“Please thank him for me. I just have so many questions. I feel like I won’t be able to let it go until I have those answers.”
“I get that. Holt’s amazing at what he does. If anyone can find her, it’s him.”
Addie pushed into my touch. “Thanks.”
“Always.” I rubbed a hand up and down her back. “What would you think about trying for your driver’s license today?”
Addie jerked up to sitting. “What?”
“We’ve been practicing almost every day.”
“For like twenty minutes. I still hate highways.”
I chuckled at
the image of Addie shrieking every time a car passed us on the two-lane road out of town. “You don’t have to go on the highway for your driver’s test.”
She pursed her lips. “I could drive alone if I had my license.”
“Just you and the open road.”
Addie smiled. “There’s no harm in trying, right?”
“No harm at all.”
Why had I thought this was a good idea again? As soon as the DMV employee walked towards us, I’d wanted to gather Addie up in my arms and get her away from here. What if the stern woman failed Addie, and it ruined her confidence? What if they got into an accident because Addie was anxious? A million other what-ifs ran through my head. I’d even asked the test instructor if I could ride along with them. The answer had been no.
I bit the inside of my cheek as my truck disappeared around the corner with the two women inside. I spun my cell phone between my fingers, my gaze locked on the spot where the vehicle had last been, as if I could magically make it reappear. Finally, I forced myself to look away.
I scrolled through my phone, landing on a contact. I tapped it and put the device to my ear. It rang a few times before someone answered.
“Ah, my eldest,” my mom answered.
“You mean your favorite.”
She chuckled. “You guys know Calder is my favorite.”
I barked out a laugh. Mom had loved Calder as if he were hers long before Hadley and he had become a couple. “Fair enough. How are you?”
“I’m good. Just like I was when you called yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. You’re starting to give me a complex. Making me feel like you think I’m old and feeble.”
“Never. I just want to check in, see if you guys needed anything.”
My mom was quiet for a moment. “Beckett, it’s not your job to take care of us. You know that, right?”
It wasn’t my job, but it was my responsibility—one I’d seriously neglected. No, one I’d abandoned. “I know, but I’d like to make up for the years that I was gone in some way.”
“You don’t have anything to make up for. You were living your life. Helping people—”
“I was running away.”
Silence greeted me in response, and then the sound of a door closing. “I hate how I handled things after Shiloh was taken.”
I froze, standing stock-still. Mom never spoke about that time if she could avoid it. It carried too many scars. “You were doing the best you could.”
“Maybe, but I’ve had a lot of years to realize that my family was suffering around me. I was too blinded by my pain to see anyone else’s.” The rhythmic sound of wood against wood came over the line, and I knew she was in her rocker on the front porch—her thinking spot. “You needed an escape. I get that. I just wish I would’ve been able to talk you through it at the time. To tell you that none of this was your fault.”
“I know it’s not my fault.”