“No. Well, the jury’s out on Orson Lockwood actually, but that’s not what I was going to tell you.” I took a deep breath. “My mother is alive. She remarried. And her husband—”
“Is a real looker,” finished Henry from the doorway. He ambled casually into the living room. “About ready?”
Despite his discoloration, I could read the panic and confusion on Wes’s face. “You couldn’t have let me fill him in first?” I scolded Henry, my palms flat against Wes’s chest. If he hadn’t been such bad shape, he would probably be on his feet and in Henry’s face already. As it was, he pulsed against my hand, straining in a feeble attempt to appear less fragile compared to Henry’s lumberjack aesthetic.
Henry retrieved his denim jacket from the hook near the door and swung it across his broad shoulders. “We’ve got an hour and a half on the road to get more acquainted. Get him up. I’ll be outside.”
Henry left, the front door squeaking shut behind him, and Wes turned toward me. “What the hell, Nicole? Who was that?”
“That’s him,” I said. “Henry Danvers. He’s my stepfather. You heard him. Let’s go. We’ll explain in the car.”
Ten minutes later, after thanking Eileen for her help and promising to let her know when we were safe, Wes and I climbed into Henry’s massive red pickup truck and hit the road. I claimed the passenger seat, not entirely trusting Wes to keep his hands or his thoughts to himself. Sure enough, as soon as we pulled out onto the highway, Wes cleared his throat from the back seat.
“So Henry,” he began. I knew that voice. It was his Officer McAllen voice, the one he used when he was dealing with a tender situation on duty. I grimaced, hoping that Wes wasn’t about to make the trip out to the countryside even more uncomfortable. “How did you meet Nicole’s mother?”
“Met her in a liquor store,” answered Henry gruffly, one hand resting lazily on the steering wheel. “There was only one bottle of vodka left on the top shelf. We both reached for it at the same time, and the rest was history.”
I fixed Henry with a penetrating stare. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
He chuckled. “Too right. I met Natasha at a group therapy session actually.”
“Group therapy?” said Wes. “For what?”
“I can’t speak for my wife.” Henry’s eyes remained on the road as he flicked on his turn signal to pass a slow-moving sedan. “It’s not my business to share.”
“What about you?” pressed Wes. “Why were you in group therapy?”
Henry glanced into his rearview mirror to look at Wes. “I was lonely. I like being alone, but not lonely.”
“Is there a difference?” I asked.
Henry nodded. “Sure is. I didn’t like the group at first. Thought it was pointless. Not much good in talking out your problems when talking was never one of your favorite things to begin with. There were about ten or twelve of us there. They all loved to talk. I just sat and listened. And then one day, I noticed that Natasha listened too. Never said a word. Just listened.”
“The two of you must have mightily intriguing conversations,” I said offhand. I gazed out the window. We had officially made it out of the city. Miles of land stretched out from the highway, beckoning us farther away from the strife at Waverly University. The grass was brown, the trees gray and barren, but the sky was—for the first time in a while—a stark, clear blue. I cracked the window an inch or so, closing my eyes as the frigid air caressed my forehead.
“I daresay we do,” answered Henry. “But more importantly, we prioritized something that most other people don’t: the peace that accompanies the absence of conversation. It wasn’t long before we started dating.”
“And how long ago was that?”
“We’ll be married twenty-one years next month.”
I let that stew for a while. My mother had been happily married for roughly two-thirds of my life. Every new detail I learned about her seemed to sink into the pit of my stomach, weighing me down. It made her real. It made her not dead. It made me wonder how many times in the past twenty-one years, with Henry as her distraction, that my mother actually bothered to think about me.
“Do you have kids?” I asked Henry, fearing the answer.
“I have a boy from a previous marriage,” he said. “He’s nineteen. Goes to school in Toronto.”
“You and my mother, though,” I ventured. “You never thought about it?”
Henry rubbed the shadowy scuff on his chin before he answered. “We had a few discussions about it, but your mother never wanted any more kids. Said it’d be too hard after everything that had happened.”
“I bet,” offered Wes from the backseat. “She might’ve abandoned the second one too.”
“Wes!” I said, stunned by the pettiness of this statement.
At the same time, Henry yanked the wheel to the right, and with a jolt, the truck shuddered to a halt on the side of the rode. Henry whirled around to face Wes. “Listen here, son. I don’t care how broken your nose is. I will not hesitate to come back there and kick your righteous ass from here to Sunday. Keep your mouth shut about things you don’t know. Understand?”
Wes, still braced against the black fabric of the backseat, glared at Henry but gave him a curt nod. I raised an eyebrow at Henry as he swiveled back around to face the road. He noticed my gaze.
“What?” he barked.
“Nothing,” I replied hastily as Henry glanced over his shoulder to check his blind spot before pulling out onto the highway again. “You’re just really winning me over with your attitude right now.”
“I understand the pair of you being a little disgruntled over this entire situation,” said Henry, his voice settling back into its natural register. “I can’t tell you how to feel, but don’t you disrespect my wife. She’s done the best she can.”
To my surprise, Wes spoke up. “I’m sorry,”
