"Did you and Craig have a fight?"
She nodded, thinking honesty was the best answer, especially when he was seeing straight through her already. Craig had made a comment about lying to kids and them hating you when they found out. It was probably pretty accurate. So she wouldn't tell her six-year-old all the gory details, but she wouldn't lie either.
When he asked if they had broken up and that earned another nod, Owen only gave a thoughtful nod of his own in return. Then he asked, "Are we moving again?"
Her heart about hit the floor. Shit. They’d moved when she broke-up-with/divorced Brian. They'd moved here because of Craig and that had obviously not escaped Owen even though she'd had no idea that he knew that until now. "No. We are not moving again. Well . . ." Crap. They were moving again. "Well, we'll move when we get our house. But you'll stay in the same school and we won't go far."
They weren't going anywhere anytime soon with the results she'd found from the realtor so far. She was holding out for the perfect place. She was hoping for extra bedrooms, but it didn't seem to be in her budget. She still needed a place in the house to work. The only one that had it was too run down for her to afford to fix it up.
Owen didn't know any of that. He just nodded and silently ate his sandwich. Then he ran off to read until it was time to get Aaron. She should have done something more with him. She had just Aaron on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and just Owen after school on the other days. It was supposed to be their time, but she didn’t have it in her.
She still didn't have it in her on Thursday morning when Kelsey dropped by with a pregnancy test. Just a quick knock at the door and her new friend was on her way to run errands, kids waiting in the car.
Shay's knees had been knocking every day she didn't start. Having the test in hand now was almost too much, so she stashed it in the bathroom cabinet for when the boys were in bed. It would be too much to have them watch while she fell apart or whatever her reaction might be.
The day dragged forever, probably because of that stupid stick taunting her from under the sink. She set Aaron up with activities, sat down and ate lunch with him, then spent as much time as she could getting ahead on sewing.
Just before two, she bundled herself and Aaron up against the cold and went to wait with the other parents at the bus stop. She was freezing by the time the bus arrived, releasing a knot of kids before pulling away.
It turned the corner before she realized all the kids had dispersed and Owen wasn't there.
Chapter 39
Craig had just set his guitar down for a moment when he heard JD's phone ring. Turning away, knowing it was Kelsey, he grabbed the soda he'd bought on the way over. His stomach was upset and no wonder. He felt like shit.
JD had been gracious enough to stay after rehearsal and run songs with him. They'd started with JD's latest piece, with Craig adding a bass line to it, then working through harmonies. They'd been hammering out one of Craig's songs just then, but even Craig knew he was once again turning a good song melancholy. Not the right day to work on that one. Probably not the right month for it, if he was honest.
"Hey," JD's voice made him turn to see his best friend hold his phone up. "Have you heard from Shay?"
"No." Why would I? But he didn't say it.
"You should check your messages." JD looked worried and Craig frowned at him. "Shay's been frantic. Apparently Owen wasn't on the bus today."
"What?" His heart rate kicked up. Why wouldn't Owen be on the bus? "He's missing?"
JD nodded. "Check your phone."
Already, Craig was digging through his bag, pulling out a phone lit up with messages from Shay. Owen was gone. Had he seen the boy? Had Owen contacted him?
He dialed before thinking.
"Craig?" She was frantic, but the sound of her voice was still a punch to his gut. One that apparently none of them had time for.
"Did you find him?" He asked, maybe a little harshly in his worry.
"No." The word was drawn out, desperate. "I called the elementary, but they haven't gotten back to me. They don't even know if he got on the bus after school. They called the bus driver, but he isn't answering."
"So the bus came, but Owen didn't get off?"
"Right. All the other kids did, but they were talking and I grabbed two kids and neither remembered Owen."
He did have a tendency to read wherever he went. The introvert status wasn't helping anyone today. "I'm at rehearsal—"
"Oh. I'm so sorry to interrupt."
