Chương 8
"You thought I would take him away?"
She looked down.
"After everything with the divorce, I thought you were waiting for a reason to prove I couldn't handle being his mother."
I opened my mouth.
Then closed it.
Because there was history there.
Not the kind that made her right.
The kind that made her fear understandable.
During our divorce, I had been the organized one.
The one who brought documents to meetings.
The one who researched custody schedules.
The one who made lists.
I told myself I was being responsible.
Maybe sometimes I was.
But there were moments when being prepared became a way of making sure I could not be blamed.
I had not realized how that looked from her side.
"Did you tell anyone?" Derek asked.
Lena shook her head.
"No."
"Not your therapist?"
"No."
"Not your family?"
"No."
Derek looked away.
He was angry.
But he was also trying not to make the moment about his anger.
That was one of the things I respected about him.
He could be furious and still remember there was a child involved.
"What happened when you talked to him?" I asked.
Lena sat down on an old folding chair near the wall.
The same chair I had used years ago while assembling Noah's first bookshelf.
"I told him I didn't like how he talked to Noah."
"What did he say?"
She stared at the floor.
"He said I was making him soft."
My hands tightened around the notebook.
"What else?"
"He said Noah needed structure."
"Structure is not the problem."
"I know."
"What did he do?"
Lena swallowed.
"He apologized."
I laughed once.
A bitter sound.
"Of course he did."
She looked at me.
"Jake."
"No."
I shook my head.
"I'm sorry, but no."
The apology was suddenly the most familiar part of the story.
The part people used when they wanted to erase the damage without changing the behavior.
"What happened after he apologized?"
"He was better."
"For how long?"
She didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
A few seconds passed.
"That night," she whispered.
I looked at her.
"What night?"
"The night before Noah called you."
The air changed.
"What about it?"
She looked toward the notebook.
"I heard them arguing."
My stomach tightened.
"Who?"
"Travis and Noah."
"About what?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I was in the bedroom."
The sentence sounded impossible.
Not because she was in another room.
Because she sounded ashamed.
"I heard Travis raising his voice."
"And you didn't go in?"
Her eyes closed.
"I waited."
"Why?"
She looked at me.
And there it was.
The answer she hated.
"Because I was tired."
Nobody moved.
The honesty was almost painful.
"I had spent weeks trying to convince myself everything was fine," she continued.
"I kept telling myself I was watching."
"I kept telling myself I would step in if it got worse."
Her voice cracked.
"And then I realized I was waiting for proof."
I looked away.
Because I understood that feeling.
Not the same situation.
But the same human weakness.
Waiting for certainty before acting.
Waiting until something became undeniable.
The problem was that children often got hurt while adults waited.
"What did you hear?" I asked.
She took a breath.
"I heard Noah crying."
My chest tightened.
"What did you do?"
"I got up."
"Then?"
"Travis opened the door before I reached it."
She rubbed her hands together.
"He told me Noah had been disrespectful."
I stared at her.
"Disrespectful?"
She nodded.
"He said Noah needed consequences."
"What kind of consequences?"
"I don't know."
The words were quiet.
Too quiet.
"Lena."
She looked at me.
"I don't know what happened after that."
That was the sentence I did not want to hear.
Because the unknown was where fear lived.
Derek stepped closer.
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"I left."
I looked at her.
"You left?"
She started crying.
"I went outside."
"Why?"
"Because I was angry."
"At who?"
"At Travis."
"Then why leave?"
She covered her face.
"Because he told me I was overreacting."
The garage went silent.
"He said I always made him the bad guy."
I looked at the notebook.
At the things she had written.
At the things she had seen.
At the things she had explained away.
"And you believed him?"
She lowered her hands.
"No."
A pause.
"I wanted to."
That answer hurt because it was human.
People wanted things to be simpler than they were.
They wanted apologies to mean change.
They wanted love to be enough protection.
They wanted the person they chose not to become someone dangerous.
My phone vibrated.
All three of us looked at it.
It was Officer Harris.
I answered.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Carter, are you at the residence?"
"Yes."
"Are you alone?"
I looked at Lena.
Then Derek.
"No."
A pause.
"Is Lena there?"
"Yes."
Another pause.
"I need both of you to come back to the station."
My stomach tightened.
"Why?"
"We found something that requires clarification."
"What?"
Officer Harris hesitated.
That hesitation brought back the same feeling from the hospital.
The feeling that something was coming.
"We found a baseball bat in the garage."
Nobody spoke.
I looked at the corner where the shelves blocked part of the wall.
The place where we had not searched.
"Is it Noah's?"
"No."
"Whose is it?"
Another pause.
"Mr. Carter, that is what we need to discuss."
I ended the call.
Lena was already crying.
Derek looked at me.
"Jake."
I nodded.
Because I knew.
The garage had not just been hiding a secret.
It had been hiding a choice.
And someone had already made theirs.
And someone had already made theirs.
The drive back to the station felt shorter than the drive home had earlier that day.
Maybe because I was no longer racing toward the unknown.
I was moving toward it.
Lena sat in the passenger seat.
She stared out the window the entire time.
Derek followed behind us.
May you like
Nobody spoke.
The silence between Lena and me was not empty.
