Chapter 54
Dear Mack,
My name is scrawled atop the paper. I start to read but stop and flip through the stack. Each page starts the same: Dear Mack.
Dear Mack,
Boy, do I have an awful lot to tell you! Your mama and I know each other. I was her boyfriend, but it all...
It ends.
I turn to the next.
Dear Mack,
I sure hope I’m not about to mess up the beautiful life you have for yourself, but there’s some things I need to tell you.
I used to be in love with your mother. Honestly, I loved her for a very long time, but I was kept from her. Her parents said
she didn’t love me, and it made me
The next.
Dear Mack,
I just needed to tell you what an impressive young woman you are. The way you’ve built a business you love and how you’re
just so fit to lead and create, I can’t get over it. I just wish I’d known about it all for longer. I wish I could’ve been
there for the whole thing. Also, funny thing
Finally, the last.
Dear Mack,
I’ve tried to figure out the best way to write this letter, and I’ve only convinced myself of one thing. There is no good
way to write this letter, no good way to tell you this story. But I must tell you, and so I’ll start right at the beginning.
I met your mother one summer when my daddy was working on her parents’ yard. He started this company as a mowing business—just
his beat-up truck and a crappy mower—when I was a kid, and we were struggling to make ends meet. Magnolia and I took a liking
to each other and eventually we shared a romantic relationship. We were young and head over heels, and eventually Magnolia
became pregnant. With you.
We were terrified as any two kids with a baby on the way would be, but we wanted to stay together. We decided to work things out to make a life together and raise you. But just as quick, her parents were at my door, banging it down to warn me to stay away from Magnolia. She had turned eighteen a few months prior, graduated high school a couple weeks ago, and they said if I didn’t cut things off, they’d toss her out—seeing as she was an adult in the eyes of the law. She was supposed to attend the University of South Carolina in the fall.
They said Magnolia would be on her own, and I would be responsible for ruining her good life and good reputation. I didn’t
want to lose her—I loved her—but I also had nothing material to give her, nothing but my love. In the face of their money
and power, I shrank like the kid I was. I was powerless. I didn’t come from a family with means. They convinced me I couldn’t
take care of her, let alone a child. I never felt like I had a choice. I begged them to let me see her for one final goodbye,
but they refused.
When I asked about the baby, they said Magnolia had decided to “have an appointment.” That it was already a done deal. I wasn’t
sure if I could believe them. Most of me didn’t, but the other part of me wondered. Still, digging around would only land
Magnolia in trouble with them—the only people who could give her what she needed, what she wanted, as they said.
I thought it was the right thing to do in the situation, but I’ve since come to regret not chasing down my suspicions sooner.
Here is where I failed you, Mack.
I was mad when I went to Charleston Southern, so I kept my head down and studied landscape architecture, only returning to
Beaufort years later, after I’d graduated and my father needed me to take over the business. I avoided Magnolia like the plague
and anyplace I knew she might go. Seeing her would only be salt in the wound. It would only be a reminder of her parents ripping
her from me—and worse, taking our child.
But then Ned Suffolk told me about Bishop Builds and his son and the city fellowship. I knew the name, your mother’s maiden name, and I was curious. Seeing your picture online knocked the wind out of me, honey. You are the spitting image of your mother, and I knew you were mine. Your age, the timeline, there wasn’t any way you weren’t mine.
I was overjoyed and gutted in one swoop.
But now you’ve lived your whole life without me. You probably thought I was dead or in prison or worse, just never cared enough
to come around. You already seem to have it all, an amazing life. Do you even want a father to step out of the shadows? I
am terrified to hurt you, Mack. But I think the right thing is to come forward, to tell you my story, and let you decide.
So, here it is: I’m here and I want to know you. I already love you. But just say the word, and I’ll get lost. I want this
to be your call, but what I cannot live with is you thinking I didn’t love you.
I made mistakes, I admit that. I was young and scared and didn’t have a dime to my name. I faltered in the face of Magnolia’s
parents’ power. I should’ve fought harder. I should’ve come back around sooner.
But if I’d had the choice—probably if I’d been better—it would’ve been you and only you. All the rest be damned, I would have
crossed the surface of a thousand suns to be with my baby girl.
I’m just so very sorry it’s come around this way.
With love and admiration,
Theo
I’m on my feet. I manage to call a quick thanks into the back, and I run out into the humid evening.
Magnolia needs to know. Theo wanted me. He wanted to be with us all along. He wanted her too. He never changed his mind. Hurt on lies on wounds on hurt, and all buried in the red clay for decades.
What a waste.
I speed through the night and for the first time today, I smile.
It’s a swirl of agony and joy, but I smile because he loved me all along. I wasn’t left in disgust. Theo isn’t coming back,
and I won’t have a father, but now I can rest in the knowledge that I’ve always had a father’s love. The grounds at the Daniel
House—that was his big act of hidden love.
Heavens, what a gift these words are and will always be. Theo Hartman was exactly who I met. He was the young man my mama
fell for, and he was always a man who would’ve stood by his family.
Despite the lies that have twisted this family, I am loved.
And my mama too.
Both of us.