Page 59 of Second Start: Family
Ned saidCut your losses.
Over and over. “Vick, get out of here. Cut your losses.”
“I can help you—”
“You can’t.”
“I won’t let you give up.”
“You can’t do anything about it, so cut your losses.”
But she’d never known how to do that.
Not until that last visit. The one she still dreamed about.
“You want me to go?” she’d asked after another fight.
“What do you think I’ve been saying these past months?”
“Do you want me to go?” she insisted.
“I sure don’t want you here.”
“Do you want me to go?”
He looked at her then. His dark eyes steady, no blinking, no looking away. “Yeah, I want you to go.”
She had to breathe. Two, three, four deep pulls, but then she had it. The strength to get up, pick up the tote with the things she’d brought to entertain him, to lift his spirits. She turned away. Needed one more sucked-in breath. Then she walked out.
Never turned around. Never looked back over her shoulder. Never hesitated.
Just the way he’d always left her.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
In the morning, Hall placed the call from the ridge where he knew he’d have a signal and — unlike the house — not have a curious audience.
He didn’t waste much time on hellos with his mother, but said straight out, “Naomi wants to have Danny take a scholarship and go live with them in Cheyenne.”
He had to backtrack then, telling her the details, including overhearing Dan on the phone last night.
“What do you think, Mom?” he asked at the end.
“I think I can’t remember the last time you called him Danny.”
He’d declared some years ago that he was to be called Dan. “Mom—.”
“I know. That’s not why you called. He’s a smart boy, Hall. A lot like you at that or any age.”
“Like me? No way.” Dan was nothing like him at that age, because he was so much like his mother.
“Very much like you. Don’t let … Well…”
“What Mom?”
“I swore to myself I wouldn’t interfere…”
“But I asked you.”
