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kids teased her and called her Four Eyes.
    Other kids looked at her with pity just because she was handicapped, and she didn’t have a mommy.
    She didn’t want them to feel sorry for her. She did want a mommy though.
    She clicked on the keyboard, brought up her journal and began to type.
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    Mommy, I know you’re out there somewhere. I prayed that you would find me on Mother’s Day but that’s passed, so maybe you will on my birthday.
    I don’t like it here. The house is dark and dusty. And Mama Reese says her knees hurt too much to play with me outside. Papa Reese’s cigarettes make my eyes itchy and watery and then I cough, and then he tells me to shut up. They don’t like my singing either.
    I have to sing though. I dream sometimes thatyou’re looking for me. That you didn’t just leave me. That we just got losted from each other, and that you can hear me. That one day you’ll follow my voice and come and get me.
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    She swiped at a tear running down her cheek. Crying was for babies but sometimes she couldn’t help it. Sniffling and swallowing to hold back more tears, she finished the journal entry.
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    I know I look kind of dorky, and I’m little for my age, and I can’t run like the other kids. And one of my eyes looks funny because I can’t see out of it, but I take my medicine every day so I don’t have the seizures anymore.
    I’m getting better in school, too. I’m only a year behind. I’ve been practicing my writing, and I can almost make the letters right now. I can pour my own cereal and make my own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And I don’t mind wearing hand-me-downs if you don’t have much money.
    Please come and get me, Mommy. I promise not to be any trouble.
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    She saved her entry, then pulled on her pj’s and crawled in bed. Then she closed her eyes and prayed her mommy would hear her this time and come to get her as she began to sing….

Chapter Four
    Slade let himself into the fixer-upper house he’d purchased on the side of the mountain. The wooden two-story needed painting, a new roof, the wood floors needed to be stripped and restained and boards needed replacing on the wraparound porch.
    He’d thought doing the work himself would be cathartic, but he’d yet to change a thing. Still, the place had character and at one time was probably a cozy home for some family.
    He scoffed. As a kid, he’d dreamed about having a home like this. Now it didn’t seem to matter.
    But the place was isolated and offered him privacy, as well as an abundance of wide-open mountain air. Something he’d desperately needed after Iraq and the place he’d been kept when he’d been taken prisoner. Cramped, dark, filthy, bug-infested, the stench, the human wastes…
    And the blood from the soldiers who’d died trying to save him.
    He inhaled a deep, calming breath, the summer air filling his nostrils with the scent of honeysuckle andwildflowers, chasing away the demons from his past. He had a job to do now, and he’d focus on that. Get through the day.
    One hour at a time.
    He spotted the bottle of whiskey on the counter, and the temptation to reach for it, to pour himself a mind-numbing shot seized him. Just one drink to erase the images in his head.
    No… He was done burying his pain. He’d have to learn to live with it or it would destroy him. Then he couldn’t atone for his sins.
    Instead, he strode to the workout room he’d created off the garage, yanked on boxing gloves and began to pound his punching bag. The faces of his bleeding and dying men haunted him, and he hit the bag harder, the rage eating his soul, chipping away at his sanity.
    He had to learn to control it. Focus. Forget.
    No, he couldn’t forget. Forgetting would mean dishonoring the sacrifices they’d made.
    He wished to hell they’d just left him to die and saved themselves.
    And their