of his children’s lives, because the alternative was too horrible to consider.
“You don’t know that for a fact.”
“I do. She’s looking into my life, searching Emma’s name. She’ll figure it out. It’s that damn therapist. She’s making her doubt me.”
Glen closed his eyes, thinking. When he opened them, he fixed Simon with a pointed stare, his expression serious and reserved. Now was the moment to make his request, and Glen thought: NICE GUY, a secret message, hope.
“Let me talk to Maggie. By phone this time,” Glen said. “Listen to me, Simon, this therapist business is about Maggie. Your plan to use her to make Nina quit her job is causing the problem. I know Nina better than you. Trust me. If we can get Maggie on your side, Nina won’t have any reason to see her therapist anymore. We’ll come up with another way to get Nina to quit working if we have to.”
Simon mulled this over.
“Why would you want to do that?” Simon sounded skeptical. “Why help me?”
“You know the answer.” Glen understood it was a risk to suggest he could coerce Nina through a proxy, but he had to make his case; he had to convince Simon to trust him, to follow his lead. “I’ll do anything to protect my family, and you told me you wouldn’t hesitate, not one second, to harm them if Nina rejects you, or loses interest. Tell me it’s not true.”
Simon couldn’t deny it.
“Look, I’m trying to save their lives.” Desperation leaked into Glen’s voice. “You can do away with me. I don’t care anymore. Kill me if that’s what has to happen. But I can’t let anything happen to my family.”
A thoughtful look came to Simon’s face, but the darkness in his eyes lingered.
“So admirable,” he said. “Such conviction. Nina’s told me time and time again how you were unavailable to the kids, how you were so work-obsessed. I don’t get it. How do you stay so strong for them?”
“They’re my children.” Glen’s voice was shaky.
“You have regrets, right?” Simon’s expression brightened. He loved feeling superior to Glen.
“Who doesn’t?”
This seemed to interest Simon, and Glen sensed his opportunity.
“Tell me about them,” Simon insisted. “I can’t make the same mistakes.”
All this time together they had talked about what Glen did right and wrong in his marriage to Nina, but the conversation never went much deeper, and seldom focused on the children. The truth was Glen wanted to share. He was hungrier for conversation, for human contact, companionship—even from his captor and abuser—than he was for food. That’s the mind for you. Adapt, or die. But Glen knew also that sharing might give him what he was after, so he spoke the truth.
“I have a lot of regrets,” he said.
Simon looked intrigued. “Go on.”
“Nina and I, we had this dance we did,” Glen said, sounding a wistful note. “The more she focused on the kids, the more I retreated into my work, because I didn’t feel needed at home. I became a provider instead of a father.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, I took my children’s childhood for granted.” A lump sprang to Glen’s throat. “I could have been more hands-on, more involved. Instead, I was the guy who never played with them enough. But I didn’t know how to play cars or dolls, and I was never comfortable with babies. And it wasn’t like Nina was asking me to do more. No, she was perfectly happy to take on all the responsibility. She made it seem like she was doing me a favor, but in reality, I think it might have been the other way around.”
Glen took a moment to put pressure on the cut to his lip and apply another layer of gauze on the cut to his ankle.
This was good. Simon was being attentive, listening and interested.
“Anyway, the kids grew, cats in the cradle, got older, more independent, all that, but my habits didn’t change. I was in the stands watching them play sports, sometimes helping with homework, but I was always distracted—on my phone, checking emails, putting out fires at the bank that I could have let burn. I focused on my work because that was the role I had carved out for myself. By that point, I didn’t know my kids all that well. It was Nina who knew what stuffed animals to bring on vacation, what food they’d like, what activities they’d want to do. Me? I existed in the background.”
Simon closed his eyes, as if picturing Glen’s life in vivid detail, zooming