Chapter 1
I know I slept through my alarm before I even open my eyes.
It was a rough night in the ER. And after working regular hours at my own family practice for so many years, it’s an adjustment going back to the long, late hours.
But after Jess left, leaving us with a single income, I started picking up a few shifts a week at the local hospital to make up the difference.
The clock reads seven-fifteen.
I got home at six.
Which means I slept for a solid hour, and still, fifteen minutes too long.
Thankfully, my angel of a daughter already put the coffee on, even though she has triple the energy of a regular person without it.
I don’t have time to reheat it, so I drink it cold, standing at the kitchen counter in yesterday’s undershirt and boxers, looking at the room in a state of detachment, regardless of the mess.
Another thing on the list.
The dishes in the sink are from two days ago. Maybe three. And there’s a permission slip on the counter that I still haven’t signed for Ollie’s field trip that was due yesterday, but got lost under the clutter.
The house isn’t dirty. I just have a six year old whose mission in life is to make as much of a mess as possible and a teenager too busy with her own life to help around the house.
I guess that was something Jess did.
I’ve learned, since my wife left me a year ago, that she did a lot of things.
Things that I’m ashamed to say I never even thought about before.
The house was clean, the groceries were in the fridge, the kids were at school.
Those things didn’t magically happen. They were Jess, finding the time to do them even though she was a full-time nurse and a mom and a wife—
If I were to have the chance to speak to her, to ask her why she left us, I would bet money that was a big part of it.
I should have done more.
“Daddy!”
Ollie is standing in the kitchen doorway in his dinosaur pajamas, even though I already woke him up and laid his clothes on his bed before I came downstairs.
“Why aren’t you dressed, bud?” I ask, using every bit of patience I have left in reserve. He’s only six, I remind myself. It’s not his fault I’m exhausted.
“I don’t want to go to school. Ms. Norris is mean,” he exclaims with a stomp of his foot. “She made Carter cry. And she didn’t let us go to recess yesterday.”
“Okay, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go to school, kiddo. You’re in first grade now. Things might be more challenging at first, but—”
“She’s mean, Daddy.”
I set down my coffee mug and crouch to his level, even though my knees are screaming. He looks at me with eyes that are Jess’s, and tears are already threatening to spill, so I have to play this carefully. I learned that the hard way.
“Okay,” I say. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to go upstairs and get dressed and go to school—”
“But I don’t wanna—”
“Oliver.” He waits to listen to the rest. “And if you have a good day today, we’ll go to the park after school, deal?”
That makes him pause. A deal too good to resist. And when he counters ice cream too, I say yes because it’s really time to go. I straighten up slowly, my knee popping as I do, the same time my phone buzzes on the counter.
Joyce.
I reach for the phone, knowing whatever she’s calling about this time of day is probably important, but then Ollie starts crying upstairs and I have no choice but to hit decline.
I’ll call her back.
“Dad?”
Addie speaks up from the kitchen table, a pink smoothie and a bagel in front of her, her sketchbook open beside her plate. She’s already showered, dressed, and her hair done with time to spare. At seventeen, she’s more on top of things than I have ever been in my entire life.
Her mom was like that too, back in high school.
Always had it together, always had time for more. Perfect grades, cheerleading, time for her friends. And somehow, she still chose me.
Until she didn’t.
“Morning,” I say, starting toward the stairs.
“Wait, Dad, I need to tell you something.”
“One second, I have to—”
“But it’s important—”
I sigh, turning around to listen when I hear Ollie upstairs letting out a fresh cry. “What is it, now?” I call up the stairs before I turn back to Addie. “What were you going to say?”
She opens her mouth, getting a single word out before my phone buzzes in my hand.
The hospital.
I hold up a finger to Addie and answer it because I have to. Someone called in sick, and they’re down a doctor, and yes, I can come in. When I turn back around, Addie is looking down at her sketchbook.
“Sorry,” I say. “Go ahead.”
She traces a line on the page with a finger. “It’s fine. It’s not a big deal.”
“Addie.”
“Seriously, Dad. Go get Ollie ready. We’re gonna be late again.”
I know I should push. My daughter wanted to tell me something, and I blew her off. But she’s right. We are gonna be late again if I don’t go upstairs. So I leave it.
Not for the first time.
Upstairs, Ollie is crying about his new jeans, so I trade them out for the reliable pants, no matter how they’ve faded from the laundry and are an inch too short.
“Tell me tonight,” I say to Addie, carrying Ollie out the front door.
She nods, staring down at her phone.
With the kids at school with only a few minutes to spare, I walk back into my house feeling fairly satisfied with how the morning went, all things considered.
Until my eyes land on the permission slip.
“Shit,” I mutter, scrubbing my hand across my face. I guess I’m going back to the school on the way into work. Luckily, I have an hour before my shift starts at my practice. Enough time to get some of this mess picked up.
But first, I pick up my phone and call Joyce back.
Joyce and Frank have always been a second pair of parents to me, especially after my own parents passed when I was still in medical school. And nothing about our relationship has changed since Jess left us.
In a way, she left them too. Up and moving to Florida without a word to anyone. It’s brought all of us closer, and I try to be there for them in any way I can, now that they’re getting older and don’t have anyone to look after them.
She answers on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hey, Joyce. Sorry, I missed you. Ollie had a morning.” I lean against the counter, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Is everything okay? Is Frank—”
After Frank’s heart attack a few years back, it’s where my mind automatically goes.
“Oh, Nolan, dear, you worry too much. Frank’s fine.” My body relaxes a bit, but not for long because the pause she takes before speaking again doesn’t feel like everything is fine.
“It’s about Will.”
I close my eyes, mentally preparing myself for whatever she’s going to say, the list of worst-case scenarios that have sat in the back of my mind since my brother-in-law went to prison. The horror stories you read online.
“He’s being released.”
Oh.
I wasn’t expecting that.
“I thought he had three more years left on his sentence.”
“He’s getting out on good behavior,” she says with a chuckle, like she doesn’t believe it’s true.
“Huh.”
I hardly believe it myself. The last time I saw Will was… I don’t even know. There was the time at Addie’s birthday party. Maybe once or twice after that. All bad experiences.
“Frank’s going to pick him up tomorrow morning,” she continues, and I can hear it in her voice, she doesn’t want to sound upset, but it’s there. “I was wondering if maybe you could be there. When they get back.”
“I know it’s a lot to ask,” she adds quickly before I can agree. “I wouldn’t if I thought we could handle it ourselves, but we haven’t seen him in years, and I don’t know what sort of shape he’s in—” She stops, taking a breath. “I think it would help to have you there. Will always respected you.”
I almost laugh at that, but I don’t, because this is Joyce. Respect isn’t exactly the word I would use for what Will feels for me.
“Of course,” I say instead. There’s no chance I would let them deal with this alone.
“You’re a good man,” she says, and I’m starting to wonder if she’s right about that. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
After we hang up, I set my phone down on the counter and start on the dishes, unable to focus on anything. Because after seven years, Will Davis is coming home.
And I have no idea what that means for my family.