“Or whether we help you create a new home,” Grady says. “Like I was talking to you about. I can find you and Hannah a good place to stay where you’ll get to start over fresh. And your father will join you when he thinks it’s safe to come back. Maybe he thinks that can’t happen tomorrow, maybe that’s what he was trying to say in the phone call, but—”

“Why not?” she interrupts him.

“Excuse me?”

She meets his eyes.

“Why not tomorrow?” she says. “Forget tomorrow. Why not today? If my father truly knows you’re the best option, then why isn’t he here with us now? Why’s he still running?”

Before he can stop himself, Grady lets out a small laugh, an angry laugh, as though I coached Bailey to ask that question—as though it isn’t the only question someone who knows and loves Owen would be asking. Owen avoided being fingerprinted. He avoided having his face plastered all over the news. He did what he needed to do to avoid outside forces blowing up Bailey’s life. Her true identity. So where is he? There’s nothing else to play out. There’s no other move to make. If he were going to be coming back, if he thought it was safe to start over together, he’d be here now. He’d be here beside us.

“Bailey, I don’t think I’m going to give you an answer right now that will satisfy you,” he says. “What I can do is tell you that you should let me help you anyway. That’s the best way to keep you safe. That’s the only way to keep you safe. You and Hannah.”

She looks down at her hand, my hand on top of it.

“So… that is what he meant then? My father?” she says. “He’s not coming back?”

She is asking me. She is asking me to confirm what she already knows. I don’t hesitate.

“No, I don’t think he can,” I say.

I see it in her eyes—her sadness moving into anger. It will move back again and from there into grief. A fierce, lonely, necessary circle as she starts to grapple with this. How do you begin to grapple with this? You just do. You surrender. You surrender to how you feel. To the unfairness. But not to despair. I won’t let her despair, if it’s the only thing I manage to do.

“Bailey…” Grady shakes his head. “We just don’t know that’s true. I know your father—”

She snaps her head up. “What did you say?”

“I said, I know your father—”

“No. I know my father,” she says.

Her skin is reddening, her eyes fierce and firm. And I see it—her decision forming, her need cementing, into something no one can take from her.