“The thing about that was, Oscar gave me my freedom. I was free. I missed it. From that minute, I was free. And I made music. I made friends. I made a pretty girl love me. I went all the way around the world. I got my brother in a proper casket in a proper grave with a proper marker. I built my own fuckin’ house. And except for that last, they knew I did all that. And there I am, standin’ alone in some trees.”

“I’m understanding your epiphany and how important it was, but I would have liked to have been there. Been there, in that place, and been there for you.”

“You don’t get it, baby. That I had to do that. I had to carve my place in my mountain and I also had to do it by myself.”

“You’re right, I don’t get that because I can haul wood and hammer nails.”

“I was not a man you’d wanna be around.”

“I think I should have been the judge of that.”

“I can guarantee you, you would not be here right now if you’d been there.”

“You underestimate me.”

Abruptly, his expression changed.

Gentle but earnest.

And determined.

“Lyla, cher, love of my life,” he framed my head in his hands and put his face close, “you are not gettin’ me. I’m tellin’ you, what I said at your house holds true. I needed to give you the space to come out from under me and breathe and I needed the space to work all of that out of me and those two did not go together. There was no other way it could be, it had to go like that. And I know, given the choice, you would have stuck by me, and I couldn’t have that because I had to let my life go dark so I could find the light and I’d never let you descend in that darkness with me, so I’d make it so you went away. And when I did, it’d be in a way you wouldn’t come back.”

“Prea—”

“Lyla, baby, I love you and I will for the whole of my life and part of that, an important part, is back then, even if you didn’t wanna do it, didn’t know you were doin’ it, you gave me what I needed.”

My mouth clamped shut.