Page 22 of Shelter for Shay
“Is that something that you want?”
“I do.” She nodded. “Someday. I’d been talking about different career paths before she got real sick. My degree, oddly, is in school psychology.”
“Sounds like you started off following in your mother’s footsteps.”
“I did.” Shay sighed. “But I wanted to see the world first. My mom never got that chance. Not that she’d ever get on a plane. She wanted so much more for me. Sometimes it bothered her that I had to come back and take care of her, but it was my choice and truthfully, I was looking at applying for regular jobs.”
Moose’s heart tightened. He had no blood relatives that he cared this much for, but he did have a family that he chose. Brothers who meant everything to him. Thor’s little girl was like his niece, and he loved that little cutie. Moose was lucky. He had people. He had love. “Your mom, she saw everything that mattered,” he said. “She saw who you are. And that… is everything.”
Shay looked down at her glass. “You always talk like you’ve figured out all of life’s secrets. Like you’ve unlocked some door that the rest of us haven’t found yet.”
Moose let out a soft, dry laugh. “Not even close. I’m just good at sounding like I have. The truth is, I’ve seen too much fall apart to believe in neat endings and nothing in my life has ever been… neat. My job is filled with chaos and the kind of noise you can’t think over. I’ve learned to carve out the quiet moments with just enough static that I don’t go crazy.”
“You ever have anyone?” she asked softly. “A family? A serious relationship?”
He shook his head. “While many SEALs manage to have wives and kids, it’s not an easy road. The divorce rate is through the roof and to be honest, my chickens scare off most women.”
“I heard about the chickens. Strange animal to have as pets.”
“They started off sort of as therapy animals and became something more,” he said. It was always hard to describe his bond with his chickens, but they were his and he loved them. “Outside of them, I’ve got a team. A tight one. Kawan, Sloan, Jupiter, Lief and our fearless leader, Thor. We’ve bled together.That’s a kind of family, I guess. But no one waiting for me at home. Just the chickens and a pile of letters I never send.”
“Letters to my mom?”
“When I wrote a letter to your mother, I sent it.” He shook his head. “These letters, well, they’re more like purging the anger that sometimes still sits on the surface of my heart.” He patted his chest. “I suppose they’re more like a journal but written to two specific people as a way to cut through the past that sometimes sneaks up on me.”
“Your childhood was that rough?”
“It wasn’t good.” He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. Her skin was soft and she tasted like peaches. “But we’re here to celebrate your mom, not talk about crap that will do nothing but depress us even more.”
After a beat, she reached for the photo album on the coffee table and set it between them as if to put space between him and his past. Or maybe it was to bring them together, he didn’t know. Her hands lingered on the worn cover before opening it to a random page. “She kept everything,” Shay said, her voice reverent. “Every birthday card I ever made her. Notes from students. Letters from you. She shared them with me.”
“Well, that’s embarrassing.”
“I loved reading them. I kind of felt like I knew you before you got here.”
“Yeah, she told me so much about you that it was almost weird meeting you.”
Shay chuckled. “My favorite letter was the one you wrote about building the chicken coop and how the chickens kept getting out.”
He smacked his forehead. “I think I was the only dude in high school who failed shop class.” Moose leaned in, scanning the faded photographs. One showed Margaret in her twenties, standing on a hilltop in a windbreaker with a whistle around herneck, arms thrown around a group of students. “You look just like your mom.”
“I get that a lot,” she said.
Another had Shay as a kid, toothy smile, hugging her mother in front of a school banner.
Then she flipped to the back pocket and slid out a photo he hadn’t seen in years.
His own face stared back at him—younger, rougher, suspicious of the camera. A senior portrait. Jacket and tie. Shoulders tight with discomfort.
“Look at you,” she mused.
“God, I hated that picture.”
“You look handsome.”
“I first met your mom when I was sent to her office after being suspended for lighting the chemistry lab on fire. I was angry and wanted to be expelled. I wanted the world to toss me aside. But she wouldn’t. She kept coming for me. It was annoying at first. However, by the time I was a junior, I had found reasons to visit her office. Hell, I would camp out first thing in the morning and stay after, begging her to give me things to do. Anything so I didn’t have to go home.” The memories crashed into his brain like a freight train. He welcomed some, but the ones that reminded him of his life with his parents… those he could do without.
“My mom told me you didn’t want to get your picture taken for the yearbook and that she had to bribe you,” Shay said.
