Read Seaside Secrets for Free Online

harsher tone if she pushed him.
    “ Okay,” Suzie nodded slowly, though she wasn't sure if she understood. As he walked away, Suzie could tell from the tension in his shoulders that she had ruffled some feathers. She was ready to believe that Jason was one mystery she was not going to be able to figure out.
    “ Well, isn't he pleasant,” Mary said as she walked up behind Suzie with her glass of iced tea. Suzie laughed a little as she took the glass of tea and they both watched Jason climb into his patrol car.
    “ Well, he is a police officer, maybe he just has to have a tough attitude,” Suzie shrugged.
    “ Hmm, I don't think so,” Mary said as she watched Jason tear out of the driveway. “I've seen that look plenty of times. He's hiding something.”
    “ You think?” Suzie asked with surprise.
    “ All I'm saying is that if I ever saw that look on my son's face, I knew that we were going to need to have a long conversation,” Mary laughed lightly and then arched an eyebrow. “I guess they never grow out of it.”
    “ I guess not,” Suzie replied with a slight frown. “All right, enough work for tonight I think,” she grinned. “How about I start a fire and we trade in these teas for some wine?”
    “ Sounds like a good plan to me,” Mary agreed.
     
    ***
     
    Once the fire was crackling in the large fireplace, which was in the center of the large living room, Mary sprawled out across one of the three couches in the room. Suzie had found a box of trinkets in the master bedroom and was sorting through them in front of the fireplace.
    “ These must have been Beverly's,” Suzie said softly as she sorted through the collection of handmade crafts. “It's sweet that he kept them for so long.”
    “ How can Jason not want any of these things?” Mary asked with a sigh.
    “ I'm not going to get rid of them. I'll box them up for him, maybe one day he'll want them,” Suzie said quietly. Then she paused as she pulled out an envelope from the box. “Hmm,” she glanced up at Mary. “Do you think it would be wrong to read it?”
    “ Not at all,” Mary sat up so she could listen.
    When Suzie opened the envelope she expected it to be correspondence between husband and wife, but the letter she skimmed over had nothing to do with that. It was a letter from a father to a son.
    “I know dear boy that we have been separated by time and hurt, and I am guilty of always believing that tomorrow would come. However, due to recent discoveries I have made, I fear my time is much shorter than I anticipated. In fact, I fear I no longer believe in tomorrow. I have felt someone watching me, and I know that I have crossed a terrible line. A funny thing happens when you are faced with the end of your life. You begin to think about all the ways you missed out on living it. When your mother died, Jason, I missed an opportunity to be the father you needed me to be. Since then I have missed that opportunity with each and every day that passed. There isn't time left to express all that I truly feel, but the most important thing that I have failed to convey for so many years, is that I love you. I ask for your forgiveness, without the expectation that it will be given. I ask for it so that you will know that I recognized the hurt that I have caused. All I ask of you is that you find a way to heal and let go of the past. Don't be an old man, in an old house, with an old mind. Live your life, Jason, with freedom and passion.”
    “ Wow,” Mary murmured as she listened intently. She smiled fondly at the familiar desire that a parent has for a child, that their lives will somehow be better than that of their parents. “What else does it say?” she asked eagerly.
    “ Nothing,” Suzie whispered as she looked over the letter once more. “It's almost as if he planned to write more, but never had the chance to,” she frowned as she tucked the paper back inside the envelope. “I'll have to make sure Jason has the chance to read