The Family He Didn't Expect

by Shirley Jump

  * * *

  Abby spent another hour scouring Stone Gap and calling Cody’s cell phone. No response and no sign of her son. She called his school, texted his friends, but no one had seen or heard from him. She swung back by the community center, relieved to see Dylan’s car back in the parking lot. Finally.

  He was just getting out of his truck as she pulled in. He gave her a wave, then opened the back of his Jeep to pull out the section of countertop he’d ordered a few days ago. “Hey, Abby.”

  “Don’t you ‘hey’ me,” she said. Her temper was full-on now, powered by an almost frantic worry about where Cody could be. “What did you say to my son?”

  Dylan gave her a confused look. “Say to your son? Which one? Jake? Cody?”

  “Cody. He ran away and told Jake it was because of what you said.” She came closer, pointing at his chest. “What did you say to him? Did you tell him how great it was to run away? How it would be some kind of cool adventure or something?”

  Dylan shook his head. “I never told him to run away, Abby. That’s the last thing I’d say to any kid.”

  She let out a gust. “Did you tell him to go look for his father?”

  “No. We never really talked about his father.” Dylan thought a minute. “Wait, yeah, we did one time, but only briefly.”

  “And what exactly did you say to him?”

  “He asked me if I’d ever confronted my dad about how he treated me when I was a kid. I told him that I had and that it hadn’t gone well. Cody asked if there was hope for his dad, and I said he wouldn’t know until he asked him. I’m sorry, Abby. I never thought he’d take off and go do that.”

  Cody, still aching for the father he’d never really had. The man who had provided him with DNA and not much else. Her heart broke for her son, who was looking for answers he might never get. “So you told him to go see his father and confront him?”

  “No. I didn’t. And Cody didn’t mention that he wanted to.” Dylan put the countertop down, then took Abby’s hands in his. “You have to believe me, Abby. I would never tell him to leave.”

  She wanted to lean into his touch, into the comfort of someone who knew Cody, someone who wanted to support her, but Dylan was the whole reason she was here. Maybe his intentions had been good, but the results were disastrous. She pulled her hands out of his. “Whatever you said, it made my son sneak out of the house before I woke up and get on his bike. His father lives in Georgia, Dylan. Is he planning on riding all the way there? Or God forbid, hitchhike? He has maybe ten bucks to his name. What do you think is going to happen to him out there?” Her voice had risen into that shrill panic again. Her heart thudded in her chest, the worry quadrupling as she realized how much she’d counted on Dylan having the answers she needed.

  Another dead end. Her son was out there, somewhere, and she couldn’t find him. Oh, God.

  She had already called the police, but they were nonchalant about a sixteen-year-old who had a history of not showing up at school. She was going to call again, and maybe they’d take her seriously this time.

  “Calm down, Abby. I’m sure if we think about it together, we can figure out where he is or what route he might have taken.”

  Calm down? Didn’t he realize what she was going through? The catastrophe his “words of advice” had created in her life? If something happened to Cody while he was out on the road...

  “I’m not doing anything together with you, Dylan. All you did is show up in this town, screw up my life and now you’re going to leave again, like a storm that blew through. Do me a favor and stay away from me and my boys.” She got back in her car and left the parking lot, then headed for the streets again.

  Alone. Because that was the best choice for her, all around.

  * * *

  Dylan watched Abby go, and for the second time in his life, felt like he had failed at everything. Had an innocuous conversation really driven Cody to try to make his way to Georgia? On a ten-speed and with ten bucks?

  He replayed the words he’d exchanged with Cody in his head again and again. There’d been nothing in their few words at the end of the fishing trip that said, run away and settle this, Dylan was sure of it.

  Cody was a smart kid. He would know he couldn’t travel through two states on a bike. And even if he was trying, chances were good he was still close by. But where?

  And if Abby hadn’t been able to find him, what made Dylan think he’d have better luck?

  He grabbed the countertop and headed into the center. Jake was sitting at a table, working on some kind of craft with glue and construction paper while Uncle Ty was fixing a loose door handle. When he saw Dylan, Ty stopped what he was doing and gestured toward the kitchen.

  Dylan laid the replacement countertop into the open slot, then turned to face his uncle. He kept his voice low, aware Jake was just a room away. “What happened? I just saw Abby in the parking lot and she said Cody ran away?”

  “I don’t know much more than you.” Worry etched the lines in Ty’s face. The kids at the center were Ty’s family, and whenever one of them got in trouble, got sick or hurt, it hit his uncle as hard as it did the parents. “She came here about an hour ago, looking for you. You’d forgotten your cell—”

  Dylan patted his pocket and cursed. Of all times to not have his phone on him.

  “So she left Jake here and went out searching.” Ty shook his head. “I told her you’d never say anything like that to Cody.”

  “And I didn’t. Not exactly.” Dylan recounted what he had told Abby in the parking lot. “I didn’t mean anything other than calling his dad up and having a conversation, if he thought it would help. Not take off and go there on his own. Even if he tried that, I don’t think Cody could have gotten very far.”

  “Unless he ditched the bike and started hitchhiking. Like you did.”

