Page 95 of Hard Corps (Selected Sinners MC 7)

“We’ll be over there,” I said as I tilted my head toward the corner of the waiting room.

“I’d appreciate it if…” I paused and shook my head, unwilling and almost incapable of continuing. Seeing her was much more difficult than I would have imagined.

“Are you okay?” Katie asked as I turned away.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, realizing I had acted inappropriately toward my sister in front of her. “I’m sorry. There’s just a lot of animosity between us.”

“I can see that,” she whispered.

We walked to the corner of the room and sat down on a small sofa. I dug through the magazines at the table beside the arm of the couch, hoping to find answers to questions I had yet to ask, but instead found nothing. I lifted my boot, and propped it onto my knee as I gazed toward the far end of the room. Alicia sat on the far sofa with her head in her hands.

“You told me you always give people a second chance. Did you give your sister one?” she asked.

I lifted my boot from my knee and let my foot drop to the floor. I turned to face her, mentally prepared to answer, but incapable of doing so without admitting I had excluded my sister from a fundamental rule I had applied to all walks of life.

With the exception of Alicia.

“No,” I responded.

“Well maybe you should,” she said.

I was the first to admit when I was wrong, but I was rarely wrong. It wasn’t that I believed I was without fault, or that I was arrogant or egotistical, because I wasn’t. But my actions always came as a result of deep thought, and contemplation of any and every possible scenario that may arise as a result of my decision.

I was left living a life with few mistakes.

My eyes fell to the square tiles on the floor and I counted the years since my sister and I had acted as loving siblings.

Twelve.

I had never considered myself a stubborn person, but as I shifted my focus to the other end of the room, I came to realize I had yet to walk in my sister’s shoes.

My forgiveness wouldn’t act as an acceptance of her behavior, only an admittance on my part that I, too, wasn’t without fault.

I stood from my seat and humbly walked to where she was seated, thinking the entire time of what she must have gone through in her decision to allow her only child to be placed up for adoption. Her choice, although unfathomable to me, had to be extremely difficult for her.

“Come sit with us,” I said.

She glanced up, wiping her eyes as she did. She had obviously been crying long before I arrived, and looked ten years older than she probably would have on any other day.

Alone.

“Come on,” I said as I reached for her hand. “You can come cry with us.”

“I miss him so much,” she said as she cupped my hands in hers.

“Who?” I asked, and then immediately realized I knew the answer.

“Derek,” she said.

I gripped her hand firmly in mine. “So do I.”

“That’s a beautiful ring,” she said as we stepped in front of Katie.

Katie reached for the ring and rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger as she responded. “Thank you,”

“And I love the bracelet,” Alicia said.

“Yours too,” Katie said as Alicia sat down.

“Let me tell you a story about it,” Alicia said as she glanced at the bracelet. “My father said every day that my mother wore it, no one would question her value to him. He said the bracelet would prove to all who saw it that she was priceless. And she was.”

Katie shifted her eyes to meet mine.

I shrugged my shoulders and grinned.

In case Katie didn’t already know, she now realized that to me, she was priceless.

The talking and story-telling continued for some time, and I agreed to go get us a cup of acceptable coffee from the coffee bar by the cafeteria. As I walked from the room and turned down the hallway, I realized not only did I have a family in Texas, I had another in Kansas.

And the thought of having both let me feel just a little closer to becoming human.