Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 72154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
The pictures held hundreds and hundreds of pictures of the children.
“I didn’t…I didn’t do this,” he said. “Did Granddad?”
I shook my head. “I stole them off your Facebook. And mine. Even Dad’s and all his women. Then sent them in to the coordinator,” I said softly.
Gunner wheezed out a breath, then walked up to the bulletin board that was Jett’s.
He touched one photo in particular.
“That was the day that he came home from the hospital. I was so scared that day. I had no clue what I was doing, or what I should do next.” He laughed. “You changed his first diaper, remember?”
I did.
I hadn’t known how to do it either, honestly.
But we’d learned together.
I’d had six weeks off because of an injury I’d sustained while on a mission, and it hadn’t come at a more perfect time. Jett had arrived, and we spent that entire six weeks trying to figure out how to care for an infant together.
“I do. He peed on me.” I started to laugh.
Gunner burst out laughing right along with me.
“I miss him.”
I swallowed through a suddenly thick throat. “I miss him, too.”
Chapter 19
Swearing, because sometimes ‘gosh darnit’ and ‘meanie head’ just doesn’t cut it.
-Coffee Cup
Kayla
The ceremony was the worst thing I’d ever gone to in my life.
I hadn’t stopped crying for two straight hours as parent after parent got up and told us about their favorite memory with their children.
Then he got up.
“Be right back, boyo,” Parker said to Gunner as he passed, ruffling his hair.
Gunner had been invited up to say something, but he hadn’t been ready. He’d asked Parker to say something for him.
Parker did, walking up to the stage and taking the steps two at a time until he was standing up on the landing.
The ceremony had started playing pictures of each child as their family came and said something about them. Now it was little Jett’s turn.
The first photo to roll across the screen was one with him looking up.
He was in a bouncer of some sort, and he had his daddy’s baseball hat—all worn and beat up—on his head. It was sideways because it was too big for his tiny head, but his gummy smile showed that he was more than happy with it being there, regardless of whether it fit or not.
The next picture to roll across the screen was one of Jett and Gunner. Gunner had thrown Jett—who appeared to be about six months old—into the air. Jett was laughing in hysterical excitement while clapping his hands. Gunner’s arms were over his head as he waited for his child to fall into his hands.
And my stomach clenched.
I had one of those pictures with me and my dad, too.
It was my most favorite one in the world.
And I knew that it’d been my father’s favorite, too.
How did I know that?
I bent over and pulled my wallet out of my purse, then opened it up.
Inside, in a half sandwich size baggie, was the photo.
The photo was old, yellowed from dirt and time, and had smudges on it. The ones on the corner of the photo were dirt where my father held it each time he wanted to look at me. But the one in the very middle? Covering my father’s legs? That was a bloody thumbprint from when my father had held that photo, staring at me, as he lay dying from a gunshot wound to the chest.
That day, just like any other day, he’d set out to rid this world of the bad people that threatened it. And, just like usual, he took that photo out when he felt like he needed to be reminded of something good in this world.
James, the man who’d been with my father throughout his whole military career, had been there with him then. He’d also told me the story.
How, every time he got that certain look in his eyes, he’d take that photo out of his breast pocket and stare at it. When he’d put it back, his eyes would be more focused and determined.
That day, though? That day, he’d taken a sniper’s bullet straight to the chest while holding that picture.
James said he stared at that picture until he took his final breath and died.
The bloody thumbprint hadn’t been my father’s thumbprint.
It’d been James’s.
James had taken the photo from my father’s dead fingers, and in the process, had put that thumbprint there, to permanently stay.
But it’d been my father’s blood on James’s fingers.
I ran my finger over my father’s smiling face and felt a tear drip down onto my lips.
I felt someone nudge me and looked up and over to find Gunner staring at me.
His eyes fell to the tears, then to the picture in my lap.
Then, without a word, he put his arm around me and held me tight as we both cried while Parker told his favorite memory.