“Don’t worry about them. They’ll just graze on the grass. Follow me; I want to show you something, Noah.”

Doing as he asked, I draped the reins over the horses shoulder and followed Jeff toward the water. There was a giant rock that was set back about fifteen feet from the water. Jeff walked over to it and jumped up on it. It was large enough for at least four men to stand up there.

Figuring he wanted me to follow, I climbed up and stood next to him. The view was amazing.

“Wow,” I whispered as I watched the river meander along its path.

“When I was about your age, I lost my mother, but not like how you lost your mother. Actually, I lost my mother a number of years before that.”

Turning to look at him, I asked, “How did you lose her?”

Jeff continued to look out over the water as it rushed over rocks. “Alcohol. My father left my mother when my sister, Ellie, and I were young. My mother couldn’t handle it and turned to drinking to hide the pain. The problem was, no amount of drinking . . . or drugs . . . could numb the pain.”

My head snapped over to Jeff as our eyes met. “No sir, it cannot. I turned to alcohol when my mother’s cancer came back. Spent a number of nights drowning my sorrow in it.”

Not taking his eyes off of me, Jeff asked, “And what made you stop?”

“Grace. Even though we weren’t together at the time, I knew she would have been disappointed in me.”

Letting a small smile play across his lips, Jeff nodded and looked back over the river. “Love will do that. Save you from the deepest depths of sorrow and pain.”

Nodding in agreement, I felt my heart squeeze in my stomach. I was not going to hurt Grace. No matter how much I wanted the pills, I wouldn’t put Grace through that.

“What if, you find yourself slipping back down the hole? Even with love there to pull you back?” I asked.

Jeff turned and faced me. “You fight.”

“And if you don’t feel like you have the strength?”

Slowly shaking his head, Jeff’s eyes turned sad. “You always have the strength, Noah. You just need to know where to look for it. That’s the first step.”

“The second step?” I asked.

Not taking his eyes from mine, Jeff said, “Stop depending on the pills. It’s a weakness. Not a strength.”

My entire world stopped as a shiver ran across my entire body. The only thing I could hear was my own breathing and the sound of the water rushing along. In that moment I felt like the river, flowing downstream into the unknown. There was only one question I needed to find the answer to.

Was there a place I was running to . . . or running from? I either ran to Grace . . . or the pills. My pain was pulling me under—she was my only saving grace. It was time to make a decision and I knew exactly where it would lead me.

To Grace.

Grace

When Daddy and Noah took off for a ride, I couldn’t stop thinking about what they were talking about. Was Daddy being mean? Were they maybe bonding? Was Noah going to be okay alone with my father?

Alex walked up to me and handed me my old worn out gardening gloves as she gave me a wink. As we walked through the garden with our arms laced through Gram’s, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of calm come over me. I loved getting my hands in the dirt. Emma motioned for us to get to work as she took a seat.

Laughing, I said, “There’s nothing to do, Emma. Nothing needs picking and my mother has this garden so well taken care of there isn’t a weed to be found.”

Tilting her head, she stared into my eyes. “Dig.”

Pinching my eyebrows together, I repeated what she said, “Dig?”

Alex giggled and slowly dropped down and did exactly what her great-grandmother told her to do.

“So you want me to just dig?”

Nodding her head, she said, “Yes, Grace. I want you to just dig.”

There was something about digging in the dirt that relaxed me. It always had and I knew Grams felt the same way.

Shrugging my shoulders, I did what she told me to do. Turning, I found a spot and dropped to my knees. Sticking the garden shovel into the dirt, I scoped out some dirt. Then I scoped more out. My mind quickly got lost in thought as I thought about how Noah had been acting the last couple of weeks since his mother passed away. I’d readied myself for him to break down, but he never did.

He was relaxed.

Too relaxed.

All the time he seemed relaxed.

The shovel dug in deeper as I closed my eyes and remembered seeing Noah taking a sleeping pill. I didn’t think much of it as I walked into the room and saw him put it in his mouth and down it with a Coke. He’d hardly been sleeping. One to two hours a night. Maybe in my mind I justified it, thinking he needed it.