Thinking about those long-ago summers also brought back memories of the warnings their father had given them about sharing their family’s business with anyone, even the grandparents who’d doted on them. Mark Lawry’s children had lived in fear of him all the time, even when they were hundreds of miles away.

Owen had spent a lot of time as an adult wondering why his twelve- or thirteen-year-old self had never confided in the grandparents who would’ve moved heaven and earth to rescue them from the hell they lived in. With the perspective of age and maturity, he knew he’d been governed by fear, but he wished so fervently that he’d had the courage to speak up, to say something, even if the consequences had been dire.

He’d never forget the way his strong, formidable grandmother had wept upon hearing the full truth of what her beloved grandchildren had endured at the hands of their father. It had taken a suicide attempt by his youngest brother, Jeff, to blow the lid off the entire mess. Jeff had gone to live with their grandparents in Florida and was now in college and thriving.

What might’ve been different for Jeff, for all of them, if Owen had only said something during one of those idyllic summers with their grandparents? Intellectually, he knew he was minimizing the overwhelming fear his twelve-year-old self had lived with when his thirty-four-year-old self still quaked at the thought of having to see his father in a few days.

He hated himself for that. Why should he feel fearful when he was bigger and stronger than the bully who’d raised him had ever been? How was it possible that his father still had the power to make him quake when he hadn’t even seen him in more than ten years?

Owen would give anything for a magic wand that he could wave to fast-forward their lives to after the trial, when his father was safely convicted and headed for prison, where he would finally pay for the vicious way he’d treated his wife and children for decades.

In the absence of magic, he had no choice but to summon the resolve to power through the ordeal and get to the other side of it, where he could move forward with Laura and the life they had planned. There was no place for his father in that life, and after trial, he would never have to see him again. That day couldn’t come soon enough for Owen.