“I do what I can,” I said, brushing an invisible nothing off of my shoulder.

Bear unfolded what looked like a two-page letter of some sort and as he read his eyes shifted from narrow to wide. His lips moving silently as he read. He stood up, walked a few feet and then reached behind him. When his hand found a chair, he fell back into it, never taking his eyes from the letter.

“What?” I said, watching Bear’s reaction and wondering what impending doom was here to sweep away all of our newfound happiness.

“It’s a letter,” Bear said.

“Don’t make me junk punch you Captain Obvious. Who is it from?”

“It’s from…” Bear held up the pages. I stood up and snatched it. Resting his elbows on his thighs he dropped his head into his hands. “It’s from Grace.”

I scoffed, thinking that he was just joking until I began to read.

My Dearest Abel,

It’s time I told you a story, one I should have told you a long, long time ago.

As far as the world is concerned, they think Edmund and I couldn’t have children of our own because that is what we had lead everyone to believe, but that is only a partial truth. When people asked if we had children, we always said no. It was too painful to talk about then, and frankly, it’s still too painful to write this now, but I owe you the truth and the truth you shall have.

As you know, my mother was old-fashioned and had arranged my marriage to my Edmund with his mother on the very day I came screaming into the world. I didn’t care for him. I didn’t want to be married. Ever.

I wanted adventure.

So a long time ago, in another life, I got my adventure.

I became a hang-around at an MC and got sucked into club life. I was the equivalent to the Wolf Warriors what a BBB is to the Bastards.

Shocking I know, but if you can believe it, I was quite a looker back in my day.

Rebellious as hell too, although I don’t think that ever really went away. Age just has a funny way of tucking the rebellion in under loose and wrinkly skin.

I had a child, very early in life with Joker, VP of the Warriors.

A daughter.

We named her Sadie.

Joker was married at the time, and although he was never hateful, he never acknowledged Sadie as his own. I left the club life shortly before she was born, so I could raise her. I married Edmond after all, because I thought it was what was best for Sadie, and thankfully he agreed because although the beginning was rocky, we fell as madly in love as two people could possibly be.

But my girl, my Sadie, was a rebel from the word go, just like her mama.

By the time she turned fifteen, she was deep into drugs. The hard stuff. She’d run away at least once a month until the money ran out from whatever she’d stolen from us and sold.

One such time, she never came back. I tracked her down and it was no surprise where I found her. She’d taken in with the Bastards, who’d kept her comfortable and knee deep in her drug and party lifestyle. I stormed over there many times, but never got further than the gate. I called the cops, but it never yielded anything because, as you know, the cops in Logan’s Beach wear badges during the day and cuts at night. I even called Joker and begged him to help me, but the epic on-again-off-again war of Bastards vs. Warriors, was on again, and there wasn’t anything he could do.

I didn’t even know my daughter was pregnant until I saw a glimpse of her at the Stop-N-Go one day with a rounded belly. I tried to talk to her, but she pretended like she didn’t know me. Around the same time, Edmund and I found out that because of my daughter’s difficult birth, that I would never be able to have any more children. Not only did I lose my daughter, but I lost my grandchild, as well as the possibility of creating life again.

Months later a picture showed up in the mail with no return address. A baby picture. It was you. I don’t know if Sadie had sent it or if Joker had somehow gotten a hold of it and sent it to me. Either way that picture was the very first time I’d ever laid eyes on you and I loved you right then.

I never stopped trying to get to my Sadie. Joker had called me to tell me that rumor had it that Sadie had gone missing. I practically drove my car through the gates of the Bastard compound and demanded to see you, but the only thing I accomplished was being led out by gunpoint. Chop said that if I ever came back he’d not only kill me, but you too. I didn’t even know that he was the father until he told me at gunpoint. And when I accused him of killing Sadie, he didn’t even have the courtesy to deny it.

I slipped into a depression, nothing Edmund did could pull me out of it. He cleared the house of all evidence of Sadie’s existence, thinking that it was the memory of her that was making me that way even thought it was much, much more than that. However, he did let me keep your picture as long as I promised to tuck it away somewhere, so I did. Eventually with no hope in sight I became bedridden with grief, my only solace was a glance at your beautiful face once a day when Edmund would leave for work.

Until Brantley.

When he came into my life, he started to fill the gap in my heart. Thankfully, Edmond was able to get to know him for a short time as well, before he passed. Brantley was my little blessing, wrapped in anger and emerald eyes. Then Samuel came along, and I started to feel almost whole again.

Or so at least I thought.

Because on one hot summer day, you showed up on your bike. The spitting image of your father with your blond hair and sapphire blue eyes. I nearly fell off the porch.

There you were. My grandbaby. All grown up and right in front of me.

I wanted to tell you then. I tried so many times after that day too. But my overwhelming fear that Chop would cut you off from me… I couldn’t lose you.

Not again.

Not ever.

However, he did find out eventually, because he showed up at the house with a half dozen other Bastards and stormed through my roses. The first thing he asked me was if you knew who I was, and when I told him that you didn’t, he was relieved.

I would have shot him right there if I’d had a gun within my reach for what he did to my girl. He told me to stay away from you and that it was my last warning. I asked him why he was so hell bent on not allowing you to have a family.

“Because he has a family, the Bastards are his family. He doesn’t need his daddy, his granny, or some weed-dealing thug kids. He’s got his brothers.” He turned to leave.

“You might as well stay, so you won’t have to make another trip to shoot me because I won’t stop seeing him. I won’t. If you are going to kill me for it then just kill me now because I will not give him up.”

Instead of killing me, he laughed in my face and then we made an agreement.

One I’m not proud of, but one where I wouldn’t tell you who I really was to you, and he wouldn’t ban you from coming around.

Oh, and he wouldn’t kill us, either.

It was selfish, I know that, but I finally had you in my life and the risk of losing you again was too great. So I kept you in the only way I knew how and I am so so, so sorry Abel. My baby. My boy. Just know that I love you with all my heart and that I did everything I could to be a good grandma to you and protect you from the evil of your father.

You are so different from him. You are a good man. You made my heart and life so full and I would go through all the hard times all over again, as long as it all ended the same way.