Member-only story
Like Letters Written in the Sand Part Thirty Seven (Revised)
Although Clarence saw her beauty and all she had, he saw far too often the scars, the scars from the amputations and the scars that ran even deeper, scars of a broken childhood, scars of a daughter who was only asking for love.
There was no doubt that Anna-leis was strong, she was the strongest person he had ever met, his parents were strong too, but they hadn’t endured what Anna-leis had, thank God for that. Like him, they were there for her when she felt utterly broken.
Watching a family play or watching her own daughters could sometimes set off her emotions. She would pull herself together long enough to get Clarence, then go to their bedroom and have a good cry. It was her objective not to scare the girls or make them think she had done anything wrong.
Clarence gave Anna-leis time to herself when she needed it. He knew that there were times when she just needed space, not because she didn’t love him, because she loved him more than she could even describe, but because she needed time to process, and she needed time to heal. Knowing that he couldn’t fix it, or take away her inner or physical scars, was difficult.
In the beginning, she was unable to stand looking at the scars when she returned home from the hospital, but no matter how hard she tried to conceal…
