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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

Asher cupped the back of Justin’s head tenderly. “Justin,” he said, and wondered how many times he had said his son’s name aloud since his birth. Thousands, probably. A hundred thousand, at least. “Answer me, buddy.”

Justin seemed to have lost sight of what the question even was. “What?”

“You know that it’s not right, them taking you away from me. Don’t you?”

The highway beneath them. The cuh-lump as they passed onto a bridge and the cad-oomph as they glided off and back onto the road.

Justin kept his face turned to the passing land and Asher questioned himself, his own motives. Had he taken him just to get back at her? Or because he couldn’t stand to be away from him? Because he really thought being with her was unhealthy? All of that. Every damn bit of it.

“I don’t want to say anything bad about your mother,” Asher said, although he wanted more than anything to do just that. He wanted to say: I bought into all of it. But I can’t do it anymore. I can’t go through the world judging everybody else. And I couldn’t leave you in that mess, being brainwashed that way.

“I’m hungry,” Justin said.

“I brought you all kinds of snacks,” Asher said. “You can take your seat belt off long enough to look through them.”

There were chips and some granola bars, oranges and bananas, packs of Nabs, peanuts and cashews. Apparently there was nothing Justin wanted because he slid down into his seat, clicked his seat belt back into place, and fixed his eyes on the road.

“I need a honey bun,” he said. And because the boy had always had this way of saying he “needed” things instead of that he “wanted” them, like so many other children did, because Asher would do anything in the world to please him, he said they would stop at the first store they could find.

3

3

As soon as Asher saw the Git ’n Go he wheeled in and parked beneath the bright white lights of the gas canopy, which were still burning despite the fact that morning had completely stretched out over the world by now. Asher put his hand on the door to get out, but Justin sat motionless.

“What are you waiting for?” Asher didn’t want to be here long. Any second a cop could slide into the parking lot.