Abbi Glines - Hold On Tight

“Momma, tell me what’s wrong,” I begged.

She lifted her eyes, and I saw the unshed tears shining in them. “It’s Dustin, sweetheart.”

“Dustin?” I asked, stopping and grabbing the first thing I could find to steady myself.

She nodded. “Your daddy just got off the phone with the pastor. He’s on his way to the Falcos’ now. Dustin wrapped his car around a tree,” she said, her voice trailing off.

He wrapped his car around a tree? How did he do that? I had just been with him two hours ago. “But is he okay?” I asked as the sirens continued to mock me. With all those emergency vehicles out there, how could he be okay?

Momma shook her head. “No, Sienna. He’s not okay. He’s . . . he’s gone, honey.”

Six years later . . .

SIENNA

I never expected to step foot in Sea Breeze, Alabama, again. When my parents had packed my bags and shipped me off to live in Fort Worth, Texas, with my mom’s sister, who I hardly knew, I had been told I would return to Sea Breeze after the baby was born. What I hadn’t been told was that they weren’t planning on my baby returning with me.

I glanced back at Micah, asleep in his car seat with his Darth Vader action figure clenched tightly in his hand. Our life hadn’t been easy, but we had each other. I wouldn’t go back and do it any other way. Micah was my life. He had healed me when I was sure nothing ever could.

Keeping Micah meant being disowned by my strict religious parents. My aunt wasn’t the most affectionate person in the world, but she’d disagreed with my parents’ decision. I had been expected to work and pay my own way, but at least she’d given us a roof over our heads.

Giving up on high school and getting my GED was my only option. My aunt Cathy was the principal at the local high school and helped me get a trade school grant, so when Micah was eighteen months old, I enrolled in beauty school. Before his third birthday I had a degree in cosmetology.

I owed my aunt more than I could ever repay her.

Micah and I moved out just last year and finally got an apartment of our own. I didn’t date because I didn’t trust anyone around my son. I also felt guilty paying for a sitter when we needed that money for more important things, like rent, day care, and food. It didn’t keep men from flirting, though, and trying to get me to go out with them. Janell, the owner of the salon where I worked, said that the men all thought I was playing hard to get. It just made them more persistent.

The truth was, I was lonely sometimes, but then Micah would smile and I’d see his father in him and I’d remember that for ten years of my life I’d had someone. A very special someone. And now I had Micah. I didn’t need anything more.

When the call had come two months ago from my mother to tell me about my father’s heart attack, I hadn’t known what to feel. He had never met Micah, and now he never would. My mother had used Dad’s life insurance money to move to a retirement community in central Florida. She’d given her house to Micah and me.

Not one time did she apologize for deserting me when I’d needed her most, or for turning her back on her only grandchild. But the fact that she had given the house to us meant something. I only hoped one day she would realize what she was missing by not knowing him.

Janell had helped me by giving me a glowing reference, and I had managed to get a job in Sea Breeze working at one of the most elite salons in town. I would be making more money, and I wouldn’t be paying rent any longer. Our life would be better in Sea Breeze. Micah would get to grow up in the small coastal town that I loved.

My only fear, and the one reason I almost didn’t come back home, was the idea of the Falcos seeing Micah. Once I’d realized that my parents hadn’t been planning on me keeping my son, I sent a letter to Tabby Falco, Dustin’s mother.

She never replied.

The first year of Micah’s life I wrote them countless letters and included pictures of him. He looked so much like his father. I wanted them to see that Dustin wasn’t completely lost to us. He had left a part of himself behind.

Not once did she respond.

A few times I’d almost worked up the nerve to call them, but if they weren’t replying to my letters, then they didn’t want to talk to me. They didn’t want Micah. It had hurt even worse than my parents not wanting him. I had hated the Falcos for their desertion. But then I’d learned to let go. Move on. Be happy with my life. With my beautiful little boy.

“Momma? Where are we?” a sleepy little voice asked from the backseat of my twelve-year-old Honda Civic.

“We’re home. Our new home,” I replied, pulling into the driveway of the house that had once been my home and would soon be again.

“Our new house?” he asked with excitement in his voice as he wiggled in his seat to see better.

“Yep, baby. Our new house. Ready to go inside and see it?” I asked him, opening my car door and getting out. It was a two-door, so I had to lean my seat forward to reach him in the backseat. He unbuckled himself, then scrambled out of his seat and jumped out of the car.

“Do other people live in there too?” he asked, staring up at the two-bedroom wood-frame house with wide eyes.

“Just us, kiddo. You’ll have your own bedroom here. Mine is right across the hall from yours.”

“Whoa,” he said, his eyes shining with amazement. Even when we had lived with my aunt Cathy, Micah and I had shared a room. Once we’d moved into an apartment, a studio was all I could afford with day care costs. This house was only twelve hundred square feet, but it was the biggest living space he and I had ever had all to ourselves. The studio apartment had been a third of this size.

“Let’s go see your new room. We might need to paint it. Not sure what color the walls are,” I told him. The last time I’d been in my old bedroom, it had been pink. Micah was determined that pink was for girls and wanted nothing to do with it.

From my purse I pulled out the key that my mother had mailed me along with the letter and the deed to the house. I took a deep breath before unlocking the door. Stepping back, I motioned for Micah to go inside. “Check it out.”

