She says nothing in the brief silence that follows, and I didn’t expect her to.

“If we feel threatened at a primal level,” I continue. “If someone is trying to fundamentally change our way of life. The Yateses can kill.” I turn one more time to her, and Willow’s face is corpse blank. “And not just me. All of us. You come from a family of killers. It’s important you know that, because someday you might have to save yourself against someone trying to do you harm. Know you have it in you. It’s a terrible, primal thing to have in your blood, Willow. But it’s there. Like a virus. And your mom? There’s a reason she didn’t change her name after marrying. Just like me. She wants to be a Yates forever.”

I drop the stick entirely in the fire, wait long enough to see the flames consume it entirely, then get up and walk back into the darkness of the garage.

Thirty-Eight

In the car, I don’t want to mince words or take time extracting the evening’s events from Max. I need to perform emergency surgery, even if it’s messy.

“I overheard you and Willow,” I tell him.

He looks out his window as we drive the short distance home.

“Max, look at me.”

He doesn’t.

“Look at me.”

He waits a few seconds, then turns his head.

“Everything’s okay,” I tell him.

“But she said the police were talking to you. Is that true?”

“Yes, but there’s nothing to worry about.”

This quiets him for about a block and then he says, “That’s not true.”

“What?”

“That there’s nothing to worry about,” he says. “But they could still put you in jail for something you didn’t do.”

All I want to do is ease the suffering of my boy, but I can’t even do that for myself.

“I’m not going anywhere, Max.”

As soon as the words leave my lips, I picture them permanently seared in his brain as he visits me years later in prison. It’s a horrible image I can’t shake, along with the sound of his forever-eleven voice saying She promised me.

I think I’d rather see him cry than the calculating stare he’s now giving me. He’s trying to see if I’m lying.

“I promise you I’m not going anywhere,” I repeat, deciding to go all-in on the belief. Manifest your future. “You believe me, right?”

He doesn’t answer. He’s drifted to his other world again, the one I can’t penetrate.

As we drive, I don’t repeat my question. Don’t say anything.

Max stares straight through the windshield, his gaze heavy and fixed. It makes me think of that scene from the movie The Shining. Little Danny, staring transfixed into the mirror, just before he starts screaming “Redrum!”

I’m desperate to know how Max will turn out in life. I just want to know he’s going to be okay. That he’ll be a caring, compassionate man who will love and be loved.

That’s all I want to know.