I covered my mouth.
“One year, I drove all the way to Idaho before turning around,” he continued. “I told my wife I had a work trip. I sat in a motel room with a map open on the bed and realized I was more scared of your faces than I had ever been of Vale.”
He laughed once, bitterly.
“That is the ugliest truth. At first I was hiding because I thought I had to. Later, I was hiding because I was a coward.”
For a long moment, I could not speak.
Part of me wanted to slap him.
Part of me wanted to hold him again and never let go.
Both feelings were true.
“You broke us,” I said.
He nodded.
“I know.”
“No,” I said, my voice shaking. “You don’t. You lost us, but you knew we were alive. We lost you into nothing. Do you understand what that did to Mom?”
