“I have to go,” Zack said.
“Wait.”
Zack started walking. A dark blue, late model Honda CRV rumbled over the top of the hill. His mom‟s CRV with his mom
driving and—Zack squinted to see through the glass—his sister in the backseat.
Relief, embarrassment, and annoyance churned inside him as the vehicle braked by the curb.
The window rolled down.
“Zack?” His mom‟s smile held a hint of apology, as if she knew she was babying him but couldn‟t help herself. She‟d worn
that smile a lot lately, which made Zack feel guilty and irritated him at the same time. “Em said you might need a ride home.”
The back of Zack‟s neck crawled. Without turning, he knew the guy was behind him.
“Who is this?” the man asked.
His mother‟s gaze slid past him. Her smile faded completely. Her face turned white. “Get in the car.”
Zack‟s gaze bounced between the man and his mom. “What‟s going on?”
“Get in the car, Zack. Now.”
Out of instinct, out of habit, Zack obeyed. He hopped around to the passenger side and opened the door.
“I know you,” the stranger said slowly.
“No, you don‟t.” His mother‟s tone was fierce. Firm. But Zack heard the underlying high note, almost like she was scared.
Like that time he hitchhiked to the beach without telling her.
“I have seen you before.”
That voice, that well-remembered voice, stroked Liz like a hand and clutched her heart.
“I have seen you before .”
Only for a couple of hours in the dark sixteen years ago. He couldn‟t possibly recognize her.
The passenger door slammed as Zack got in the car.
She had recognized him right away, Liz thought. Morgan. The white-blond hair, the brutally handsome face, the strange
yellow eyes were the same. He looked exactly the same. While she . . .
She took a deep breath. Well, she‟d changed, hadn‟t she? She was no longer a dewy, perky, naïve college student.
She was thirty-seven years old, for God‟s sake. A mother. A doctor. She had borne two children and buried her husband,
and her face and body carried the lines and scars of laughter and of sleepless nights, of grief and resolve.
Liz gripped the steering wheel with sweaty palms. No, he hadn‟t recognized her.
“ Who is this? ” he had asked.
Anger caught her unprepared like a cramp, sharp and unexpected. She was what life had made her. She was the woman she
had made herself, and she would protect that life, that woman, any way she could.
“Fasten your seatbelt,” she ordered Zack.
At the click of the buckle, she threw the car in gear and punched the gas. She did not look in the rearview mirror as she
drove away.
“Who was that?” Emily asked from the backseat.
Zack’s father.
No, he wasn‟t. Bernardo Rodriguez was the only father her son had ever known or needed.
Zack’s sperm donor?
She couldn‟t say that either.
“His name‟s Morgan,” Zack said.
Emily leaned forward between the front seats. “Do you know him?”
“Sit back,” Liz instructed, nerves snapping in her voice. She concentrated on turning the corner, struggling to keep the
wheels and her tone even. “Not really.”
“He said you did,” Zack said.
Back in North Carolina, she‟d been desperate for her son to communicate. She‟d tried card games and car trips, nonverbal
communication strategies and active listening techniques without success. She‟d prayed this move would shake him from his
self-imposed silence. But why did he have to start talking now?