away from Dodge until the baby was born, and then she’d be back. I assumed she meant she’d give it up for adoption, but then she never… I don’t know what happened after that.”
He said the last part fast, and it sounded like the rush of wind in a thunderstorm to Alex. Her ears were buzzing. Her mom…pregnant by another man? Unfaithful to her dad? She had a sibling?
“Wha… what do you mean, she never? Dad, what do you mean?” Alex was too shocked for tears, too confused for diplomacy. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn the earth had just been knocked off its axis.
“Just what I said, Baby Girl. She went off to have the baby, and never came back. I looked for her. I checked hospitals for weeks. She just…disappeared. I’ve always assumed she couldn’t give the baby up, or something. I don’t know.”
When he said that, Alex’s confusion turned to rage. “She couldn’t give up the illegitimate baby, but she could give me up? You said she loved me! What a load of fucking crap! Why didn’t you tell me the truth from the beginning? It’s just like I always thought…she didn’t love me enough to come back. I fucking hate her!”
Alex jumped from her seat and began striding around the room, gesticulating wildly. She stopped next to the hideous chair her dad would never get rid of and picked up an ornament from the side table. Whirling, she threw it with all her might at the wall, where it shattered.
“Alex! Stop it. This is why I never told you. I didn’t want you to have bad memories of your mother.” He, too, had stood, but couldn’t approach her because of her wild movements.
“I have no memories of my mother! All this mystery, all these years. Why haven’t you divorced her? What the fuck is wrong with you, Dad?”
“Baby Girl, please. Could you stop using that word?”
“Really? That’s all you have to say to me? I don’t fucking believe it. You tear my world out from under me and you’re worried about my language? I don’t know you anymore, Dad. I’m not even sure I want to. Goodbye.”
Alex ran out the front door with her dad calling after her. Let him call. Maybe he’d give a little more effort to finding her than he had to finding her mother, and maybe he wouldn’t, but she couldn’t stay in the same town with him, not one more night. She got into her car and headed for Casa Grande. Maybe Lisa and Natalie would take her in.
SEVENTEEN
Dylan waited for Alex to come home until midnight, and then wished he’d called her dad earlier. He went to bed assuming she was staying over at her dad’s house, but had difficulty falling asleep. He should be with her, helping her absorb whatever Paul had to tell her. If it was taking this long, it couldn’t be good. Eventually, he fell into a fitful sleep with anxiety-ridden dreams that didn’t allow him any rest.
In the morning, the boys woke him early as usual, and he gave them cereal for breakfast over their protests that it was pancake day.
“You had pancakes yesterday,” he said. “Remember? Alex made them.”
“Oh yeah,” Juan said. “Where is Alex?”
“I guess she stayed with her dad last night. I’ll call in a while and see if she’s coming over, okay?” That seemed to satisfy them for the moment, and Dylan went about his morning routine, drinking a second cup of coffee because of his short night. Then he called the hospital and spoke to Wanda, who seemed anxious to get home. He promised to bring the boys to see her as soon as he’d located Alex.
By ten, when she still hadn’t called, he was worried enough to call her first, even though he had a feeling she wouldn’t appreciate it. Sure enough, there was no answer. He left a tender message telling her he’d missed her and asking her to call. Then he called Paul.
“Is Alex okay?” he asked.
“I guess. I mean, she was pretty upset last night. How does she look this morning?” Paul answered.
After a moment of confusion when they established that she hadn’t spent the night at either house, Dylan asked Paul what had happened. Reluctantly, Paul summarized the conversation and Alex’s reaction. Dylan had no words about the revelations concerning Alex’s mother, but he had plenty to say about Alex being missing. He didn’t leave much room for misinterpretation when he told Paul