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“Because apparently, everyone knows what’s going on in your life except your mother and me. We’d get on a lot easier if you told us things, you know that right?”
“What difference does it make? Y’all have already moved on to the next phase of your life, and that’s okay. I commend you. Do what you gotta do.”
“You know that’s not fair. We’ve done everything we’ve can in the past nineteen years to give you what you needed andmostof what you wanted.”
“And how do you know what I want?”
“What?”
“How do you know?”
“I—” Tim closed his mouth on the words and furrowed his brow, staring at the highway ahead. He didn’t know, really. Nothing particularly stood out in his mind as something Kevin had said he’d wanted, besides the car, anyway.
“See. You don’t know. You just assumed.”
“What did I assume?” He caught Kevin’s shrug in his periphery.
“You were so busy trying to raise me up to be respectable that you didn’t stop to think about what I actually wanted to be or do, and because of that, I never figured it out.”
“The only thing we wanted was for you to not squander your potential. We wanted you to go to college and—”
“And probably go work in the family business.”
Caught short on words, Tim closed his mouth. Hehadthought that for a long time, but as Kevin had approached his high school graduation, it didn’t seem likely. Kevin hadn’t seemed to want to do anything at all, so of course, Tim and Heidi had tried to plant some seeds that he should thinking seriously about adulthood. To no avail, of course.
“Would that be such a bad thing, though?” Tim asked. “People fight to give their kids security so they won’t have to struggle so hard and so they can have more than they did. All the work I’ve done in the past twenty years was so thatyouwould have a legacy.”
“You mean the kids from your next family.”
“You’re still my kid. You’re not going tostopbeing my kid just because I happen to think one isn’t enough. Me thinking that doesn’t mean in any way thatyouweren’t enough.”
“Whatever.”
“That’s your answer to everything you don’t want to confront, isn’t it?Whatever. Instead of just putting together sentences and hashing it out with me—letting me be your advocate—you prefer to make me play these guessing games. I try my damnedest to know what’s going on with you, and I shouldn’t have to get all my information second- and third-hand when you live in my house half the time.”
Kevin shrugged again.
Tim gripped the steering wheel harder and ground his teeth, stilled his tongue. So often, Kevin made him so impotently angry in a way no other person on Earth could, but he was his father and he didn’t want Kevin to ever think he couldn’t speak his mind and say what was in his heart, even if it was dead wrong.
He dropped Kevin off at the probation officer’s building and waited for Kevin to walk past security, then parked the truck near the entrance.
Tim fished his phone out of the pocket of his khakis and, letting out a long, ragged exhalation, typed out a text message to Valerie. He’d promised himself he wasn’t going to one to keep pursuing, but given the circumstances, he didn’t see where he had a choice.
Is there some sort of letter I need to pick up for Kevin?he sent.
I’ll give it to him when I see him next week. The deadline isn’t urgent.
“Fuck.” He’d gotten absolutely no information out of that. He decided to try a different tactic.
This isn’t for his probation officer, is it?
No. I don’t know anything about that.
“Dammit.” Tim drummed his fingers along the windowsill and came up with one other bone of contention.
Was that Carine driving Kevin’s car? The Camaro?
I don’t know anything about it being Kevin’s. She said it was a loaner and that it had been delivered to her by a tow driver with the documentation.
