A Handful Of Heaven by Kristin Hannah

Author:Kristin Hannah [Hannah, Kristin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-04-18T12:37:02+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Yes, I think it is. Devon couldn't believe she'd said it. Whai! on earth had possessed her? She never talked about her past.' She never even thought about it. At least she tried not to.

Yet hadn't she waited for years for someone to ask? As a young girl she'd ached to talk about her pain to someone. She'd always been able to shield Colleen from their father's meanness, and as a result Colleen hadn't seen the ugliness and hadn't asked about it. Neither had anyone else. Devon supposed it was because she was always the caretaker, the problem solver. Good old sensible Devon. Certainly she didn't have any problems.

She snuggled closer to Stone Man. Being wrapped in his arms made the past seem somehow . . . smaller, less frightening. This was her chance. Here, in his strong arms, she could purge her soul and begin to heal.

She could allow herself to be weak.

Lord, how she wanted, just once, to be comforted.

But she was afraid. A long time ago she'd boxed up the memories and buried them in her heart. Never once had she taken them out of storage and examined them with an adult's eyes. She was afraid to open them, afraid that once she started crying she might never be able to stop.

He stroked the hair out of her face. The warmth of his touch soothed her, calmed her fears. God help me, she thought, I need to open the box . . .

She drew a shaky breath then pulled out of his amis and looked up at him. "If I tell you about my fa-about when I

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was a little girl, will you promise not to interrupt me? I don't think I could start again if I had to stop. I have to tell it all at once."

He smiled crookedly. "Me, interrupt you?"

She cuddled up against him again, mentally preparing herself for the ordeal of talking about her father. It would be easier, she decided, if she kept herself detached from the story. Pretend it was someone else's life; then she could just say the words, let him hug her, and everything would be fine.

"My father started out a good man, or so my mother used to say. They met when they were both young, not past nineteen, and they wed on a lark. No doubt my father only wanted to get as far as the bedroom, but my mother, being a lady, made him walk to the altar to get there.

"Mother didn't realize the magnitude of her mistake, of course. All she knew was that Paddy O'Shea was the handsomest, liveliest man she'd ever met. He swept her off her feet. Everything went swimmingly, I'm told, until mother conceived me."

Her hands curled into tight fists. Her lower lip trembled. It's someone else's story.

"Paddy didn't want to be a father, you see. 'Too much responsibility,' he said. 'Too expensive.' He demanded that my mother 'take something for it.' I know because he told me every chance he got.

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