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“You’re a lifesaver. I love you. So so much. Thank you. Okay… okay… bye, bye.”
Nora released a big, long breath and let her lips flap. “Whew.” She turned to me. “Kelly was like an auntie to Drake. My best friend.”
“Rightfully so.”
Nora lifted her fingers, crossed.
This was good but also bad. I knew this went against Drake’s code of conduct. He hated secrecy. “What are we going to tell Drake? I don’t want to lie. He’s going to be mad I went over his head. But honestly, Nora, I just, I couldn’t just let this chance go. Even if he leaves me for it, it could save his life…”
“Don’t be dramatic. He’ll get over it.”
I snapped right the hell out of it. I loved how moms never seemed to worry about upsetting their children. Was this actually true, or did they just know we actually would “get over it?”
“Anyway, we’ll do the dirty work without telling him.” She was already in solution mode. “If it’s all for nothing, I don’t want to upset him for no good reason. It will be our sworn secret.”
Having a secret gave me the ick, but if the tables were turned and I was being an idiot like he was right now, I hoped he’d do what needed to be done in spite of me. I ran through the details of what might ensue and came across a hiccup. “What if Myles wants to talk to Drake and rekindle things but doesn’t want to get tested? This could end up being a massive mess.”
“People change, but,” she let out a puff, “maybe this is me being hopeful and naïve, but if he hung on to the best bits, Myles was a good man.”
I hadn’t meant to stare so intently. I hoped my mouth wasn’t hanging open, but something about my expression made her read the exact words written across my mind. Why the hell did a good guy stay away from his son?
“I know what you’re thinking. And I’d told you he was bad, which in some ways he was, but Myles staying away from Drake was my doing. It was my decision. Not Myles’. He… he did want to be in Drake’s life, and I pushed him away.”
For the next half hour, we pretended to shop and look at product labels while Nora told me how it came to pass that Drake grew up without a father and she without a husband. It was a sad tale with so many morals and twists and turns that made me wonder who was right and who was wrong. No doubt about it, the story was not a happy one.
And yet, I walked out of Whole Foods feeling lighter than before because the story also made me believe this might just work. We stalled by going to a bakery, with the best donuts in town, a cover up for how long it might take us to get home.
An hour and a half later, Kelly sent through a photo of the exact information we needed. Myles Owens lived in Gardena at the time the letter was written. A shockingly close distance of one hour from my house. We could go see him. If he still lived there. The letter was years old and, unlike me, Nora didn’t have her hopes quite as high for that very factor.
“Myles moved around a lot. Sometimes because he wanted to, sometimes because he had to.”
I dug my cell out.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I tapped in Facebook. Google. “Just wondering if we can at least find a number to go with the address. Maybe we can call before we go to him.”
She tilted her head sideways. “Have you heard nothing I said? I don’t think you’re going to find Myles on Facebook. He’s not the type.”
She was right. Myles wasn’t on Facebook. But he was on LinkedIn. Or at least I thought I’d found him. “Does this look like him?” I handed over his profile photo.
Nora pinched her eyebrows together and shook her head. “He used to have hair.” She brought the cell closer to her face. “Or he shaved it.”
“Well, is it him?” I needed a confirmation not a critical analysis.
She smiled and nodded.
I took my cell back. “This might even be better than his address. On LinkedIn, it says he still works at Unity. Their offices are also in Gardena, so I guess he might still live there if all this information is current. Anyway, easier to catch him at work than home. Should I call the offices and see if he’s in?”
Nora turned green. “Now I’m shitting myself.”
“It’s happening, Nora, so the only thing is if we call ahead, will he run? We need to talk to him.”
“Sure. I know. Let’s just go. He won’t run. At least I don’t think he would at all. Not given how it all went down. But I might run myself if we don’t just get a move on. My stomach is all over the place.”
“You want to go now? It would be nearly perfect to get there around a lunch break when he might be able to actually take him to lunch and talk.” I tapped a message into my cell. “Okay. I told Drake we’re mooching around Malibu and getting lunch.”
She nodded quickly, nervously. This wasn’t easy for Nora. Hell, it wasn’t easy for me. But what Drake was going through was a million times harder than us tracking down a sixty-year-old man. And as much as my mind whirled with the many steps ahead of us, I calmed it by telling myself all we had to do was get to Gardena. Step one. We just needed to take one step at a time.
