement knowing it was once a house she shared with another man.

I could never compete with her husband, and frankly, I never wanted to. But sometimes I wondered if she looked at those pictures and longed for the traits in him that she couldn’t find in me.

It was tricky thinking of the comparisons, but I had to remind myself just as Camille reminded me over and over again: love is different with every individual.

While Davina finished tossing a salad, I set up the table for her. When the food was ready and she’d prepared the plates, she set one in front of me, and it was piping-hot homemade lasagna.

“Oh shit. Let me find out my girl can cook!”

“I’m okay at it,” she said, sitting in the chair next to mine. “Octavia is the one who can throw down. I make a mean batch of pancakes, though.”

“I’ll have to try some of those soon, see what they’re all about.”

She smiled at me, and we dug in. It was really good, by the way. She had to stop discrediting herself.

“So, I don’t want to push too hard, but I am curious, Deke.”

I glanced at her as she cut into her lasagna. I already knew what topic she was about to bring up.

“My dad,” I sighed.

“Yes. I’m sorry, I just keep wondering what happened, then I think about your brother, and I’m just trying to connect the dots.”

“Yeah. I did promise to tell you.” I took a sip of sweet tea. “To put it simply, he’s an alcoholic. Well—according to my sisters and my mama, hewasone. He’s sober now.” I scoffed at the thought, taking another bite of lasagna. “Anyway, uh, he used to drink a lot in the afternoons. Every day he’d have a six- or twelve-pack of beer. Sometimes he’d go to the liquor cabinet. Didn’t matter what kind of alcohol it was, so long as he was drunk.”

Davina nodded, with sympathetic eyes.

“Whenever he drank, he became hostile and violent. He didn’t get heavily into drinking until I was around eleven, but before that, he was all right. He’s the one who got me and my brother into basketball. He showed us the fundamentals, taught us how to be respectful. He even taught us how to ride our bikes. To see him go from a stand-up dad to a raging alcoholic was shocking to me. My mom says it was because he was injured on the job and they let him go. He worked in construction, broke his arm somehow, and when they said it was his fault for not following protocol, they fired him.

“She said he was broke, injured, and angry, and that’s why he resorted to drinking. He was struggling to find another job that could pay him enough to provide for four kids, so my mom would do double shifts at the hospital. She was a triage nurse—still is to this day. I can only assume he wasn’t pleased that she was bringing in all the money and that he couldn’t find a job, so he started drinking.” I paused, swallowing thickly.

“It started slow, you know? Like a snowball effect. It started with him shouting at us, telling us to pick up our stuff or to clean something, and he only ever directed it to me and Damon. But we listened, because, you know, he was our dad, and back then, he was still a goodman to us. But eventually the yelling shifted to grabbing and shaking. Then he’d slap us or push us, tell us to buck up and stop acting like girls. And then it progressed to punches and beatings.

“He never did it to our sisters, though. Camille was already on her way to college, and Whitney was hardly ever home. Damon got the worst of it, though. If Damon lost a game, there my dad was throwing shit at him and punching him. Shouting at him about how sorry he was. If I lost, he did the same to me. Sometimes he took out a belt and hit us. Sometimes he grabbed us by the backs of our necks and would drag us all the way outside, force us to grab a basketball, and run drills until we were bone tired. And during all this, my mom would try and stop him, but whenever she did, he’d hit her too.”

I sucked in a breath, realizing Davina’s hand was on top of mine. I met her eyes, and they were glossy, her mouth trembling. “Deke,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the worst of it. The thing is, back then, Damon was the weakest of us mentally. He constantly doubted himself, constantly worried, but if there was one thing he was confident in, it was protecting us. There was one night when our dad was beating on himso badfor somethingIdid. I can’t even remember what it was about, that’s how stupid and minuscule it was. Damon took the fall for me, and our dad beat him until his eye was swollen and his bottom lip was busted.” I clenched my other fist.