  The thought made Dylan shiver. Would Cody do that? Would he, like Dylan once had, think that thumbing his way from here to Georgia was a cool idea?

  Two years before Dylan left Stone Gap for good, he’d had a blowout fight with his father over his grades and lack of ambition and whatever else his father was mad at him for that day. Dylan had taken off on his bike, riding hard until the sun went down and the road ahead seemed endless. He’d hit a rock, blown a tire and been forced to leave the bike on the side of the road, then stick out a thumb.

  In the movies, hitchhiking always looked so cool. Some guy with an interesting story to tell picked up the lonely wanderer and they embarked on an adventure, building a lifelong friendship as the miles passed. But the first car that stopped was driven by a man who gave Dylan a long look that made his hair stand on end. He’d refused the ride and walked away, feeling the dark crowding in on him.

  A second set of headlights came up behind him a few seconds later and Dylan had started to break into a run, sure the creepy guy was coming to get him. Grab him and drag him away, in one of those hitchhiker scenarios that didn’t end with a fun adventure.

  But when he’d turned, he’d seen the headlights of a pickup truck, not a sedan. And behind the wheel, a much welcome and familiar face.

  “You brought me home that night,” Dylan said to his uncle. The gratitude he’d felt on that stretch of road still rung in his heart. “Somehow you found me, and you picked me up.”

  Before anything bad happened. The words were unspoken but had always hovered in the air. It was one of hundreds of tiny moments that had tied Dylan’s loyalty to his uncle. Ty was a good man, a good role model and one of the best things in Stone Gap. When Dylan had left town, he’d missed his uncle every single day.

  “It was easy to find you, Dylan. I knew you and figured you’d head for that campground on Stone Gap Lake. We did that group camping trip there every summer. You always loved that campground and said it was your favorite place in the world.” Ty shrugged, like it was no big deal, but for Dylan, who had grown up
with a father who’d never understood him, Ty’s perceptiveness mattered. A lot.

  “I’m glad you remembered that, Uncle Ty. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.”

  “Well, I’m glad I did. Though I’m not so sure you liked the lecture I gave you on the way home about making smart choices. About staying around instead of running from your problems.”

  “I guess I didn’t really listen, since I was on the road again two years later.” He had hurt his uncle, hurt his brother, and now, he realized also hurt himself by severing these relationships that meant so much to him.

  Ty smiled. “You always were a stubborn learner, Dylan, but you came around. And hopefully you’ve stopped running.”

  Dylan didn’t know how to answer that. Was going back to his job in Maine running away? Or was it just doing the sensible thing? “I honestly don’t know, Uncle Ty.”

  “Did I ever tell you how I ran away from home when I was about that age?” When Dylan shook his head, Ty continued, “Probably because I didn’t want you to think it was a cool idea. But I’d had a fight with my parents, probably over the same things kids fight with their parents about now, and I decided I was better off on my own. I made it two miles out of town and spent the night camping in the woods. By the time I got back home, my mother was a mess and my father was talking to the police in the driveway. I’ve always regretted hurting them like that. When I saw the worry on their faces, I knew running away was the wrong choice. So when you did the same thing, I found you by thinking like I had when I ran away. That’s how you can help Abby find Cody. Which direction do you think he would go? And where do you think he would stop when it got scary and lonely?”

  Dylan didn’t know Cody that well. He’d only met the kid a little over a week ago. But from the start, he’d felt like they were kindred spirits. Loners with troubled relationships with their fathers.

  It wasn’t much to go on. But it was a start.

  Chapter Eleven

  Abby sat in her house and cried. She’d been all over Stone Gap, up and down every single street, then driving the outskirts, even hitting the highway for several miles in each direction, trying to find any sign of her son. She’d called all his friends, then the friends’ mothers, searched the penny candy store and the arcade and the bowling alley—

  No Cody.

  She picked up her phone and made the last call she wanted to make. When her ex-husband picked up, Abby braced herself. “Keith, I just wanted to let you know Cody might be on his way up to see you.”

  He sighed. “Did you kick him out or something?”

  The implication that it was her fault. “No. He’s just upset with you and I think he wants to talk to you in person. He didn’t think it through and just took off on his bike.”

  He cursed. “Can’t you keep an eye on those kids? I don’t have time to deal with this.”

  “Those kids are your sons, Keith.” How many times had she said those words and it hadn’t changed anything?

  When they first met, she’d been fresh out of high school and seen city-born and much older Keith as charming, exciting. A man who traveled the world, lived for experiences and spontaneity. It wasn’t until she was married and pregnant that she’d realized all of those things rotated around the very small axis of Keith. When he’d come back into her life, begging for a second chance, she’d convinced herself that he had changed, that the fairy tale she had dreamed of was finally coming to life. In the end, Keith had gone right back to focusing on the only thing that mattered—himself.

  “I’m the one who is here with them full-time, feeding them, raising them, so yes, I do keep an eye on them.”

  “Here we go again.” He sighed. “The bad-dad lecture.”

