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Chapters (77)
  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Also by Silas House
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Contents
  7. Part One
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. 3
  11. 4
  12. 5
  13. 6
  14. 7
  15. 8
  16. 9
  17. 10
  18. 11
  19. 12
  20. 13
  21. 14
  22. 15
  23. 16
  24. 17
  25. 18
  26. Part Two
  27. 1
  28. 2
  29. 3
  30. 4
  31. 5
  32. 6
  33. 7
  34. 8
  35. 9
  36. 10
  37. Part Three
  38. 1
  39. 2
  40. 3
  41. 4
  42. 5
  43. 6
  44. 7
  45. 8
  46. 9
  47. 10
  48. 11
  49. 12
  50. 13
  51. 14
  52. 15
  53. 16
  54. 17
  55. 18
  56. 19
  57. 20
  58. 21
  59. 22
  60. 23
  61. 24
  62. 25
  63. 26
  64. 27
  65. 28
  66. 29
  67. 30
  68. 31
  69. Part Four
  70. 1
  71. 2
  72. 3
  73. Epilogue: The Everything
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author
  76. About Algonquin
  77. Copyright

“He is, too, Asher. He wanted me to take him back. Mostly he wanted me to find a way to get him back so you wouldn’t have to go to Tennessee. He just wants to protect you. And I know this is the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do in your life, but you’ll have to go back and face the consequences. It’s all you can do. I just don’t see any other way around it.”

“There’s not,” Asher says. “That’s the only way.”

He’s so bone-tired. But at the same time, he will be okay. When Lydia had taken Justin from him, the boy had been all Asher had in the world. But now Asher also has his brother and Evona. Luke may not be able to forgive him yet, but he’ll stand by him. And so will Evona.

Asher might go to prison for years. He might go for life. But he has to do what is best for his son. He has to go back.

31

31

Luke prays with Asher before they leave.

Asher feels an immense sorrow, as if the ocean is inside his body, pushing and pulsing to escape.

While Luke is praying, Asher is thinking about God and he is thinking about the God that lives in this place, right here on Bell’s little patch of land, and in Evona, and in the palm trees and the ocean and the sand and the particular light that exists here, and nowhere else. He doesn’t want to leave Key West the way he had once never wanted to leave Tennessee.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Justin had said. “Maybe Mom will forgive you and move on. Maybe she won’t even call the police.”

But Asher knows that is not the way it will go.

“You could just let me out somewhere close to home, and then run off,” Justin had said, trying to think of every option. “You can come right back to Key West and nobody will ever know the difference. When I get eighteen I can come see you.”

“I can’t do that, honey,” Asher had told him. “I can’t go that long without seeing you.” What he had not said was that it was time to stop running.

“It’d be better than going to jail,” Justin had tears in his eyes by then, trying his best to figure out a way to help his father.

“I have to go and make things right,” Asher had said. “A man can’t run from his troubles. Remember that.”