47. Beth

The butter spurts and hisses as I crack an egg into the skillet and then another and another. Hash browns cook in one pan, sausage in a smaller one. The smell is divine, and this cozy combination is my favorite way to start a morning with my family. I look to my right and smile, watching Marissa methodically turn the hash browns to get them crispy. My daughter wears a look of determination. Everything she does is done to perfection, a trait she picked up in the military.

"How's it going over there, sous-chef?"

"Fine, these just take forever to cook," she says, flipping them over again.

"Potatoes always do. If you crank the heat up to nine or ten and add some more butter, the fat and oil will help crisp them faster."

Marissa nods, turns the burner up, and adds a glob of butter.

She won't ever know how much just standing next to her in the kitchen means to me. Well, maybe she will one day—when she has children of her own. She and I have healed these past three years, really worked on fixing our relationship. Much like the eggs I just cracked into the skillet, sometimes something needs to be broken before it can be repaired, and I mean truly broken. A cup that has some cracks in it but still holds water, you don't work on fixing it; instead it goes to the back of the cabinet. But a shattered cup needs to be mended to work again. Being pushed beyond my limits, having a mental breakdown, losing everyone and everything... I was shattered. What happened with my family—my mother and father and brother—meant losing the family I had, but it helped me gain the family I wanted and needed.

"I'm gonna get ya. I'm gonna get ya!" Lucas says in a singsong voice as he chases our three-year-old son around the kitchen table. His name is Jack, and he's a ball of energy. We adopted him four months ago. He's made our family whole. Lucas has been nothing short of a wonderful father, someone he never thought he could be but someone I knew he was meant to be.

"Gotcha!"

High-pitched squeals and laughs ring out as Lucas tickles Jack, blowing raspberries on his belly. His laughter is the most perfect sound in the world.

We don't live in the Grove anymore. It carried too much baggage, too many memories that are best left buried—actually buried. We didn't move far, just a few towns over, but that change made all the difference. We don't have to see those familiar streets, with reminders of what happened, or run into people we don't want to talk to, who know about our past. It was a fresh start. Lucas and I married eighteen months ago. It was eighteen years overdue in my opinion. It was nothing extravagant, just a courthouse wedding, something intimate and small. Nicole was our witness. She and I have helped one another heal in ways neither of us thought possible. All these years, the secret that kept us apart was actually the one that united us. Before, we were bound through pain, with bindings that cut and constricted. But now, we are bound by love, hope, and our desire to live better lives and be a better family, together.

Michael didn't die that day. He was in the hospital for a long time. He had countless surgeries. His recovery was grueling and painful. But he did survive, and I think that was the worst thing for him. A boy that was so proud to have outgrown the Grove is now confined to a six-by-six cell, only thirty miles from his hometown. It's like he never really got out. He won't be up for parole until 2050, and by that time he'll be in his sixties. I've sent him more than thirty letters over the past three years. He's never written back, and I'm okay with that. I think he doesn't write out of shame, not out of hate. I don't hate him either. I just feel sorry for my little brother. He'll always be that to me.

"Lucas, can you get Jack's high chair set up in the living room?"

"Sure thing, my love." Lucas kisses me on the forehead and covertly squeezes my butt. My heart races and my cheeks flush. I've had that same reaction to him since I was young, and I don't think that will ever go away.

"Cook, potatoes, cook," Marissa says to her pan of hash browns like she's a lieutenant in the culinary division.

"They're looking good," I say, serving the fried eggs and seared sausages onto several plates.

"She's going to be on soon," Marissa says, almost in a panic.

I take the spatula from her. "Go ahead and get the TV ready. I'll finish the hash browns."

"Thanks, Mom," she says as she races toward the living room.

Steam rises off our delicious, artery-clogging, dopamine-releasing delights as we hunker down and wait for the segment. All of a sudden, onscreen, there she is, my sister. Tears fill my eyes, and a smile spreads across my face.

"Good morning, America. I'm Rebecca Sanford, and today, I'm pleased to have a special guest with us. Nicole Thomas is the bestselling author of the memoir Home Is Where the Bodies Are, where she recounts her harrowing and horrific experience of a family bogged down by the sins of some of its members. Nicole, thank you very much for being here today."

We're glued to the screen, anxious to hear what comes next. Lucas, Marissa, and I all read her book—not that we needed to, we knew every word that would be in it. When she came to ask me how I felt about her sharing our story with the world, I was more than happy to let her have that catharsis. Plus, I knew she'd tell it well. Nicole hasn't relapsed again. She's stayed strong and become a writer like she always wanted to be. She and Casey are dating too. I wish Mom could see her. See us. She'd be so proud.

As I scan the room and watch my daughter smiling, delighted for her aunt, and my husband bouncing our son on his knee, I can't help but reflect on what our parents did. They weren't bad people. They were good, and they loved with every ounce of their being. They wanted the best for their kids. All parents want that. But they made poor decisions in an effort to protect their children. They were human, and they were flawed. Sometimes we do the wrong thing for all the right reasons. I don't blame my parents or hate them for what they did. Because as I look at my own children, I know I would do the exact same thing for them.