  “I don’t have to give you a lecture. You know you’re a terrible father. You haven’t been there for either one of them for longer than five minutes.” Keith had had brief moments of clarity when he’d come back into her life, vowing to be different, to try again to create a family with her. To stop wasting money on gambling and alcohol and idiocy. She’d thought the change was real, something to depend upon. But in the end, he’d gone right back to his old behavior, leaving her with two kids and a nearly empty bank account.

  “I have to work, Abby. It’s not like I just sit around all day. I’m busy.”

  “Too busy for your children?” She drew in a breath and bit her tongue before she said anything more and retread an argument she’d had five thousand times. None of that brought her son home. “Will you please just let me know if you hear from or see Cody?”

  “I don’t think I’ll see him. I’ve got meetings and sales calls and—”

  “Just text me or call me. Please.” She hung up, even more frustrated than she’d been before she had dialed. Keith was never going to step into fatherhood and be a good role model. The kind who read bedtime stories and took his sons fishing and showed them how to fix whatever was broken.

  Only one man had done that. Dylan.

  But he’d also given her son advice that had put her sixteen-year-old out on the road alone. Cody had been gone for five hours now, and she was no closer to finding him than she had been this morning.

  Abby sank into a chair and started to sob again. She’d failed as a parent. Failed to keep her child safe. Failed to be there when he needed her. And now, she may have lost Cody altogether.

  * * *

  When Dylan left Uncle Ty at the shelter with Jake, the two of them were working together to install the new countertop. The activity kept Jake distracted, kept him from asking every few minutes where his mother was and when his brother was coming back. On the other hand, the little boy peppered Uncle Ty with so many questions about the installation process—and everything else under the sun, including Ty’s favorite kind of dinosaur and whether he thought Jake should have a puppy—that the older man had no time to dwell on his grief. Dylan could see Ty’s enthusiasm for working with kids returning the more he interacted with Jake.

  Which meant Ty no longer really needed Dylan. He’d finished all the repairs on the center except for the roof and an engine tune-up for Ty’s aged pickup. If he had enough time before he left, he wanted to give the pontoon boat a spruce-up. And there was also the broken window at Abby’s—

  If he wanted to, Dylan could easily find enough things to keep him busy in Stone Gap for a month. The problem—he didn’t have a month. He had two days. And right now, the entire To Do list was on hold until he found Cody.

  He thought of what Uncle Ty had said, about trying to see Cody’s perspective and using that to figure out where he might have gone. For a while, Dylan drove aimlessly, while his mind turned over every conversation he’d had with the boy.

  Then, as he made his second loop of Stone Gap, his mind latched on to an idea. It was a long shot, but maybe...

  Dylan turned right, and as the Jeep left the main areas of Stone Gap, he began to accelerate. The long shot became more of a possibility the farther he drove. He turned off the main road, down a path he had taken just a couple days ago. His battered Jeep bumped and lurched over the dirt road, squeaky axles protesting the rough treatment.

  There was a flash of silver ahead of him. The frame of a bike, left in the grass of a ditch. Dylan’s chest squeezed. For a second, that was his bike and he was back on the road and trying to get away from the scary man in the sedan.

  What if the same thing had happened to Cody? What if Dylan was too late?

  The pocked road forced him to slow the Jeep. It had rained the night before, and the path that had been smooth just twenty-four hours earlier was now filled with muddy divots that were hardening in the North Carolina sun. He braced himself on the roof while he urged the Jeep farther down the path.

  Finally, Dylan rounded a corner and stopped. Stone Gap Lake lay before him, blue and sparkling and inviting. On any other day, the sight would have made Dy
lan feel peaceful.

  But when he noticed the empty dock, the space where Uncle Ty’s pontoon boat usually sat, any sense of peace evaporated. Undoubtedly the key tucked in the box under the steering wheel was used to start it, by a kid who had paid attention on a fishing trip.

  Dylan debated calling Abby. But he wasn’t sure that was Cody’s bike, and the pontoon could have been borrowed by one of Ty’s friends. Still, Dylan’s instincts told him otherwise. He’d check it out, then call her if he found something.

  Better to be sure than disappoint her again. He’d seen the look in her eyes, the hurt, the betrayal. Why did it seem that no matter how hard he tried, he still ended up hurting the people he cared about?

  Dylan jogged down the shore, until he reached the spit of land that held Ray Prescott’s cabin. At the top of the hill, he saw Jack Barlow, installing a new back deck on Ray’s house. His old friend from high school still had the haircut and lean body of his military days. “Hey, Jack!”

  The youngest Barlow son turned and gave Dylan a wave. Jack put down his hammer and the board in his hands, then ambled down the embankment. “Dylan! Nice to see you. My mom told me you were back in town.”

  He wasn’t surprised Della had mentioned his return to her sons, probably thinking they would all get together. Now was not the time to catch up, though. “Yeah, I’ve been here for almost two weeks. Listen, can I borrow Ray’s boat?”

  Jack shrugged. “Sure. I don’t think he’d mind. Is Ty’s broken down?”

  “No.” Dylan sighed. “I think Abby Cooper’s son Cody is out on the water in it. Abby’s been looking all over for him, and she’s frantic.”

  “Come to think of it, I did hear a boat go by maybe a couple hours ago. I was busy and didn’t look to see whose boat it was. But it went to the eastern side of the lake.”