My hands were shaking on the steering wheel.
“He said if I told you, he’d leave,” Nathan said. “He’d disappear. He’d go somewhere I couldn’t find him. And I’d never see him again.” His voice broke. “And I just found him, Mom. I just found him. After ten years. I couldn’t lose him again. Not yet. Not until I had to.”
“And Cole?” I asked. “Why did Cole go along with this?”
Nathan looked out the window. At the dark streets of Lexington going by. At the streetlights.
“Because Cole’s dad left too,” he said quietly. “Remember? When we were thirteen? After the fishing trip I didn’t go on?”
I remembered. Mike Carter. Denise’s husband. He moved to Nashville with a woman from his office. Cole hasn’t seen him since.
“Cole said, ‘At least your dad wants to see you,’” Nathan said. “He said, ‘Mine doesn’t even call on my birthday. Yours is dying and he’s still trying to protect your mom. That’s a dad, man. Even if he messed up. That’s a dad.’”