"Shay." He stopped her from being polite in a situation that didn't call for it at all. "Your son is missing. I'm just sorry that I didn't check sooner. I'm packing up and heading home to see if he's there and then I'll call you back."
"Kelsey drove by but didn't see him."
Craig didn't answer. He didn't want to give her false hope, but Owen knew his house. He wouldn't be surprised if the boy was in back playing with the dogs. "I'll call you with an update when I get there and then I'll join the search. Okay?"
"Yes, thank you." She hung up on him, but he didn't think much about it.
When he turned, JD was standing there with Craig's bag, packed and ready, in his outstretched hand. "Get going. We'll all keep each other posted."
It was grim, but Craig held out hope. Even so, he didn't think he'd ever driven so fast. Only as he pulled into his driveway did he realize how confident he'd been that Owen would be sitting on the front step. He'd been wrong.
His heart, already beating frantically, slowed to a stop and sank. Shit. Where was Owen? A second thought tagged closely on the heels of the first one. What if someone had taken him? Craig had been so certain that Owen would be here, that he hadn't even stopped to give something more sinister a foothold in his brain. He did now.
Not wanting to call Shay with bad news, he sat in the car. Looking around the side of the house, still trying to be hopeful, he texted her.
—Not here. I'm putting on a better jacket, checking the neighborhood. Let me know where else I should look.
As soon as he hit 'send' he realized that was bad. Shay shouldn't be organizing this. Someone else should. Kelsey, probably. Or maybe him. He didn't have kids of his own to look after, to worry about.
But he did have dogs. He wondered if he should take them around the neighborhood? Not that they were trained to find Owen, but they would go toward him if they could smell him. They both loved the boy. A greater likelihood was that Owen—if he were hiding nearby—would come out to say hello to the dogs even if he wouldn't to Craig.
Sprinting from the car, Craig dashed to the front step, jamming his key into the lock. It gave way and he slammed the door behind him, making it halfway down the hall before his brain registered the small person sitting at his table, tucked in the back out of the way.
"Owen!" Craig almost fell over. Then he almost fell over the other chairs as he made his way around to where the boy sat and hugged him until he squirmed.
This wasn't even his kid. So why was he so very relieved? But he was.
"Thank God you're okay." Craig was pulling out his phone, pulling up his call list.
"Don't call my mom!" Owen's hands came out, and he looked way too hot and way too upset sitting there still bundled in his winter coat.
Pausing, Craig waited to hear why he couldn't call Shay. "I need to call her. She's worried."
"But she'll come right over here. I don't want her to." Owen's face fell.
"Okay. Take off your jacket." Craig held his hand out, unwilling to make Shay wait long, but he needed to get to the bottom of this. When Owen held out the coat, Craig went and hung it in the front closet, the one he now scrounged for fallen coat hangers despite the fact that there were no more three-year-olds coming to his house. Then he went back and pulled out a chair.
"I want to tell your mom that you're okay."
Owen shook his head and Craig tried again. "What if your mom was missing and you didn't know where she was? What if you asked me and I said I'd call you when I foun
d her and then I didn't? You'd be pretty mad at me for letting you worry about her when I'd already found her."
His shoulders falling in defeat, Owen nodded.
"I'll tell her not to come. I'll take you home when you're ready."
That earned him a nod and Craig texted Shay. —He's here. Don't come. I'll bring him home. He's fine. Unharmed.
Though he expected it, he was opening his mouth to say something to Owen when the phone rang. Shay.
With a finger up to the boy, he answered. Owen tensed. "Hi Shay. He's here."
"I'll be there in three minutes. I'm getting in the car." He could hear the sound of the car door, and the dinging as she put in the key.
"Don't. I've got him." His eyes were on Owen. Clearly, Owen had something to say, and not in front of Shay.
"You can't just keep him, Craig." She protested. It was shocking how quickly his back stiffened.
"I'm not keeping him." He turned away from Owen as though it would keep the boy from hearing it. "He asked me to take him home later. This isn't on me, Shay. Just let me bring him home, he's fine. Stop worrying."
