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It wasn’t until Shawn moved into my room that I told Dad we could hear it all. I didn’t want them to talk about him or have a fight in there and have Shawn overhear them. I hated giving it up, but he needed to know. I didn’t hear them have another conversation in there.
So if Shawn overheard them in my bedroom, they had to have been back in the closet, where Dad would know.
It’s all I can think about all day long. It hovers over me while I’m at work, and I’m thankful we’re finished by noon. Benny tries to get me to go to lunch with him and the others, but I’m not in the headspace for that. I won’t be until I actually talk to my parents.
So after work, I drive over to my parents’ house, my stomach in knots the whole way. I hate feeling like this. Being with Natalie during her cancer battle and then trying to come to terms with her death made us all closer than we used to be. We rarely fight, but now all I can feel is the anger running underneath my skin. I try to tell myself that it’s not their fault because they should be allowed to have conversations in their own house, but that does little to soothe my rage.
Maybe it’s because I got really close to Shawn while he lived with us. Or maybe it’s because my parents had to have known on some level that Shawn staying with us wouldn’t make anything worse.
Or it’s the haunted look in his eyes last night when he was talking to me about it all.
I know my parents can’tmakehim feel anything, but he’d spend half his life being pushed in and out of foster homes, and we promised we’d be a safe place for him.
When I get to my parents’ house, I park behind my dad’s BMW and get out of the car. The summer sun beats down on the back of my neck as I make my way up the walkway and knock on the door.
Mom opens it and gives me a wide smile. “Lucas, what are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you and Dad about something.”
She steps back to let me inside, her smile turning down at the corners. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”
As soon as I hear the panic in her voice, guilt swoops through me. We all know better than to say we need to talk without any warning. “Nothing’s wrong. I just need to talk to you guys about when Shawn was living with us.”
“Oh, okay.” Doubt shines in her eyes, but she closes the door and yells down the hall for my dad before turning back to me. “You want something to drink?”
“No, I can’t stay.” It’s not the truth, but I know I don’t want to stay. I don’t want to be in this house right now. No matter what Dad says, it won’t matter. I already know the truth.
He appears at the end of the hall, his glasses folded neatly in his hand. “Lucas, what’s up?”
I don’t wait for him to sit in his favorite armchair. “Shawn overheard you guys talking the night he left.”
Mom frowns. “Talking about what?”
“Arguing about who was going to keep an eye on him and how you didn’t want him at the hospital because he wasn’t technically family.”
Mom gasps, her hand flying to cover her mouth. “He heard that? How did he hear that? We tried to be quiet.”
I turn to look at Dad and search his face for any indication of guilt, but nothing’s there. “Dad knows.”
His eyes narrow just the slightest. “Lucas. Do you really think that’s the only reason that boy left? He’d run away from every other foster home he’d been in.”
“He was going to stay with us.”
“What? Is that what he told you?”
“He has no reason to lie, Dad. It’s not like telling me changes anything.”
“Is that true?” Mom asks, her gaze fastened on my dad. Sadness has lined her face; her shoulders are slumped.
“It’s not some big, horrible thing,” Dad insists. “We couldn’t keep him at the time, so I made sure he knew without being cruel about it.”
“Yeah, it was really not cruel to make sure he heard you guys talking about how much you didn’t want him.”
“I wanted him to stay,” Mom protests. “I would never have told him otherwise. I wanted to try to make it work. Richard, I can’t believe you did that.”
The despair in her voice makes me feel bad because she’s not the one I’m upset with. She had every right to talk to Dad about Shawn in her own house. My anger is with Dad for using a secret I told him about to hurt Shawn.
“I did what needed to be done,” Dad says. “And I’m sorry if it upset Shawn, but he was sixteen years old and fully capable of taking care of himself. It wasn’t the right time to be fostering him. Not with everything going on with Natalie.”
