Read Online Facing Redemption by Kimberly McKay - Free Book Online

so surreal.  In some ways the only way I know it was truly that beautiful is by seeing what I painted.  While I was there I bought a camera too … to help remember for future work.”
                  “I know Julia is chomping at the bit to display it at your exhibit in her gallery next month.”
                  “I wish I’d done more that was exhibit worthy.”
                  “I’ve seen some of what you did and it is great work Chaz.   Really. ”
                  Chastity exhaled before saying.  “Since I let my curiosity got the best of me with John’s letter, most of my work isn’t up to any standard of mine.  I’ve got a few good pieces but the rest just aren’t good enough.”  Chastity shook her head as she taped up her last box. 
    “I just had to open it.  Anne, why did I let that letter get the best of me? And now … somehow now I’m still curious about it all…and angry!  Angry at myself for opening it and still thinking about it! After Timothy left, I crumpled it up and threw it away, but then it was still sitting in my trash can.  It was as if John was in the room with me and it didn’t do anything but drive me even crazier.”
                  “So what did you do?  Burn it? I would have.”
                  “No, I picked back up, smoothed it out, folded it, and mailed it right back to Uncle Jesse.”
                  “Seems like an awful amount of trouble when a match would have done the trick.”
                  “I know.  I know.  I just wanted Jesse to have it.  It is from his brother after all.  I stuck my own note in asking him not to send the rest on to me.  I appreciated him sending me the first.  After all they’re written to me, but Jesse gave me the choice to read it and accept the others or … not.”
                  “How many others?”
                  “I don’t know.  Jesse sent me a package right before I left for Venice, with a letter explaining he didn’t feel right holding anything back from me.  Since he’d been receiving letters for me at his address, he wanted me to have the option to read them.
    He left it up to me to ask for any more if I wanted them, and at this point I don’t.”
                  “What did it say?”
                  “Um,” she sighed.  “Hello I’m your father.  I screwed up but am not a monster kind of letter so please forgive me.  It’s my dad’s fault I have no feelings but my mom’s fault for dying at birth so I could really be screwed up.”
                  “Excuses for why he attacked your mom then?”
                  “I don’t know.  I know I’m making him sound pretty pathetic in the letter,” Chastity shook her head in anger, “but he is pathetic!  But the letter … he was adamant that he wasn’t giving excuses but wanted to explain why he was the way he was…as in the past .  He claims he’s changed and sorry.  I don’t know.”  Chastity stacked another box in the corner of her soon to be empty kitchen.  “Now all I can think of is that he’s a person, not an animal … and I’m angry.  I liked it much better when I didn’t have to think about him at all.  When he was dead, or as far as I knew growing up, I idolized this image of him and yearned for a loving father.  Now that I know the truth of not only his existence, but that he raped my mom…that image of what I had of him growing up is shattered.  I can’t open my heart to someone who is such a monster.”
                  “Not that I think he’s a nice guy Chaz, because what kind of man would hurt a woman?  Not one that has a moral bone in his body … but what if he has changed?”
                  Chastity shot Anne one of her famous looks that could freeze water in a sauna.
                  Anne put her hand up