His grin spread across his face as he took off running into the house, whooping as he saw the size of the living room. Then he turned and headed down the short hallway. I paused at the door, unable to ignore the house across the street any longer, and turned around to look at it. I didn’t recognize the truck in the driveway, but then again, it had been six years. I was sure the Falcos were still there. Mother hadn’t mentioned that they’d moved.

I wondered if they would speak to Micah when he played in the yard. Or would they ignore him like they had since his birth? I wouldn’t tell him who they were. I hadn’t told him about my parents. He didn’t know this had once been my home. He didn’t know he had grandparents. In preschool he had been asked to tell the class about his grandparents, and when he’d told them about Aunt Cathy, he had called her Aunt Cathy. The kids in his class had teased him, telling him that his aunt wasn’t his grandparent. He’d come home confused and upset that he didn’t know who his grandparents were.

I had just told him he didn’t have any.

When he’d asked about his father, I had explained that God had wanted his father because he was such an awesome man, so he had brought him to heaven to live there with him before Micah was born.

That had been enough for Micah. He hadn’t asked any more questions. He was happy with the knowledge that his mother loved him unconditionally and that we were a family. It had been hard for him when he saw that other kids had large families, but once he’d understood that each family was different, he was okay with that.

“Momma! Momma!” Micah called out in excitement. “There’s a blue room. It’s a really cool blue room too! It’s even got toys in it already!”

Toys? I closed the front door behind me and headed down the hall. Stepping into the bedroom that had once been mine, I stopped and looked around me in awe. It was blue. A bright, happy blue. It had a full-size bed and a matching wooden dresser. There was a blue quilt on the bed with orange basketballs all over it, and in the center sat a basketball-shaped pillow. A toy box under the window was open, with pirate swords, a baseball bat and glove, a large red fire truck, and what looked like a big bag of Legos sticking out of it. An indoor basketball hoop sat in the opposite corner, with a ball lying on the floor beside it.

Above his bed was painted MICAH.

“Do you think the people who used to live here left it for me? Or do we gotta give it back?” he asked, a hopeful expression on his face. “And look, Momma, my name is already on the wall.”

Tears stung my eyes, and I had to swallow hard as I stood there taking in the room. I didn’t know what to think. This was not what I had expected, but then again, I hadn’t expected to be given this house, either. A white envelope caught my attention. It was leaning against the wall on top of the dresser, with my name and Micah’s name written on it.

Walking over to it, I wiped at the tear that had escaped, and I tried to hide my face from my very observant five-year-old. The envelope was sealed, so I slid my finger underneath and opened it up.

Sienna,

This is your home now. It doesn’t make up for the past or for the years I wasn’t there when you needed me. But it is all I have to give you. I don’t expect to buy your forgiveness. This room is as much for me as it is for Micah. I’ve always wanted to buy him things. Christmas presents and birthday presents and gifts just because he is my grandson. I couldn’t do that, though. Not while I lived with your father.

I won’t speak ill of your father—that is not what this is about. I loved him. He was a good man, but he was a proud man and I had to respect that. I believe in my heart that if he had it to do over, he would have done things differently. I hate that he never got to meet our grandson.

Please tell Micah that the room is his with love from someone who hopes she can meet him one day. When you are ready, of course. If you are ever ready. I just ask that you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I want to be a part of your lives.

My address and phone number are listed below. If you want to send me a letter or give me a call, I would love that. Or maybe send me some photos of Micah. I have a photo album full thanks to your aunt Cathy. He’s a beautiful one, but then, so is his mother.

Love always,

Mom

“Momma, why’re you crying?” Micah asked as he tugged on the bottom of my shorts.

I folded the letter and tucked it in my back pocket before bending down and looking at him.

He reached out and wiped my face with his little hands. “It’s okay if we can’t stay here. Just so I’m with you,” he said. The sadness in his eyes hurt my heart.

This house was too good for him to believe. I grabbed his hands and squeezed them tightly. “This is our home. The person who gave it to us did all this just for you. These are happy tears, not sad ones,” I told him. I wasn’t ready to explain about his grandmother. I didn’t know how I felt about introducing him to her. There was too much pain for me to deal with right now. But her words and this room meant a lot. It didn’t make up for her abandonment, but knowing she loved Micah enough to do this did help me consider letting her into our life.

“So I get to keep this? All of it?” he asked, looking around at the room again, his eyes wide with wonder. We had even shared a bed up until now.

“Yes. All of this is yours. Just yours. You have your own space now. Your own bed. Even your own closet.”

Micah walked over to his bed and ran his little hand over the quilt. He knew what a basketball was. I had bought him one with my first paycheck. It was a part of his father I wanted him to have. “Did the person who did this for me know my daddy was the best basketball player in the world?” he asked, glancing back at me.

I nodded, biting back a smile.

“We’re gonna be happy here, Momma,” he said, then turned to go back to his toy box. I watched him for a few minutes I watched him as he dug through the things my mother had left him. Then I slipped out of the room to check out the rest of the house.

In the letter she’d sent with the house key and the deed, she’d told me she was leaving the furniture behind. The place where she was living now was furnished. I wasn’t sure how I felt about sleeping on my parents’ bed, but all I’d had was a mattress, and we’d left that behind in Texas.