“Just tell me,” she says. “What is it?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

I walk away because the lie is a force field that doesn’t last long. And I keep walking away until, eventually, Nia stops coming.

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I try again while Mum’s giving Logan a bath because Dad is stronger when she’s upstairs.

“Please,” I say, but he shakes his head.

“It’s too late.”

Whenever we talk about this, it opens the door to Dad’s tears, but I’ll keep saying it until he listens. He could be the hero, but he’s chosen not to be so I hate him. He could wait until Mum was asleep and take Logan wherever you take lost boys who’ve been found. He could do it in secret, but he doesn’t do anything.

“Nia’s going to have a brother,” I say. “A real one.”

Dad stares at me until I blink, then he says, “Oh.”

I know where to look so I can see all his memories of Will. They’re like flickers in his eyes, and they do different things to his face. Some make him smile and some make him cry and some make him make the face that scares me. It’s the same face Mum has. Except, she wears it most days while he usually keeps it hidden.

“Don’t tell your mother,” Dad says and I nod, even though that was never the plan.

I told him because I hoped it might change his mind.

Once upon a time, Logan was somebody’s good news, just like Will was for him and now Nia’s brother is for her. But nothing can make Dad do anything anymore.

Instead, he turns the news on, and I ignore it because it’s boring. And then Logan is on the TV. The newscaster is talking about a missing-person investigation, but I don’t hear all the words. I’m too busy looking at the smiling boy in his school uniform. He’s never smiled like that here.

His uniform is blue, and his hair is longer, and the reporter says his name is Logan Connolly. Then his mother is sitting behind a table with the police and she says, “Please, I just want my boy back.”

Dad makes a weird sound, and, maybe, this is the moment. Because Mrs. Connolly is broken, and she’s not a bad mother, and I stole a boy whose smile used to fill a whole TV.

I want to shout, “Give him back to her!,” but Dad speaks first.

“Amy…” But that’s all he says because his eyes shoot to the door and any fight in him pops like a bubble as Mum marches past us and switches off the TV.

When she turns, her eyes are wet, but her words are hard. “That’s enough of that,” she whispers.

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