by N L Hinkens
Evelyn raised her brows, a pinched expression on her face. “Make sure to leave room for my brownies and ice cream.”
”My grandma makes the best brownies,” Jessica said, turning to Henry. “Do you like brownies?”
Henry stared at her, his mouth full of potato. After a long moment, he gave an indifferent shrug.
“How about homemade ice cream?” Jessica persisted.
Henry looked as if he was about to shrug again, but Ray spoke up for him. “Henry loves ice cream.” He lowered his voice before adding, “He … wasn’t allowed to eat it very often.”
After the kids had gobbled up their dessert and scampered off to play, Sonia got up to make some coffee.
Evelyn pinned a penetrating gaze on Ray. ”So, can we expect to see something of your brother now too?”
A tiny furrow formed on Ray’s brow. “I’m not in contact with him either. To be honest, I have no idea where he lives.” He scratched the back of his neck. ”Actually, I was going to ask you if he had ever shown up here.”
“Not that we know of,” Evelyn replied, glancing at Sonia for confirmation.
Ray gave a defeated nod. ”I figured as much. Our mother left the estate to the two of us, but I don’t know how to get a hold of him.”
“I believe your brother kept in touch with Celia,” Evelyn said, in a mildly reproving tone. “I overheard her talking to a man on the phone one time and she said it was Tom—that he used to call her every other month or so.”
Sonia caught her eye and gave a subtle shake of her head as she carried the coffee over to the table. She hadn’t had a chance to fill her in on what Ray had shared about his abusive childhood, and why he had cut off all contact with his mother.
“You might be right,” Ray went on, “I think she was sending him money every month. I’ve been going through her bank statements, and she was transferring several thousand dollars out of it on a regular basis. I closed her account so maybe Tom will show up now that his funding’s been cut off.”
“Do you have any idea what he’s been doing all these years?” Evelyn asked.
Ray shook his head. ”No. He left home shortly after I did, didn’t tell anyone where he was going—he was only fifteen. I was planning on letting him come live with me, even though I only had a small studio apartment at the time, but I never got the chance.” He sipped his coffee and glanced around appreciatively. “Your home is beautiful. You have a great eye, Sonia.”
She smiled as she reached for her coffee. “Thank you. I love designing interiors.”
“What is it you do for work, Ray?” Evelyn asked. “I understand you work from home too.”
“I’m a freelance journalist.” He gave a sheepish grin. ”Better with the written word than making small talk.”
Evelyn arched a brow. “That must be where Henry gets it from. He’s a man of few words too.”
Ray’s expression darkened. He set his coffee cup on the side table and got to his feet. ”It’s late. I should get Henry off to bed.”
“Of course,” Sonia said. “I’ll round up the kids.”
After a few tense minutes of cajoling at the door, Henry accompanied Ray home with the promise of another play date soon. Sonia closed the door on them with a sigh of relief and retreated to the kitchen to help her mother load the dishwasher.
“I think that went well, don’t you?” Sonia ventured.
Evelyn pursed her lips. ”I still can’t forgive him for neglecting Celia all these years.”
“About that, Mom, he has his reasons, as it turns out.” Sonia leaned back, gripping the edge of the countertop. “His father was abusive to him and his brother. It must have been pretty bad because CPS was involved. He said Celia refused to leave and lied to the authorities to cover up what was happening. Ray and his brother left home before they turned eighteen. He was too traumatized to reach out to his mother again. To be fair, he does seem like the sensitive sort now that we’ve got to know him a little better.”
Evelyn eyed her skeptically, digesting the information. ”Celia never mentioned anything about abuse. She did say her husband was a drinker. He died young, early fifties I think.”
“Alcoholism and abuse often go hand-in-hand. I’m leaning toward believing Ray. He got pretty choked up when he was telling me about it,” Sonia said, reaching for a tea towel.
