“You don’t know them, Sammie, but they feel like they know you. Professor Whittier sat up with me all night on Friday. He didn’t sleep from the time you left until the police brought you home. His father was in touch throughout that whole time, too. Lots of people we’ve never heard of were out looking for you and following the news to make certain you were okay.”
Sammie had no idea how much trouble his little escapade had caused. But then, how could he? He saw the world through the eyes of a ten-year-old.
“Nuh-uh.” The voice was muffled through the door, but closer to it. “I didn’t see him here.” The belligerence was still there, but it had softened some.
“Because he left while I was hugging the daylights out of you.”
“It’s you he likes, not me. Go ahead and date him. You don’t need my approval.”
Good heavens. Why had she ever thought she could raise a boy on her own? “I’m definitely not dating him, Samuel. He’s got a girlfriend. She made lasagna for him just last night.”
She took his silence as a good sign.
“Please come out, Sammie. Because if you don’t I’m going to have to take the door off the hinges and I don’t want to embarrass you that way.”
“What if I don’t like this guy?”
“As long as you’ve given him a fair shot, you tell me you don’t like him and we politely thank him for his time and come back here and clean house.”
The bathroom door opened.
* * *
CAL DIDN’T GET HIMSELF all wrapped up in other people’s lives. He didn’t allow relationships to form beyond the superficial. He had no expectations. So why in the hell had he been up at dawn replacing the basketball net on the old hoop attached to the garage?
Why had he offered to help at all? He knew better than to open Frank and himself up to the world.
What if George Lowen had them investigated?
The thought stopped him cold.
And what if he did? Ramsey Miller couldn’t find anything to prove that Frank was guilty of wrongdoing. All of the cops before him hadn’t found proof.
He and Frank had been living in the past for too long. Frank’s reputation was no longer as important as it once was.
Cal had built his own reputation. He had a good job. He could support the both of them. He wasn’t going to let his own paranoia and fear of George Lowen keep him from being Morgan’s friend. He wasn’t going to desert her in her moment of need.
And he wasn’t going to keep running scared for Frank’s sake. Feeding his father’s fears. He’d just have to make sure his father remained unaware of any queries. That shouldn’t be too difficult, since no one knew how to reach Frank directly unless they waited for him outside the Alzheimer’s unit. Net fixed, Cal grabbed the box containing a new basketball and went into the house to seek out his old man.
“I did what you said, Dad, and talked to that girl. Morgan.”
“How’s her son?”
“There’s some backlash. I’m bringing them over here to spend a little time with us this morning,” he said, extracting the basketball from its packaging.
“Fine.”
“You going to be around?”
“Aren’t I always?”
“I mean, will you come out of your damn room and be a part of this?”
“If you want me to, fine.”
Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with a big orange T, for University of Tennessee Basketball, emblazoned across the front and new sneakers on his feet, Cal stood in the doorway of his father’s room and stared.
“Really?”