“I didn’t realize how hard it would be.” He clears his throat and looks away. “Sometimes new fathers are not very bright. Danielle convinced me I wouldn’t really miss him. That my work would consume me again, and they’d visit me…and it so rarely happened. Once I was gone, it was like I was dead.” He lets that last word hang in the air. “I had to beg to see Ned. And I couldn’t understand why. Here was a woman who made a career out of connecting children to parents, and yet she stood in the way of me connecting with my son.” He clears his throat again. “Ned doesn’t want to hear that, I suspect, and I don’t want to say it to him. What does it matter now? He and I are responsible for our own relationship.”

Julia isn’t sure she buys into this poor-pitiful-me routine; he could have chosen a job closer to his son. And if he kept him here, well, then wouldn’t Ned have to deal with Marland? It would be easier for her.

The words come more quickly than she expects. “He’s your problem now.”

Gordon looks surprised at her tone. “He’s not a problem. He’s a kid.”

“I have to go.” She has what she came for and she doesn’t feel the need to be nice. What a curse that is, the niceness that is expected of her. “If he still wants to go to school, I’ll take him.”

“I know Ned is grateful for your friendship.”

“I don’t know that,” she says, more angrily than she intends.

“You seem upset,” he says.

The question comes to her and she doesn’t hesitate to ask it. “What did your ex have on my family?”

“What?” He seems genuinely surprised.

“She had some leverage over my parents. I suspect it had to do with Grant’s adoption, but I don’t know that for sure.”

“I have no idea. She met your parents after we divorced.”

“She never mentioned it?”

“No. Why would she?”

Because you had a child together and if something happened to her, she’d want you to know the truth.

She’s said too much and she realizes it. “All right. I’ll get Ned to school.”

She has the phone. She has proof of a threat against Danielle. But if she shows it, the explanation will derail Ned’s life and her future and…maybe it’s a card she won’t have to play. Maybe she can get Marland out of her life with a threat.

She sees Ned standing at the front door, his school backpack on his shoulder, as if life is normal again.

“Ned, you ready to go to school?” she calls, and her voice is surprisingly calm.

36

Grant

“Are you all right?” Peter asks Grant. He’s waited on the trail for Grant to catch up.