Chapter 2
Kayla Cafferty
The golden retriever’s eyes weren’t right.
I’d been staring at the illustration for twenty minutes, pencil hovering, trying to figure out what was off.
The composition was fine. The lighting worked.
The dog sat exactly where he should in the frame—red bandana around his neck, tail mid-wag, positioned between two boys on a playground bench.
But something in his expression read flat instead of soulful, and I couldn’t pinpoint why.
The book was called Brave Like Barley. A dog helps a lonely boy find the courage to make friends. Simple premise, the kind that worked because it was true. My editor had sent the manuscript three weeks ago with a note that read, This one made me cry—you’re going to love it.
She’d been right. I did love it. I also found it harder to work on than anything I’d done in years.
Maybe because the boy in the story reminded me too much of William. The way he hung back at recess, watching other kids play, wanting to join but not knowing how. The way he talked to his dog about things he couldn’t say to people.
I set down my pencil and rubbed my eyes.
The deadline wasn’t breathing down my neck yet—I had three weeks before the rough sketches were due, another month after that for finals.
Plenty of time. But I’d learned the hard way that “plenty of time” could evaporate fast when you were a single mom with a first grader and a house that required quite a bit of attention.
The light in my home office was good this time of day.
Late-afternoon sun slanting through the west-facing window, glowing but not harsh.
I’d chosen this room specifically for the light when we’d moved in six months ago.
The real estate agent had called it a “bonus room,” which in Colorado apparently meant “too small to be a bedroom but too big to ignore.” Perfect for a drafting table, a bookshelf, and the organized chaos of my work.
I picked up the pencil again. Studied Barley’s eyes.
The problem, I realized, was that I’d drawn him looking at the boys. But dogs didn’t just look at people. They saw them. There was warmth there and patience and that particular brand of unconditional acceptance that humans spent their whole lives trying and failing to replicate.
I started erasing, working carefully around the lines I wanted to keep.
The curve of the ear. The slight tilt of the head.
Just the eyes needed to change—a softening of the lids, a shift in the direction of the gaze so he was focused entirely on the lonely boy, like nothing else in the world existed.
My phone rang.
I glanced at the screen. Trish Johnson. I set down the pencil and answered.
“Hey, you.”
“Hey yourself.” Trish’s voice carried that particular enthusiasm she seemed to generate effortlessly. “I know you’re probably in the middle of something brilliant, but I had to call. Gary and I still can’t stop talking about Saturday night.”
“The sleepover was my pleasure. Really.”
“Pleasure, she says. Like wrangling two six-year-olds hopped up on pizza and video games is some kind of spa treatment.”
I laughed. “They were great. Theo’s a good kid. And William needs friends.”
“Well, Theo hasn’t stopped talking about when he gets to go back to William’s house. Apparently, you have better snacks than we do.”
“I made popcorn. It’s not exactly gourmet.”
“You made real popcorn. On the stove. Do you know how long it’s been since Theo had anything that didn’t come out of a microwave bag?
” She laughed. “Anyway, I wanted to say thank you again. We haven’t had a real date night in months.
Gary took me to that Italian place on Main Street, the one with the candles and the cloth napkins.
I had two glasses of wine and didn’t have to cut anyone’s food into tiny pieces. It was magical.”
“I’m glad.” And I meant it. Trish and Gary had been good to me since I’d moved here—inviting me to school events, introducing me to other parents, making sure I didn’t spend every weekend alone with William in a town where I didn’t know anyone.
The least I could do was give them a few hours to themselves.
“And.” Trish’s tone shifted, became deliberately casual. “I want to return the favor. Anytime you need a night to yourself, William can come here. The boys entertain each other, and Gary actually enjoys the chaos, which I will never understand.”
I knew what she was really asking. Whether I was seeing anyone. Whether I wanted to be.
“That’s really sweet, but I don’t think that’s happening anytime soon.”
“No? I’m sure we could find you someone to—”
“Nah.” I kept my voice light. “I’m kind of enjoying the quiet, honestly. Just me and William, figuring things out.”
The silence on the other end lasted half a beat too long.
Trish was thinking about Craig. I’d told her enough—that I’d ended a relationship before I moved, that it hadn’t been healthy, that I was still working through some things.
She’d never pushed for details, but I knew she’d drawn her own conclusions.
“Well,” she said finally, “the offer stands. No pressure. But when you’re ready, I’m here.”
“I know. Thank you.”
“So.” Trish’s voice brightened, pivoting away from the topic with practiced ease. “Did you hear about the assembly coming up?”
“The reptile guy?” I matched her energy, grateful for the redirect. “William’s been looking up snakes on my laptop every night. Did you know there are over three thousand species?”
“I did not know that, and I’m choosing to remain blissfully ignorant.” She laughed. “Theo’s already asking if he can hold one. Mrs. Patterson sent home the permission slip yesterday. Apparently, they’re bringing a boa constrictor. A boa constrictor, Kayla. To an elementary school.”
“I’m sure they’re professionals.”
“Famous last words. I give it ten minutes before some kid tries to set it free.”
“Five if it’s William.”
“Three if it’s Theo.”
We both laughed, and for a moment, everything felt simple. Just two moms joking about their kids, no complicated histories, no baggage.
“Okay, I’ll let you get back to work,” Trish said. “But seriously—thank you again.”
“Anytime. I mean it.”
“I know you do. That’s why you’re the front-runner for becoming my very best friend in the entire universe. Talk soon?”
I laughed. “Talk soon.”
I hung up and set the phone on the table. The golden retriever’s empty face sat on the page surrounded by eraser shavings, waiting for me to draw the proper eyes.
A ding notification sounded.
I glanced over, expecting a follow-up text from Trish. But the notification wasn’t a text. I reached up and slid my finger across the mouse pad on my laptop, bringing it to life. It was an email.
