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Helen’s voice rang clear.
    “I was about to ask you the same thing. I had a funny feeling all of a sudden and needed to hear Jacks’s voice. Is he around?”
    “Of course.” Her voice softened. “I think he misses you too. When we were doing his therapy today he pointed to the picture of the animals in the zoo and said, “I want to see that with Carter.”
    His stomach churned. Time and again, Carter kept wondering if he was being selfish in going away for even the once-a-month weekend and voiced his concerns to Helen.
    “Does he seem upset that I’m not there? I don’t want him to think I’m abandoning him. The doctor wasn’t sure about his short-term memory, and if you think I should stay home—”
    “Carter, stop.”
    He halted, a bit surprised at her cutting him off like that. “Yes?”
    “I’ve seen how you are by the end of each month. You’re so bottled up inside, you’re ready to explode. No one can ever be there one hundred percent for another person, and it doesn’t mean you don’t love or care about him because you find the time for some self-care. You give everything to Jackson, so there’s nothing left of yourself. I can only hope one day you’ll meet someone—”
    “No.” Having heard this argument many times before, Carter smoothly interrupted her. “We’ve discussed this, and I’m grateful you’re telling me Jacks is okay. I’ll make sure next weekend we go to the zoo.”
    “I think he’d like that. Now here he is to say hello.”
    The cab sat stuck in a traffic jam only several blocks from his hotel, but Carter was grateful as it gave him quiet time with Jacks. It was only a little past nine p.m., Carter realized with a start. No wonder Reed couldn’t leave the bar yet.
    “Hey, Jacks, how’s it going, buddy?”
    He imagined Helen standing by Jacks’s side with her warm, encouraging smile. The thought of losing her terrified him.
    Carter could hear Jacks’s breathing. “Hi. It’s good.”
    He expelled the breath he was holding in a soft burst of air.
    “I hear you liked the pictures of the animals in the zoo?”
    When he first became responsible for Jacks’s care and noticed some obvious developmental problems, he took him to a specialist who said Jacks’s small stature, under-developed muscle tone and learning issues could be caused by any number of things: smoking during pregnancy, drinking or drugs, or a combination of all three. However, without their mother present, it would be impossible to tell. But Carter knew the diagnosis was more than likely correct, remembering his mother’s chain-smoking and penchant for beer. He’d done some research of his own on the internet after meeting with the doctor, and the stories were heartbreaking. The blinding rage toward that woman for putting her defenseless child second to her own selfish needs almost caused him to punch a hole through his computer monitor.
    But he shouldn’t have been surprised. This was his mother; the same woman who’d left him at age seventeen when she deemed him capable of taking care of himself, and disappeared. If you couldn’t trust your own mother to take care of you and give you love, who could you trust? No one, he decided, and Carter lavished whatever love he had inside on Jackson. Whatever Jacks needed in terms of therapy and help, Carter made sure to get him. He alone would be the one person Jacks could always rely on and never lose trust in. The two of them didn’t need anyone but each other and would be just fine.
    “Yeah. They’re pretty.”
    Tears blinded him. This boy had done nothing but be born and ask for love. Carter would make damn sure he’d get it all—at least what he was capable of giving.
    “How about you and me go next weekend to the zoo, and we can see them in person?”
    The cab pulled up in front of the hotel, but Carter stayed seated.
    “Really?”
    “Yes. Really. We’ll see elephants and lions. All kinds of cool stuff.”
    “Yeah. I’d like