Searching for Tomorrow (Tomorrows) by Katie Mac, Kathryn McNeill Crane

words make me nauseous. She thinks she gave him everything he needed. What a crock. “How can you say that you gave him everything he needed? He needed a mother. He needed love. He needed acceptance. You never gave him any of those.” I can feel the anger rising, and quite frankly, I am tired of pushing it down.
    “ Do you know what he said on 9/11? He said that when he first moved here, he was just a little boy whose father was dead and whose mother couldn’t stand to be around him. Do you even realize that he might still be here with us if you’d shown him one ounce of affection, a smidgen of approval? He loved you until the day he died. He wanted you to accept him, but he could never do anything right in your eyes.” Fury rolls through my body, starting at my feet. By the time it reaches my head, I feel as if I am about to burst. The words are just flying from my mouth and the more I speak, the louder I get.
    “ You may have given him material possessions, but you never gave him the one thing he wanted and needed. A mother. Thank God, my mom and dad have huge hearts, because after Mr. Tidwell’s death, my parents were the only parents that Tripp had. They loved him for who he was; they didn’t just merely tolerate him for what he could give them. I promise you that Tripp knew the love of a mother. It just wasn’t from you. You can keep your money. I promise that you don’t have one single, solitary thing that my girls or I need. Now you can just leave us alone in peace and quit trying to destroy the family that I have left. We Brouns may not have much, but what we do have is the love and respect of the people in this town. You leave Liam’s business alone, or what you’ve told me today becomes public knowledge and you’ll find yourself run out of this town so quick you won’t know what hit you. And I’ll tell you one other thing before I walk out of this door and out of your life. I feel sorry for the pathetic, weak, money-hungry person that you are. No wonder I could never meet your standards. Here I thought I wasn’t aiming high enough when I guess that all along I should have been aiming for the dung pile where you live. Goodbye and good riddance.”
    With that last statement, I proudly lift my head, walk out the door, and gently close it behind me. I take just a moment to let the feeling of finality seep in, and with an amazing feeling of freedom, I head to the car to reclaim my life WITHOUT the ogre.

 
     
     

Chapter Eight
Past
     
    For years, I’ve heard a song that talks about how time keeps on slipping into the future. With so much that I wanted to hold on to, time seemed to fly like that eagle into the areas of my unknown. I wanted to just stand still in one place, scream STOP at the top of my lungs, and pray that Father Time heard me.
    October rolled around , bringing with it cooler temperatures, burnished autumn leaves, an air of excitement around Fall Festival and Halloween preparations, and the most dreaded of times for me—Tripp’s eighteenth birthday.
    It had been over a month since the events that rocked our nation to its core. September eleventh seemed to draw American citizens together. Personal differences, political disparities, and even religious affiliations seemed to be put aside, and America once again truly seemed to be ‘one nation, under God, indivisible’. Not one day passed without the mention of Ground Zero, and the tireless, amazing recovery efforts going on there. People from around our nation, and even around the world, were doing what they felt was their part in the efforts, whether physically or financially. The sense of patriotism was remarkable.
    In the midst of all the confusion and anger over what had been determined to be a known terrorist attack on America, I found myself heading towards a very dark place and had no idea how to pull myself out of it. It was beyond my understanding how a group of people could so blatantly and intentionally cause such mass