Downstairs, the garage door motor grinds open, bangs closed. There’s plenty of time for me to flee, but I’m so damn tired. Eyes fixed on the landing at the top of the stairs, I lay here clutching an empty Trojan wrapper in one hand and a worn pillowcase in the other. Footsteps approach and ascend slowly, falling into the same rhythm that brought me here. I’m resting like a child in my own child’s bed, fully clothed in the dark, counting the beats of a weary march as it grows closer.

32.

Jonah doesn’t see me stretched out in his bed until he is standing a few feet away. “Shit.” He stumbles backward. “Jesus, Dad. You scared the shit out of me.”

Sensation returns to my arms and legs. Still gripping Jonah’s trash in my fist, I lift my head, then my body, to sit on the edge of his bed.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

Leaning my elbows against my knees, unsure of my position or plan, I take in the person before me, a boy I’ve misread all this time. He silenced himself. He felt the need to disappear.

“Dad?”

He suffered and hid. He hid from his own father. I find my voice. “Got your message.”

“Oh yeah? Well, do you want to hear the update?” He’s frantic, fried at the ends.

I nod.

“That investigator called again a little bit ago.”

“Did you answer?”

“No. I told you I wouldn’t. I did what you asked, but he’s freaking me out.” Jonah wraps and unwraps his headphone cords around his wrist. “Can he keep calling like this? It’s harassment, isn’t it?”

Now is the time to ask about his relationship with Nick. Now. I open my mouth to extend support, but no sounds come. The details still won’t compute.

“I’m losing my mind, Dad. I’m seriously going crazy. Do you have any idea what he wants to talk to me about?”

In my head: visions of their late nights in the guesthouse, their inside jokes—their book club, for crying out loud.

“Dad. Are you even listening to me?”

I look at my boy, who is wild in the eyes. “Yes. You’re not going crazy.”

He laughs. “You have no idea.”

“Jonah.” I harness my calm. “Is there something you want to talk to me about?” This is the introduction to Parenting 101, is it not?

He squints, sticks his neck out, throws his arms in the air. “What’s wrong with you? Yeah, obviously I need to talk to you. That’s what I’m trying to do, Dad. Hello?”

I nod, desperate to reverse this unraveling. “Why don’t you tell me about something else—something that has nothing to do with the detectives.”

He huffs and shudders as he shrugs his shoulders, flaunting every marker of disdain he’s mastered in his years of angst.