Her face slackens in sleep before I can come up with the rest of what I want to say. I scoot a few feet farther away and lie down with my back against the wall. Far enough to be proper, but where I can still see her.

Different kinds of helping. Kimberly’s good on her feet, quick thinking. I like to plan. Days, weeks, months in advance. But tonight we took care of things, together. We’re a good team, I think.

STEVE CONNERS

“I’m worried,” my wife says. “Will should really be home by now.”

She seems small all of a sudden, curled against my side. I know she’s worried. I’ve known it for hours, and yet the calm quiet truth is somehow more startling than anything that came before. We’ve crossed over, out of the yelling and weeping and the pacing and the “When I get my hands on him…”

The clock reads close to midnight, and he’s not answering his phone.

“We should call the police,” I say.

She freezes in my arms. “No. I don’t want them looking for him.”

“What?”

“The news,” she murmurs. “They’ll be trigger-happy tonight.”

Sometimes I forget, the difference between walking down the street looking clean-cut and grown, in a suit, and being a teenage boy you can’t wrestle out of a hoodie. Those damn low-slung jeans.

I shouldn’t forget.

“You think he’s in Underhill.” I mean for it to be a question, but it comes out flat.

“That boy should know better,” she snaps.

“Maybe he has a girlfriend,” I say. “Maybe they lost track of time.”

“Hmmph.” She shoots me sharp side-eye. If Will walks in fine, and it turns out he was with a girl, she’ll grill him sideways … and not about being late.

“I’ll take a look in his room, okay?”

She says nothing. Wants it done, but doesn’t want to grant permission.

It is a trespass. And yet in the moment it feels right. Needed.

A slight laundry-hamper odor hits as soon as I open the door. Random piles of dirty socks are to be expected from teenagers, I’m told. It’s not terrible. His room is not as neat as the rest of the house, is all. It would be hard to be; I keep things crisp. But he’s a good kid.

His walls are covered with drawings. He’s really quite talented. I feel somewhat objective in saying that, since I’m only his stepfather. We’ve grown closer in the last couple of years. But it was hard at first. To adjust to a small person’s energy and whims whipping through my condo. Now the space is all of ours, more fully than I could have imagined.