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his mother’s son, her pride and joy. Her best work, she liked to say, which was sort of a laugh since she hadn’t ever had a job. It had just been the two of them for a lot of years while his father spent hours at work. In the lab, with patients. His research. He’d left his wife and son to their own devices, showing up late for dinner or not at all, completely clueless and unaware of the silence in the house that grew over congealing meatloaf and cold mashed potatoes. When he did show up, he talked about himself, his discoveries, his breakthroughs and his studies. Always himself.
    Eventually, Ryan’s mother had simply stopped setting a place for her husband. More than once, Ryan had come into the kitchen at night for a bedtime snack to find his father standing at the sink, a plate of leftovers in one hand and a beer in the other.
    They’d never been close, but it hadn’t been a terrible relationship. When Ryan decided to go into psychiatry, Dad had been there to support and advise him, steering him away from the world of academia and into a more practical path.
    “It’s where the money is,” Dad had told him over glasses of decent Scotch that Ryan was too young to drink, one night late after Mom had gone to bed. “You’re going off to college, then med school, that’s great. But don’t end up like me, begging for scraps to keep working. Don’t be a researcher.”
    It was the first time Ryan had tasted liquor. The taste of it would always bring back the memory of that night, the first time his dad had talked to him man-to-man. His father’s hand clapped to his shoulder. Dad’s bleary gaze. The feeling the entire world was opening up to him, just turned eighteen and ready to conquer.
    And now look at him. What the hell had happened? What had he done?
    He’d messed up. Big-time.
    But...the book.
    His father had spent years on research. Compiling data, theories, proving them right. Or wrong. He’d scrabbled for money to fund his work and in the end had made almost nothing from it. But he had left behind a legacy.
    Ryan sat back again, thinking hard. Excitement stirred inside him, tender shooting sprouts that promised to grow into something more. A book about his father’s work was a sure thing. Guaranteed to be a bestseller, he knew it.
    Beside him on the bench, the paper bag rustled. With a frown, Ryan poked it. He had the right to share his father’s work with the world, no question of that. But did he have the right to share the story of his dad’s greatest success?
    It wasn’t Ryan’s story to tell. It was Mari’s. If he asked her, he thought, picking up the crumpled paper lunch sack, she would certainly say yes.
    But if he didn’t ask her, she couldn’t say no.
    The man who shuffled up to him then looked homeless. Wild hair, scruffy beard on pale cheeks. Cargo pants loose on his hips and hanging low, no belt, mismatched shirt. Ryan flinched automatically, expecting a wave of stink, but this guy didn’t reek of booze or piss. That was something to be thankful for, anyway. The guy looked hungry, though.
    Ryan wasn’t in the habit of giving handouts, especially cash. Let them buy their booze and drugs on someone else’s dime. He held up the lunch bag, though, thinking he could do a good deed and then have an excuse to grab some lunch that suited him better.
    “Hey, buddy. My wife packed this for me, but you can have it.”
    “My wife used to pack
me
lunch.” The man’s gravelly voice rasped on Ryan’s ears. “What do you think of that?”
    Ryan’s fingers crumpled the brown paper lunch bag. Shit. Why’d he always manage to attract the confrontational ones? “I don’t—”
    The man laughed, tossing back his head for only a couple seconds before fixing Ryan with a fierce glare. “You don’t have a clue who I am. Do you?”
    Uncomfortably Ryan looked from side to side, but if anyone in the park was bearing witness to this drama they had the good sense to pretend otherwise. Also, he