“Talking about abuse, did you hear him say Henry wasn’t allowed to eat much ice cream?” Evelyn tutted indignantly. “What was that all about? I don’t think the poor kid got to eat any of my French Toast muffins either. He looked at me like he didn’t know what I was talking about when I asked him if he liked them.”
“Some parents are stricter on sugar intake than others,” Sonia pointed out. “It’s hardly a crime.”
”I still think he’s a neglectful father,” Evelyn huffed. “Did you see how much food he piled on Henry’s plate? He’s clueless. Something’s not right about him.”
Suddenly aware of eyes on them, Sonia spun around to see Jessica standing in the doorway, silently observing them.
“Hey, sweetie!” she said brightly. “Did you get your room tidied up?”
Jessica gave an uncertain nod. ”What’s not right about Ray, Grandma?”
“Nothing at all,” Sonia cut in. “Grandma and I were just laughing about the amount of food Henry’s dad put on his plate.”
Jessica blinked solemnly at them. “He’s not Henry’s real dad.”
4
Ray sank into a rickety, spindle-back chair at the oak kitchen table and rested his head on his arms—drained after another long evening spent trying to coax Henry to go to sleep. It was the same arduous process night after night, and things weren’t improving. Exhausted from crying, the child had finally nodded off, clutching Fudge—the bear Jessica had given him. Ray had been touched by her kind gesture, despite his reluctance to accept it. He was grateful Henry had made a connection with someone, even if it was only a child. Jessica’s mother, Sonia, had been equally warm and welcoming of them, which was problematic. She and her mother asked a lot of questions. Too many questions.
At first, Ray had declined Sonia’s dinner invitation, but he’d felt obligated after she’d agreed to serve as the emergency contact for Henry’s preschool. He cracked his knuckles recalling the pinched face of Trish Miller, the principal of Small Steps, as she’d walked him through the parent orientation. Trish was a stickler for procedure, which presented another conundrum. He hadn’t figured out how he was going to pull this off, yet. But Booneville was a small town, and, hopefully, he could find a way around the regulations. If it wasn’t for the fact that he had to work, he wouldn’t have bothered signing Henry up for school at all for the short time they would be in North Carolina.
His plan had been to keep to himself while he worked out his next move, but Sonia was one of those persistent women with an uncanny ability to disarm his defenses before he realized what had happened. Besides, with Jessica running freely in and out of his house as though Celia’s open-door policy was still in play, he hadn’t had much choice but to interact with his new neighbors.
Over dinner, he’d felt compelled to open up to some degree, at least to explain his absence all these years. Too much secrecy on his end would only add to their suspicions. The odds were already stacked against him. Sonia’s mother, Evelyn, had made it clear by her barbed remarks what she thought of adult children who neglected their elderly parents—reappearing to reap the benefits when they were gone. But, in her defense, Evelyn didn’t know about his troubled childhood. She had no concept of anything other than a healthy relationship with her own child. She was everything a mother should be: compassionate, caring, and available—emotionally and physically. She was also comfortable in her own skin, the type of woman who would fight tooth and nail for her child.
Celia, on the other hand, had been frightened of her own shadow. She had kowtowed to every one of her abusive husband’s unreasonable demands until she’d been stripped of any sense of self. Th
eir dangerous and dysfunctional relationship had destroyed her children in more ways than she knew. Ray could understand why his mother had done what she’d done, but he couldn’t forgive her for it. Not when it led to the merciless abuse he and Tom had suffered at their father’s hands. What he’d done to them should have been enough to drive the weakest mouse to summon the courage to leave—flee barefoot if that’s what it took. The abuse hadn’t been limited to physical beatings; it was far worse than Ray had hinted at to Sonia—something he didn’t care to vocalize to another human being. It still chilled him to the bone every time he recalled being denied food or compelled to take cold showers as punishment for the smallest infractions. For more serious offenses, their father sometimes made them sleep in the dog pen in the garage overnight and humiliated them by forcing them to pee in the cat litter box. Ray and Tom had endured the kind of abuse that destroyed the soul of a child, and some people never came back from that dark place.
