“I wrote it down years ago. My father was telling me about the family history, and I put notes in my phone because I was afraid I’d forget.”
He scrolled for a moment.
“Here. ‘Dad went to the station on the morning Douglas left. He told Douglas that Hannah’s father had called and said Hannah was engaged. He also said Mom had collapsed and needed Douglas home.’”
I closed my eyes.
“So both fathers told him different versions of the same lie.”
“It seems that way.”
“Did Douglas know they were working together?”
“No. He believed they were both telling him the truth.”
I thought of the boy beneath the bleachers, extending his pinky and asking me to wait until sixty. He had trusted the people around him to help him become an adult. Instead, they had placed their fears inside his hands and called it responsibility.
“Why would your grandfather tell him my father said I was engaged?”
