Free Lilies and Lies by Mary Manners

through his hair. At this rate, he’d be bald before thirty. “Well, I don’t talk about how I got the scar because it’s painful…not a physical kind of pain, but here.” Gunnar pressed a hand to his chest. “And I was a mess back then, around the time that it happened and for a while before and a long time after, doing things I had no right to do. I suppose I don’t want you to see that side of me—to know that side. It’s…embarrassing and ugly.”
    “But it’s part of you, right? Like when I ran away from home last summer. It was a bad thing to do, and it hurt Mom a lot. And I was pretty embarrassed when the police officer put me in his cruiser to take me home, and when Mom answered the door and I saw she’d been crying. But I can’t make it go away, even if I pretend it didn’t happen, because it did happen. Is it like that for you, Uncle Gunnar?”
    “It’s exactly like that.” How could the kid be so young and so smart all at the same time?
    “Do you still love me even though I ran away and the police had to haul me home? And even though I locked myself in my room the first time you tried to take me to church, said ugly things and refused come out and get in the car?” Kyle’s brown eyes studied him with such innocence Gunnar’s heart ached. “And there’s the time I called Mrs. Johnson an old bat, and when I got a D on my geography test because I didn’t study, even though I told you I had. I’ve done lots of awful things, but do you still love me anyway, Uncle Gunnar?”
    “Of course I love you.” Gunnar reached over to muss Kyle’s hair and pull him close, enfolding him in a bear hug. “I love you just as much as I always have, from the first time I saw your puckered little face while your mom held you in her arms right after you were born. You were squalling something awful, by the way. But I’ll never love you any less, no matter what.”
    “Then how come you think if you tell me stuff about the crummy things you’ve done that I won’t love you?”
    “Good point. I’m being ridiculous.” Gunnar loosened the hug, eased back. “I guess I’ll have to get over it, because I’m not setting a very good example for you about honesty, am I?”
    “Mr. Thompson says God loves us despite all our flaws, and that the older we get, the more opportunity we have to mess up, especially with the people we love the most. Maybe that’s why you worry more, Uncle Gunnar, because you’re getting pretty old.”
    “Yes, I’m ancient.” Gunnar laughed. “I’m closing in on three full decades.”
    “That’s a lot . Pretty soon you’ll have grey hair…or maybe even go bald like Mr. Glick. Yikes.” Kyle pressed a hand to his mouth. “Then what?”
    “Well, you sure are expediting the process.” Gunnar grabbed a ball cap from the seat and tugged the brim low over his brow, giving a cursory glance into the side-view mirror for grey strands to sprout from his head. “But I think I’m OK in the baldness department for at least a little longer.”
    “That’s good, because when Mr. Glick does that funny comb-over thing it just looks…weird.”
    “On that brutally-honest observation…there’s your school, and the tardy bell’s about to ring so we don’t have time to get into my not-so-illustrious past right now. But we’ll talk when you come home from camping, OK? I promise I’ll spill the beans then.”
    “All the beans, even the gross ones?”
    “Even the bad ones.” Gunnar gave him a playful little shove. “Now, get out of the truck and go have a good time.”
    “At school?” Kyle rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding me? That building is a torture chamber in disguise. You have no idea.”
    “Been there, done that, survived it and you will, too.” Gunnar pressed a sack lunch into Kyle’s hands. “Now, scoot.”
     
     
     
     

8
     
    Maddie pranced in front of the mirror Friday evening, surveying her reflection. Maybe the sundress with its little shrug and matching,