Instead of protecting them when they’d told their mother what was happening, she’d believed their father’s lies—pretended to believe them. Fear was a powerful paralytic agent. At sixteen, Ray had finally run away from home. Before he left, he’d promised fifteen-year-old Tom he would come back for him as soon as he found them a place to live. He hadn’t wanted to take Tom with him initially, knowing they would be sleeping rough on the streets, exposed to a whole new set of dangers for which they were ill-prepared. But he never got the opportunity to return for him. Tom bolted a few short weeks after Ray, disappearing in the middle of the night, giving no indication to anyone where he was heading or what his plans were, if any. Ray had spent the next few years agonizing over his brother’s fate, knowing how broken he was inside and fearing the worst—that he would end up dying in a gutter somewhere.
After years of intensive therapy, Ray had eventually managed to climb out of the dark hole he’d been in. He graduated from college with a degree in journalism and established a career for himself that he enjoyed—all the while wondering if Tom had been fortunate enough to find his place in the world too. At one point, Ray had even hired a reputable private investigator to try and track his brother down, but, despite months of extensive searching, she’d been unable to find any trace of him—no online presence, no address, no phone number, no history with law enforcement, no record of death. Ray had been forced to come to one of two conclusions: either Tom had died a John Doe, or he was living in isolation off the grid somewhere.
As young boys, they had both been fascinated by shows about surviving alone in Alaska or living a self-sufficient life as a prepper in some remote region. Maybe it was the idealized adventure the lifestyle promised, or maybe it was simply the relief of knowing you were completely safe from the people who had hurt you.
Ray grimaced, rubbing a scar on his knuckles that he’d earned from the buckle on his father’s belt. Up until a few weeks ago, he’d given up any hope of finding out what had become of Tom. It was ironic that their mother’s death had finally given him the answer he’d so desperately sought. But now that he had it, he wished the secret had stayed buried. His hope had always been that Tom had managed to create a life for himself where he was happy. He’d never for one minute suspected anything like the horror of what his brother had become. If he was right that the monthly transfers from their mother’s bank account had being going into Tom’s account, then she’d unwittingly been funding a dark, secret life.
Ray stared at the untouched plate of food he’d reheated in the microwave earlier. Could he really pull this off? He blew out a weary breath. What choice did he have but to keep going? He had Henry to think of. The boy had no one else left in his life but him.
Rising from the table, Ray tossed his dinner in the trash and retreated to the family room. He leaned against the doorframe and surveyed the room cluttered with antique nesting tables, velvet storage ottomans, and an endless array of knickknacks and lace doilies scattered over every surface. Perhaps it was true that the lonelier a person got, the more they surrounded themselves with stuff they clung to. Even the air in the room was a level of stale that suggested the window hadn’t been opened in a decade. It was going to take a ton of work to clear the place out to sell it. At least it wasn’t his childhood home he’d inherited. He wouldn’t have been able to handle going back to the house that held so many horrific memories.
Flopping down on the beige couch, he folded his hands behind his head as exhaustion clawed at him, his eyes scratchy from lack of sleep. But the thought of letting go made his blood run cold. The nightmares had returned—more terrifying than ever. Plunging him to depths of despair only previously hinted at, causing him to wake up, night after night, soaked in sweat and screaming. Only this time it wasn’t his father igniting the fear inside him—it was Tom.
He couldn’t stay in this house for long. He couldn’t risk his neighbors discovering any more about him than he had already divulged. He would take a couple of months, at most, to figure out a more sustainable, long-term plan for himself and Henry, and then he would put the house up for sale and disappear. Moving here had been somewhat irrational, but he’d had to act quickly. This had been the only real option open to him at short notice. He couldn’t have returned to his home in Richmond under the circumstances. What he really needed was a place to settle down where no one knew him, or anything about his past—unlike Sonia Masterton and her mother, both of whom displayed a disturbing affinity for sniffing out things best kept buried.
