Chapter 4: The Story Fear Tells
I called Derek that night and asked him to come over.
He arrived looking like a man braced to lose a thirty-year friendship, because Audrey had told him, by then, what she'd seen on my face in the driveway — that I'd suspected something, though neither of us could say the word.
I did the only thing I could.
I apologized to him in my own kitchen, in front of Scott and Audrey, for the story I had told myself about him in the dark.
"I filled the silence with the worst thing I could imagine," I said. "And it should have been the last thing, because I've known you for thirty years. I'm so sorry, Derek."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "You're her mother. If you hadn't been afraid for her, I'd have worried about you. You just aimed it at the wrong man." He looked at Audrey. "I kept telling her — the only person you ever had to be scared of telling was the one person who'd never love you less. Her mom."
