But now I felt sick.
“Why, Silas?”
He started crying.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
“Why did you leave your children?”
He struggled to explain that he’d been desperate, that his business was collapsing, and that he’d convinced Bree they needed to disappear temporarily.
They’d left their vehicle with another couple who were supposed to move it while they traveled out of state.
He claimed they hadn’t known the couple would be involved in an accident.
When they saw the news and realized everyone thought they were gone, they decided not to come back.
“At first, we thought we’d wait until things settled down,” he said.
“And then?”
He was quiet.
“Then we were afraid to come back.”
I looked around my kitchen.
There were school photographs on the refrigerator, grocery lists pinned beside the calendar, and a worn wooden table where seven children had spent years doing homework.