Her silence was the only thing that answered. He shouldn't have told her not to worry.
An audible sigh came through the line followed by a sullen voice. "Fine."
Then she hung up on him.
He turned back to Owen who spoke before he could.
"She's going to come get me, isn't she?"
Craig's heart wanted to break for the boy. Something was up. "No, she's not. I'll take you home later."
"Thank you." It was quiet, relieved, simple. Of course he followed it up with, "I'm sorry I stole the key from my mom, but the weather said it would be cold today. Mom says not to sit outside in the cold."
Craig almost laughed at that. Then quickly he thought about JD and Kelsey. He tapped out a quick text —Got him. All's well. — then set the phone down and turned to Owen. "Do you want a snack?"
With a quick nod of 'yes,' the kid jumped up and followed Craig into the kitchen where they looked through his fridge. In near silence, they worked together to make half ham sandwiches then plated them with Cheetos and a juice box. It wasn't what Craig would have eaten, but he wasn't about to pop a celebratory beer in front of the six-year-old.
When they were settled at the table again, Craig started talking. He didn't ask Owen why he'd run away. The kid probably didn't even know that he had. Craig had hated it whenever he was late or even when he had run away that he was first accused of doing something bad. So he didn't use that phrase. "You needed to tell me something?"
Owen nodded. It took a moment of silence before he realized he should be filling it. "Can I still come see the puppies?"
"Of course you can." Maybe later would be a better time to talk about the appropriate way to ask. Was that it? No. He was shocked by the next question.
"Will you teach me to play guitar like you?"
His heart stuttered again. He'd been wholly unprepared for that. For the feeling that socked him in the chest that this kid wanted to be like him. He'd been asked to teach it before. Kids in L.A. on the street. Other musicians. But it had been strictly for skills, or to fill dull time. Owen wanted to be like him.
Then he hit Craig with another one. "What's your dad like?"
Well, shit. First, Craig shrugged. He opened his mouth, wanting to say "I don't know," but he couldn't make it come out. He did know, and he didn't want to lie. Besides, he felt a strange kinship to this little boy who seemed concerned about what he was made of long before kids should have to worry about that. So he took a deep breath. He couldn't make Shay any angrier at him than she already was; he couldn't lose what he'd already lost.
"I didn't ever meet him, but he was a pretty bad person." The words hurt more than he'd thought they would. They'd never quite achieved the status of 'simple fact.'
"Are you a bad person?" Owen put down the sandwich and was looking at him through clear eyes. He needed this answer and he obviously didn't trust Shay to give it.
"No. I'm the person I choose to be. So are you." He said it again, feeling it inside him. He wouldn't lie to the kid. He was saying it for Owen, but still it felt almost like he was telling his ten-year-old self the same thing. Telling his nineteen-year-old self—the one who'd found the police records letting him know his father wasn't a monster just in theory but in glaring, serial-offender fact. "We are who we choose to be."
"What about when I'm bad?"
"Everyone's bad sometimes. It doesn't make you bad. You're nothing like your Dad." He took another bite of his sandwich in an effort to keep himself together.
"He's not my dad." Owen said it matter-of-fact-ly. "Mom tested me and Jason isn't my dad. That's why I don't have to see him again. I don't think she knows who my dad is."
Craig just nodded and chewed, not knowing how to field that one.
Owen did it for him. "I know how babies are made."
Craig nearly choked, but tried to keep his expression neutral.
"Does that make my mom bad? That she doesn't know who my dad is?" Again, the clear eyes, the focus on Craig as though he had all the answers.
"No. She's not bad." Jesus, the kid was killing him. "We all get confused sometimes, especially if we love someone. Sometimes we do really stupid things for the people we think we love."
It was the best he could do. But he'd fucked it up again, because the six-year-old was playing hardball and lobbed it back at him. "Are you doing something stupid right now because you love my mom?"
