“Ava’s boyfriend, he just picked her up. Nice young man,” she said, bustling about. She got out a place mat from in a drawer and placed it before him. “Intelligent, and I’ve told him to stop wasting his time being a mechanic.”

His mother always had plenty of opinions on how people should run their lives.

“I’ve eaten, Mom.” He tried to get that point across again.

“Growing boy, you need to eat more.”

She had no idea of his eating habits, or that he now loathed oatmeal, but he let it lie for now.

“How’s Dad?”

Charlie... or Charlotte, he reminded himself, answered that one after putting down her phone.

“He has a broken ankle, and dislocated left shoulder. Concussion, several lacerations, and a bruised liver, so they think he’ll be in hospital for a while.”

“What happened?”

“It was a particularly cold day,” his mother said. “He skidded on some ice and hit a tree.”

“He knows how to drive in these conditions; I can’t believe it’s that simple. Besides, it’s not even winter yet.”

Charlotte shrugged. “He said his brakes weren’t working, but Zander is employed at the garage and had the car towed in. He said they were fine.”

“He’s been busy with work... preoccupied.” Mary Howard placed a full bowl of oatmeal in front of Dylan, and his stomach revolted. He’d not touched oatmeal since he’d left Ryker, after having it every day for breakfast for close to sixteen years. He remembered that too; she never took no for an answer when in her mind it was yes.

“Now you eat this, every last mouthful. It’s good for you.”

Dylan looked at his sister, and saw a flash of something, a memory of their mother saying those exact words, but then it was gone and she was composed once more.

So he sat there at the kitchen table, in the room that held so many memories, and not all of them bad, and ate the oatmeal that he covered liberally in sugar and flooded in milk.

He remembered his father winking at him as his mom went at him for something. His sisters teasing him, so he’d do the same back and sometimes make them cry. He let his eyes stray to Charlie and his mother briefly. Why did he suddenly feel sad about the distance between them? He pushed aside his bowl.

Staying away from Ryker Falls was the life he’d chosen. The life Mary Howard had forced him into, and he’d never tried to change that.

Getting out of his chair, he placed his bowl in the sink and then made for the door.

“Where are you going?” his mother asked.

“I need to see Dad. I’ll be back later.”

“I’m making pot roast.”

“Okay.”