From Craig.
My stomach dropped.
I should have closed the laptop without reading.
That’s what my therapist had told me to do: don’t engage, don’t respond, just move the message to the folder we’d created specifically for his emails.
“Evidence.” That was the folder’s name. Not “Do Not Read,” which had been my first instinct, back when I’d thought ignoring him would make him stop.
The new name was my therapist’s suggestion, because we’d started talking about a restraining order, and every message Craig sent was another line in a file I hoped I’d never need but couldn’t afford to throw away.
But this one was short. So short that the preview showed the entire message.
No man is ever going to want you. You know that, right? You’re used goods. Damaged. Any guy who looks twice at you is going to figure that out eventually. I’m just saving them the trouble.
I stared at the words until they blurred.
Six months. Six months since I’d ended it, since I’d packed up my life and my son and moved hundreds of miles to get away from him. And still, he found ways to reach me—I blocked his number, and he used some sort of burner phone app to work around it.
Always sending these little poison darts, designed to lodge under my skin and fester. Why? I had no idea. It wasn’t as if I had truly meant anything to him.
I closed my laptop. My hands were shaking.
Just seeing his name made me feel sick. Not because I believed what he wrote—I didn’t, not anymore, not after months of therapy and the slow, painful work of remembering who I was before I met him.
But because his messages were a thread back to everything I was trying to leave behind.
The person I’d become with him. I’d let myself shrink, smaller and smaller, until I barely took up any space at all.
The look on William’s face the day Craig screamed at him.
I stood up from my drafting table so fast the chair rolled backward and hit the wall. I couldn’t work. Not now. Not with those words sitting in my message box like something rotting.
I walked to the kitchen instead, looked out the window. What I saw there didn’t make me feel any better.
William was crouched near the back fence.
Again.
This was the third time this week I’d found him in that exact spot, spending long stretches in that corner of the yard.
He wasn’t playing—not the usual digging and running and imaginary battles that six-year-old boys engaged in.
He was just sitting. Crouched low, face near the ground, focused on something at the base of the fence.
Someone had moved in to the house next door about a week ago. I’d only caught glimpses—a moving truck on Saturday, a tall figure carrying boxes. I hadn’t introduced myself yet. Hadn’t found the time or maybe hadn’t wanted to find the time. New people required energy I didn’t have.
William shifted position, pressing his face closer to the ground. His body language wasn’t tense exactly, but there was an intensity to his posture that I couldn’t read. Was this normal curiosity? Or was he retreating into himself, pulling away from the world like he used to in Craig’s house?
I wanted to go out there. Ask him what was so interesting. Make sure he was okay.
But hovering didn’t help. I’d learned that. William needed space to process things in his own way, his own time. Sometimes the best thing I could do was wait for him to come to me.
So I stood at the window and watched my son and tried not to let Craig’s words loop through my head on repeat.
No man is ever going to want you.
I turned away from the scene outside and focused on the room instead. Washed the coffee mug I’d left in the sink that morning. Wiped down the counter. Small, manageable tasks that didn’t require my brain to do anything more than follow muscle memory.
When I looked out again, the spot by the fence was empty. Then the back door opened, and William stood on the threshold.
His knees were grass-stained, his shirt untucked, his sneakers caked with mud.
He took a few steps, looked down at his feet, then at me, and stepped back onto the mat.
Started wiping his shoes. Carefully, methodically, pressing each sole against the bristles over and over, long past the point where it was doing any good.
His body had gone still the way it used to go still in Craig’s house, bracing for the reaction.
“I got dirty,” he said. Small voice. Still wiping.
My chest ached.
“I see that.” I kept my voice easy, light. Grabbed a towel and walked over to him. “Looks like you found some good mud.”
He blinked. “There’s a puddle by the fence. From the sprinklers.”
“Makes sense. That’s the best kind of dirt.” I winked at him and rubbed his brown hair, so much like mine. “I think you got it. Let’s take them off.”
He toed off his sneakers carefully and left them by the mat, still watching me. Waiting.
“Did you find any good bugs out there?” I bent over and lifted the shoes for a final examination.
The tension in his shoulders loosened, just slightly. “A beetle. A really big black one. I didn’t touch it, though.”
“Smart. Some of them pinch.” I rubbed off a couple missed spots of mud, then set them by the door and stood. “Why don’t you go wash your hands, and then we can figure out dinner.”
He took a step toward the bathroom, then stopped. Turned back. His eyes moved over my face the way they always did—quick, careful, reading me like other kids read picture books. Looking for the chapter where everything went wrong.
He wouldn’t find it. Not here. Not with me.
“Go on,” I said, keeping my voice easy. “I’m thinking tacos.”
His shoulders loosened even more, and he released a breath. He nodded and padded off down the hall in his socked feet.
A six-year-old shouldn’t have to check his mother’s face for permission to relax. Shouldn’t have to scan a room before he entered it, measuring the temperature of the silence. Shouldn’t know, in his bones, that the wrong mood could turn an ordinary afternoon into something to survive.
He knew those things because I’d let someone into our lives who’d taught them to him.
I was the one who had to unteach them. However long it took.
“Hey,” I called toward the bathroom. “How about we watch a movie tonight? Your pick.”
William’s face appeared around the doorframe, eyes wide. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Can we make popcorn?”
“Obviously.”
He launched himself at me, wet hands and all, throwing his arms around my waist and squeezing hard. I held him close, feeling the solid warmth of him, the fierce grip of his small arms.
“You’re the best mom,” William said into my shirt.
My throat tightened. “I know. Go finish washing up. Your hands are still wet.”
He bounded off again, lighter than before. Still not all the way back to the kid he’d been before Craig, but closer.
A little closer every day.