He reached for the musty, pin-tuck cushion behind his head and punched it, wriggling onto his side to get more comfortable. As he lay there, listening for any indication that Henry was on the move, he mulled over his next steps, his eyes growing increasingly heavy.
He woke with a start, bolting upright on the couch, not knowing for a moment where he was. His eyes bulged at the sight of Henry standing in the darkened doorway, staring at him. In his right hand, he clutched the toy truck Ray had bought him at a Target store on the way here.
“What are you doing out of bed, Henry?” he asked, struggling to keep the irritation from creeping into his voice. “It’s time to go to sleep.” He rubbed a sleeve across his sweaty forehead as he got to his feet, resigning himself to repeating the process of putting Henry to bed for what probably wouldn’t be the last time that night.
Henry stuck his thumb in his mouth, before trotting back down the hallway to his bedroom. Ray followed him and lifted him into bed, tucking the covers in around him. “How about you set your truck on the nightstand,” he said.
Henry let out a whimper, hugging the toy to his chest.
Ray was too weary to entertain another meltdown. He kissed Henry gently on the forehead. “All right, you hold onto it. Good night, Henry.”
He didn’t respond, his luminous brown eyes fixed on the ceiling above. Ray turned off the overhead light, leaving the room bathed in the soft glow from the rotating nightlight he had purchased after realizing Henry was never going to be able to sleep in complete darkness.
He hesitated in the hallway, peering around the door to make sure Henry stayed in bed this time. Groaning inwardly, he watched him wriggle out from beneath the duvet and slide his feet to the floor with a dull thunk, his truck firmly in his grasp. He crawled over to the outlet where the nightlight was plugged in and watched it, slack-jawed, the light reflecting shadows of galloping horses across his face with each rotation.
After a few minutes, he turned his attention to his truck, pushing it back-and-forth across the floor as he sang softly to himself. Ray strained to pick up the words.
”Ne-ver … tell … them. Ne-ver … tell … them.”
5
Sonia shrugged off her coat and tossed her keys and purse onto the kitchen counter. She had just finished overseeing the final touches of a kitchen installation for a young professional couple who were expecting the arrival of twin daughters any day now. Timing had been critical, under the circumstances, and Sonia was proud of what she’d managed to pull off for them, d
espite the rush and their limited budget. Their emotional reaction—dissolving into tears in each other’s arms at the big reveal—had been worth the long hours she’d put in to hit all the right notes on their ambitious wish list.
Hunger pangs gnawing, she pulled open the refrigerator door and assessed her options for lunch. After settling on a turkey-and-arugula sandwich, she made her way into the family room and sat down in front of the television, scrolling through the menu for something mindless to watch while she ate. An hour of relaxation was in order before she tackled the invoices and emails stacking up in her office. Her mother had gone to visit a friend and Sonia had promised to pick her up when she made the school run at three. Until then, she had the house to herself.
Her thoughts inevitably drifted to her reclusive, new neighbor. Despite extending several more invitations to dinner, and attempting to set up another playdate for Henry, she hadn’t seen much of him in the past week or two, other than a fleeting glance as he hurried in and out to his car. It seemed he wanted nothing to do with them now that the obligatory introductions were behind him. Maybe her mother was right—he was only interested in them when he needed something.
Her suspicions that he was hiding something had gone into overdrive the night Jessica dropped the bombshell about Ray not being Henry’s real dad. After some prodding, Sonia had managed to dig a little more information out of Jessica.
“I asked Henry what his favorite thing to do with his dad was,” Jessica explained. “But he just ignored me and kept on playing with blocks. Then I asked him, do you like flying kites, how about going to the park, do you watch movies together—things like that. That’s when he said it.”
“Said what?” Sonia asked. “Can you remember Henry’s exact words?”
Jessica furrowed her brow. “He said, he’s not my real dad. Only he said weal instead of real.”
