“Hey,” he muttered, not taking his gaze from the TV.

“I came home, checked my mail, didn’t get a wish list,” I remarked.

He didn’t say anything.

I was used to that, just not from Cillian.

“Got an afternoon free to go shopping,” I tried again.

“Don’t want anything,” he kept muttering.

I looked up and saw Aisling hanging close to the mouth of the hall.

She shrugged but she looked upset.

I sighed, looked around and saw no cake remains splattered everywhere, but I did see the bar had a profuse gathering of unwrapped birthday presents.

My gaze slid to Aisling. She caught it and shrugged again.

I turned my attention back to Cillian.

“So I guess it’s clothes,” I announced, knowing no twelve-year-old boy wanted clothes.

“Don’t want anything,” he repeated, still not taking his eyes from the TV.

“No kid I know and like turns twelve without me buying him something. It’s a rule. I have it written in blood on a contract in my wall safe,” I somewhat lied, since I didn’t have any such contract.

Or a wall safe.

Cillian didn’t respond.

“Underwear,” I declared. “With animals on it.”

I watched Cillian’s nose scrunch.

Finally.

“Not something Combat Raptor,” I said, not knowing because Auden was beyond that kind of thing, but thinking that was all the rage.

“I’m not seven,” Cillian noted disgustedly.

Okay, that was out.

“A new Frisbee,” I pushed.

“Got five of them,” Cillian told the TV.

“So, clothes,” I concluded.

“He likes paintball,” Aisling offered and I looked to her.

“No way,” I stated. “That’s dangerous.”

“Not if you have eye gear,” Cillian mumbled.

Paintball eye gear.

Check.

“Those pellets can hit more than your eyes,” I told him.

“Won’t hurt, you got a helmet, or a vest, gloves, or pants,” he told me.

Helmet.

Vest.

Gloves.

Pants.

Check.

“So it is clothes,” I teased.

“Whatever,” Cillian muttered.

“There you go. I have my mission,” I announced, straightening away from the couch. “Could wait to ask your dad if someone might want to go with me,” I offered that thinly veiled suggestion.

Cillian didn’t reply and that hurt. He was usually so talkative, enthusiastic, energetic.

Now he was slobbing out in front of the TV, sullen and crabby.

My children could be that way and they’d never had a mom or dad that did anything but love them, support them, give them all they needed and a good deal of what they wanted. Conrad and I might have behaved badly, they might have seen it, but we’d never missed anything important or made them feel unimportant.

Heck, I even went to all Auden’s wrestling matches and I disliked wrestling.

I knew two kids who needed a reality check.

I also knew that someone needed to find Rhiannon Donovan and shake some sense into her.