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tell Emily. After that visit, however, he didn’t think she’d understand what he had done. Once inside his truck, he banged his head on the steering wheel a few times, hoping to knock away some of his frustration, and then noticed Abby had left a white hair ribbon on the seat. He picked it up and rubbed it between his fingers. The weight of his hypocrisy bore down on him. For fourteen years he told himself he was keeping secrets to protect other people. The truth, he was beginning to realize, was that he was really protecting himself.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
     
    Emily
     
    After Miller left, Emily laid on the sofa. Her . How could she be so careless? Did she have Levi tell Miller she had an abortion only to ruin that lie fourteen years later by saying her ? It didn’t matter. Miller was obviously still hurt over how she left. Of course he was.
    Jack poked his head around the corner. “I want waffles.”
    Emily plastered on a fake smile even though she knew it didn’t matter to Jack if she smiled or scowled as long as he got his breakfast. “We don’t have waffles. You can have Cheerios.”
    “I want waffles.”
    “Jack—”
    “I want waffles.”
    Emily stared at him. Did she really have to do this now? Argue about waffles after Miller’s visit? And in Levi’s house while he was in a jail cell? It was too unfair. She had no idea how to help Levi and didn’t know how to explain to Miller why she left. Couldn't she have a little control over the damn breakfast?
    She had two choices. Give in to Jack and get him some waffles, or deal with the fit that was sure to come. Was setting Jack up for a fit fair to him? It wasn’t his fault she was throwing him off his schedule. It wasn’t his fault she was so sure they’d be home by now that she only brought two syringes of his B12 that the autism doctor wanted him to have every morning, which she had already decided she was going to have to ration out now. While she considered her choices, she noticed he was doing that weird blinking thing with his eyes again. It looked like some kind of Morse code. Right eye, right eye, right eye. Left eye. Right eye. Left eye, left eye. He was stressed.
    She sighed. He was doing the best he could. “Come here, Jack.”
    “I want waffles.”
    “We’re going to go get waffles. First I want to give you a big hug.”
    He took the few steps he needed to get to her and stood pencil straight with his eyes squinted closed. Emily pulled him closer and hugged him around his chest like the physical therapist showed her and pulled him in tight with her hands locked behind his back.
    “Does that feel better?”
    He rested his head on her shoulder, which meant he did feel better.
    After a minute she released him. “Okay. Let’s get you dressed.”
    “We’re going to get waffles?”
    “We’re going to kill two birds with one stone.”
    Jack stomped his foot. “I don’t wanna kill two birds. I want waffles.”
    Emily stifled a laugh and went to the bedroom to get some bird-killing clothes out for her son.
    Thirty minutes later she parked in front of the hospital where her father was in a coma.
    “Okay, Jack. We’re going to eat waffles in the cafeteria here, and then we’re going to visit with Grandma for a little bit. Can you handle that?”
    He was too preoccupied with his solar system pop-up book to answer with any more than a distant, “Yeah.”
    “We’re going to have to get out now.”
    “Yeah.”
    They got out of the car and went to the hospital’s entrance. The walk through the stark white, institutional hallways ruined what was left of her appetite. Everything looked exactly the same as the last time she was there—when she rushed through the sliding doors to the emergency room after she got the call about Daniel. She tore out of the house in the middle of the night and sped to the hospital unaware that his mom’s words “gunshot wound,” along with the questions, “What happened?” and