Page 22 of Weight of Guilt

“Can I let you know later?”

“Of course.” She stepped away, sensing his urgency to get on the road.

Mason climbed out and ran toward her, throwing his arms around her in a hug. “Mommy!”

She caught him, held on a beat longer than usual, and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Hey, Bug.”

He stared up at her with his big, blue eyes. “Can I ride my bike before soccer?”

Soccer. That was right. With everything going on, she’d nearly forgotten he had practice tonight.

“Sure, go ahead.”

She looked up and saw Cody already back behind the wheel, one arm out the window. “Thank you, Wren. I appreciate this.”

Then he was backing out of the driveway, gravel popping under the tires.

Wren watched his truck disappear around the bend before she let herself move again.

Seven years ago, Cody Weathers had been eighteen and about as ready for fatherhood as Wren had been for motherhood at seventeen—which was to say, not even a little. When her life had fallen apart, she’d run straight into Cody’s arms.

He’d been warm and uncomplicated, and when she was with him, she’d felt utterly unconcerned with any of the things she’d been raised to care about. She hadn’t been thinking about principles at that period of her life. She’d been thinking about not feeling anything at all.

Getting together with him had been a mistake. But Mason was not. Being a teen mom had been a challenge, for sure. But Wren loved her son with all her heart.

However, she did have to wonder sometimes . . . would her parents still be together if Wren hadn’t gotten pregnant? First, Christian had been abducted. But then her teen pregnancy had been an embarrassment for the family. Her parents had started fighting even more about what to do.

Cody had missed the first five years of Mason’s life mostly on purpose. He’d drifted through jobs and girlfriends and one DUI that had cost him six months of visitation.

Something had shifted in him the past few years. He’d stopped dating around the time he went back to school, and when Wren had asked him about it once he said he’d already done enough damage in that department. He’d gotten a steady job as a paramedic, and he had his own place now.

More than that, he’d fought for these weekends with his son. Wren still didn’t know if she trusted the change yet. But she couldn’t deny the fact that Mason lit up differently around Cody now.

Watching someone finally become the parent you’d needed—five years too late—was a strange thing. She didn’t know if she was supposed to feel gratitude or resentment. Most days it was both.

She looked over at Mason. Her son was already circling the driveway on his bike like nothing in the world had changed today. For him, it hadn’t.

For one unguarded second, everything felt normal—like this was just a Saturday, just her son doing the thing he loved best.

“You have an hour,” she called after him. “Then we need to get ready for soccer.”

Since it was just practice, she hadn’t planned on going tonight. But maybe getting out of the house for a couple of hours would be a good thing. She could use the breather, though she hated to leave her sisters right now.

“Okay!” Mason didn’t even slow down.

She lingered a moment longer as she watched her son. He rode the way Christian used to—with his arms out sometimes as if he were daring gravity.

The similarity didn’t bring her comfort. No, for some reason, it brought her fear.

Wren took one more glance at Mason, saw that he was okay, and then she let herself back into the house through the front door. Bo would keep an eye on Mason for her.

The weight of everything Nash had said still sat in her chest, and she hadn’t updated her sisters yet. She needed to.

Inside, she scanned the house for Christian but didn’t see him. He must still be upstairs, which meant the timing to update her sisters might be perfect. She didn’t want him to overhear.

She remembered seeing him watching her from his bedroom window and repressed a shudder.

It doesn’t mean anything. He was just looking outside.