A Son's Tale

But he was there. Insisting that mountains would move and his grandson would be brought home to them. From what Cal had seen, George Lowen was willing to get out there and move the mountains himself if need be.

“I must respectfully disagree. Crying is normal. Healthy. And part of being human.”

“When’s the last time you cried?”

He didn’t answer, knowing that his silence was an answer in itself.

“You just said it’s part of being human.”

He wasn’t surprised that she’d called him on the inconsistency.

“Which is why I’ve always envied people who could cry,” Cal said, the night, the circumstance, putting him in strange territory, making him a stranger to himself.

This night, these circumstances—it wasn’t real life.

It was a snippet of time outside of ordinary living. An anomaly that would seem surreal once Morgan’s son was home safe and sound.

“So why don’t you cry?”

“I’m not sure. It’s not like I sit around and try,” he said, giving her a sideways glance, glad he seemed to be distracting her. She was listening so he continued. “Might have something to do with the fact that I never knew my mother. She died when I was six months old.”

“That’s horrible! What happened?”

“She taught a program for accelerated students and was on an oceanography field trip. She went into the water at night with a couple of other teachers, on an ocean life study, and she and another teacher got tangled in the reef and drowned.”

“I’m so sorry! That’s awful.”

For his father it had been. Cal didn’t have any memories of her at all. But he missed knowing a mother—her absence had made him particularly eager to accept and return Rose Sanderson’s motherly care.

“Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“Nope. It’s just me and Dad.”

“He never remarried?”

“No.”

“So you went into teaching because of her? Because of your mother?”

It wasn’t that simple. “I teach because I enjoy it.” And because his father—who’d lost his prestigious career in education because of something Cal had told the police that had incriminated an innocent man—lived vicariously through him.

“You’re sure good at it.”

Before he could say more and risk crossing the boundaries between teacher and student and professionalism, the receiver in her hand pealed, splintering the quiet of the night.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“PLEASE…LET ME SPEAK to my son… .” Morgan’s voice broke as she started to cry, something she couldn’t help in spite of her father standing over her as she answered the phone.

Cal was there, too, somewhere behind her in the living room. Her knees were weak and wobbly as she stood at the card table, watching Detective Warner’s face.

He nodded, mouthed that she was doing fine, and then the voice that she recognized from earlier that night—a voice she somehow knew was going to live within her forever—spoke again.

“Good, you’re begging for the life of your loved one. Just like I did.”

Click.

Morgan’s stomach felt like lead as Detective Warner listened to the earbud that connected him to his people and then shook his head.