Then understanding hit him, and his eyes met mine, horrified. He’d made the connection between Ansel/Adam and his own past and what was happening now. He knew. I could see it. He understood the trade the mother had offered me, exactly as Adam had when he saw the pictures of Spence and Trey. I could feel my largest question hanging in the silence between us.

What did you do?

Its words and shapes kept forming in my mouth, and they tasted so accusing. I clamped my lips shut tight against them. I would not ask him in that tone. I didn’t have to ask at all. He would tell me. I knew he would, because I knew him. And how many blaming questions was he holding back? Before he told me how he and Spence and Adam were connected, I wanted him to know I was carrying my share.

I said, “I looked away. I was watching the rehearsal. I should have—”

He cut me off, near instantly. “This is not your fault. No person sits inside a fortress staring at their kids. You were at the school. Where you felt safe. Where you and the kids damn well should have been safe.” He was defending me in the brooks-no-bullshit lawyer’s voice I usually heard only when he was practicing a closing argument. A tiny piece of me, very tiny, wondered if this was a performance, too, covering how much he blamed me at his core. Then his professional voice cracked, and a raw and naked pain leaked through. “You didn’t do a damn thing wrong, Bree. Even with Spence, you didn’t do wrong, and I don’t care what the law says. His death is on the woman who took our child and lied to you and tricked you. Any mother would do what you did.”

God, but that forgiveness, granted before I even asked, just waiting for me, felt so sweet. I did blame myself for Spencer, terribly, and tears started in my eyes. It hit me all over again, how deeply I knew this man: his strength, his character, our history. My fear of his answer lost volume in my heart.

This was Trey, who had gone with me into labor rooms, three times. The one who’d held me up at Betsy’s funeral. Those were the only other times I’d been reduced down to an animal, as I was now, and three of those occasions had ended in such joy. He’d always given me exactly what I needed in my hardest moments, and his instant grace now felt like a promise. He would give me what I needed now.

“Tell me,” I said. He knew what I meant.