He really should quit even trying to eat, or else he should pray that Owen was proficient in the Heimlich Maneuver. He didn't think the latter was an option, so he set down his sandwich. "No, I'm not. Your mom . . . She decided that we don't fit together. Honestly, so did I."
"Was it me?" The words were a bare whisper, so scared they made Craig ache.
"No, honey, it wasn't you." He put his hand on Owen's hand, holding it until the little boy looked up.
"Was it Aaron? Because he's being a dickhead."
Unable to help it, Craig tipped his head back and belly-laughed. Tears leaked from his eyes and he felt bad, because Owen was asking the question honestly, but God—he tried to get himself together. "No. It's not Aaron either. And all three-year-olds are buttheads sometimes. You might want to choose a better word than you did the first time."
"Fine. But Aaron's a butthead all the time." He crossed his arms, almost pouting his face into a mask.
"Yeah, that's part of being three. You probably weren't so great at three either. Me either." Craig tried to get the kid to look up at him. "The only difference was you didn't have a big brother to hit you back, or to point out what a butthead you were being. You also didn't have a cool big brother who could play guitar or walk a puppy when you were too little. He's really jealous of you. You can read, and train the dogs, and do all kinds of things he just can't do yet."
Owen nodded, the explanation making some sense.
"He gets frustrated when he tries to be like you and he can't. He hits because he's three."
"He hits because mom won't stop him."
Now what? Because he totally agreed with the six-year-old. "Your mom said you turned out fine with the way she did things and she's waiting for Aaron to grow out of it."
Craig thought he'd done pretty well. Statements of fact only. No bashing Shay as a parent, no saying what he really thought.
"But I didn't have an older brother getting hit all the time and almost getting his things broken! I have to share a room with him!" Another pout. Another point he was legitimately angry about.
"Did you tell your mom about this?"
He nodded but didn't elaborate. Silence reigned for a few moments, broken only by the sounds of a six-year-old munching Cheetos. Craig was pretty certain Shay didn't give them Cheetos on a regular basis. But her kid was found, he was safe, and he'd be home to her soon. Craig enjoyed watching Owen enjoy the Cheetos.
He put the last one down and politely wiped his
small fingers on a napkin. Then Owen threw his last hardball. "Can you be my dad?"
Chapter 40
Shay slept in the hallway outside the boys' room that night. Or she tried to. Several times she told herself it was the hard floor that kept her awake, but that wasn't it. It was her brain. Owen had made a mad mess of it, that was for sure.
She couldn't recall a single time when she'd ever been so terrified. Even when Brian had drugged Aaron and he wouldn't wake up. She'd been scared moving here, putting all her eggs in the “Nashville and Craig” basket. But even when Jason had held baby Owen aloft as a threat should Shay not do as he wanted, it had only lasted a few minutes.
This had gone on for over an hour. Though it was nothing compared to what some parents went through, it was nerve wracking. Exhausting. Terrifying.
By the time the school had gotten hold of the bus driver and found out that yes, Owen was on the afternoon bus, she'd just heard from Craig. Then Craig wouldn't bring him home. Said it was Owen who didn't want her to come get him.
Apparently, as terrified as she had been she was "not to worry” because Craig and Owen had it "under control." She was still shaking with anger each time she thought about it. She was their mother, and Craig's lack of respect for that had already torn them apart. She hadn't thought it could do more damage until this afternoon.
Craig had pulled up in his truck, Owen in the backseat, buckled into the booster seat. She'd stood in the front door watching—her heart wrenching—as Craig helped Owen down, then Owen reached up and gave Craig a big hug before running inside.
Shay hadn't known what to say.
Craig seemed to have known not to say anything. He only offered a small nod before climbing back into his truck and backing out of her driveway, out of her life once again.
She couldn't count the number of times they'd left each other. Each one hurt worse than the one before. Somehow this time still managed to continue that trend. She turned and peeked into the bedroom door, looking at her sleeping boys from her spot on the floor. A blanket and a few cushions kept her company.
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