I told him.
Not every detail. Not the ones that would only plant pictures in his head. But enough. Darren. Maurice. The threats. The choices. The way violence spreads if no one stops it and spreads differently if the person stopping it enjoys it too much.
When I finished, the fire had burned low.
“Did people die because of you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you regret it?”
I watched sparks lift into the dark.
“I regret that men put us in a world where those choices existed. I regret every night you were afraid. I regret that part of me knew how to handle it so well.”
“But would you do it again?”
“For you?” I said. “Every time.”
He looked into the fire for a long while.
“Darren said I deserved to die.”
“I know.”
“I used to hear it in my dreams.”
My throat tightened.
“Do you still?”
“Sometimes. But then I remember he was wrong.”
I put my arm around him.
“He was wrong about everything that mattered.”
The lake was quiet. An owl called once from the trees.
Jacob leaned against my shoulder, not a child anymore but still my son.
“I’m going to help kids like me,” he said.
And in that moment, I knew the real ending had begun.
