“Uncle Ethan.”
“Hey, buddy.”
“Daddy went somewhere.”
Everything inside me tightened.
“Where?”
He shrugged.
“Don’t know.”
I put the coffees down.
Walked through the house.
Bedroom.
Bathroom.
Garage.
Adrian’s car was gone.
So was a duffel bag.
On the kitchen counter sat a folded piece of notebook paper.
Four words.
I can’t do this.
Nothing else.
No explanation for Noah.
No number.
No plan.
I read the note twice.
Then a third time.
Noah appeared behind me.
“Where’s Daddy?”
I turned around.
I wish I could tell you I knew what to say.
I didn’t.
So I knelt.
“He had to go somewhere.”
“When is he coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mommy too?”
That almost destroyed me.
I held him.
He started crying before I did.
That morning became the beginning of my life as Noah’s father.
Not because I had planned it.
I was single.
I lived in a one-bedroom apartment above a tire shop.
I worked as a mechanic and barely earned enough to pay my own bills.
I owned exactly four plates, three towels and a refrigerator whose freezer door only stayed shut if you kicked it.
No child-placement agency would have looked at me and said:
Perfect.
But Noah knew me.
I knew him.
And there was no chance I was letting the child lose both parents in twenty-four hours if I could stop it.
At first, I thought Adrian would return after a day.
Then three.
