Page 69 of Small-Town Secrets
Slowly, I drove the car down the roads closest to my house, looking out the window and trying to spot traces of my wayward son, shouting his name every now and then. We'd rolled the windows down so he would hear us.
The only one in the car who wasn't shouting was Chris. He sat on the backseat with a mildly disturbed expression on his face, staring out the window. He must be worried about his brother too. My dog sat on his lap and the boy petted him absent-mindedly.
"I didn't think he would run away," he muttered, as if to himself.
Laurence was too distracted to comfort Chris, so I took it on myself to try. "It's okay," I said. "We'll find him and bring him home."
Chris nodded, although he didn't seem fully convinced.
A thought occurred to me. "Do you know where Tyler might have gone?" It was a slim chance, but we'd been driving around for half an hour and we weren't getting anywhere.
Chris kept staring out the window at the snow. "I don't know. Maybe..."
"Maybe?" I prompted.
"Maybe the park?" Chris suggested somewhat hesitantly. "Where we went with the dog."
I turned to Laurence with a questioning look.
"It's worth taking a look," he said. "It's not too far and Tyler likes parks."
"They have the best bugs," Chris muttered. "Tyler is so stupid."
"Don't call your brother stupid," I said, mimicking Laurence. "You want to find him too, don't you?"
"Of course I do!"
"Good, then that's exactly what we'll do." My hands tightened on the steering wheel. Wewouldfind Tyler and he would be fine. And then I would have a 'conversation' with the man who was responsible for this drama.
Just after I'd talked to the twins, anyway.
They needed to know who their actual dad was. Now more than ever.
* * *
Iparkedthe car in front of the park and we all spilled out of it to search the area.
"If he's here, he'll be at the playground," Laurence said, so we headed there first. As it turned out, Daddy knew best.
To me, it looked like the playground was empty—mostly empty anyway, there were two kids with their parents by the swings—but Laurence never hesitated. He headed straight for a little wooden playhouse that had been decorated with permanent marker by the local teenagers.R + B forever, I read in a heart next to the door as we walked in.
Tyler sat in a corner, trying to carve his own message into the wood with a stone. It didn't look like he was succeeding. When we entered, he looked up, surprise evident in his features.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
I didn't even know what to say. The question was whathewas doing here, not what we were doing here. In the end, it was Chris who spoke first.
"You're so stupid!" he insisted again, and then he ran over to his brother and hugged him.
That broke the tension in the air.
Tyler looked confused. "What—"
Laurence interrupted him by joining in on the hug. "Don't youeverdo that again!"
I watched the three, feeling only a little bit awkward as I stood off to the side. I couldn't be part of moments like this until I was officially part of the family, could I? So I needed to start working on that.
For now though, I was just happy to see my son happy and healthy.
