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Zach pulled the puppy tighter with one hand as he reached for the box with the other His hand shook as he flipped open the top and his throat tightened

"It’s your engage she’d worn for sohe still could see on her finger as if it were yesterday, as if she hadn’t finally taken it off ten or so years ago "You need to keep it"

"No honey, I’ve had it just as long as I needed The ring is yours now"

He shook his head "I don’t--" He was going to cry Already was, actually "I can’t--"

She sat down on the bed and patted the coverlet beside her "After your father died, I would look at you and it was like he was still there Eating dinner with all of us Playing ball in the background Twirling the girls around in circles until they were dizzy"

Everyone who’d ever known their father had said that to hie of Jack" He’d felt how broken they were over his father’s death Hoistful at a life endedto outrun the demons that chased hi that there was no separation between him and his father, because they were one and the sa broke apart inside of him "You always looked so sad So damned sad"

"I know" Her voice broke "I know and I’rief, I kneasn’t fair I know that you weren’t hihtly "You are not your father"

"He was a saint" Whereas Zach had never been anything close to one

"Your father wasn’t a saint"

"He was A great father to eight kids A wife he loved The only thing he ever did wrong was die too early"

He was stunned when his iven a leap about love and e and kids e firstwas true, but he’d never known his mother to lie

"I loved him from the start, of course He was impossible not to love, but that didn’t ive , I threw it at him" Her eyes went hazy at the memory as she lifted her hand to her left eyebrow "I clipped hih that he needed stitches So, no, he definitely wasn’t a saint Not even close" His aze locked on Zach’s "But I loved hiive hihe did wrong along the way I kno close you ith your dad," she said softly "He loved all of your brothers and sisters, but you were always so special to him I kno special he was to you, too, honey But what happened to hiht words "It didn’t have anything to do with you It still doesn’t, Zach He helped make you who you were, but only you can decide who you want to beand what you want from your life"

No one had ever said those words to Zach before