about his head,” she says with an air of protectiveness she shamefully admits she hasn’t felt in eons for her siblings.
“Even if it’s staring at me like I have spaghetti coming out my nose?”
“He wears a hat, Luc. He’s self-conscious. And go easy on him. He understands most of what we say, but he responds better when we talk slow and use fewer words.”
“Whatever.” He slides his hands into the side pockets of his paint-speckled canvas pants. “Do you still believe Ethan’s the father?”
“Yes.” She folds her arms. Dwight’s never lied to her. When he dropped her off at her apartment after he told her Lily was pregnant, he said he had pictures of Ethan and Lily in Ethan’s truck. He didn’t bring them, unsure how Olivia would react to his news, but he offered to send them when he returned home. Give him a call and he’d email them. She never asked. Hearing about Lily and Ethan was heartbreaking, but seeing them together? She couldn’t bear it.
His brow arches. “You gonna call him?”
She grimaces. She doesn’t want to but will probably have to if she doesn’t get a lead on Lily.
“Tell you what,” Lucas says. “I’ll meet Josh, see if I can get anything out of him. If not, you call Ethan.”
“Fine.”
“And he’s not coming home with me.” He gives her a look that he knows what she’s been thinking.
“Come on, Lucas,” she whines. “You and Lily were closer. And you’re a guy. Josh will relate to you.”
“You aren’t the only one with a social calendar.”
“That has nothing to do with it.” Though she is busy with a looming deadline. “It’s just—” She stops.
“What?”
She hugs her sides. “It’s weird having him here.”
“Because he’s Ethan’s son?”
“That and because of how everything went down.” Josh is a reminder of the years she lost so much: summers at the lake because Lucas screwed up, the breakup with Blaze, Lucas returning home so different from when he left after serving time, Ethan cheating on her with Lily, and Lily running away. Those were Olivia’s dark years.
Lucas scratches his scalp. “Look, I doubt he’ll be here long. For all we know, Lily’s right behind him.”
“I hope you’re right,” she says, despite feeling that something is seriously wrong. The statistics she read last night aren’t promising. Over six hundred thousand people go missing every year in the US alone.
Lucas toes off his work boots and nudges them against the wall. “Take me to him.”
She leads Lucas into the kitchen ripe with smells of melted cheese and toasted bread. Josh sits alone at the large farmhouse table, hunched over a pad of paper. He’s furiously sketching a townhouse complete with palms and shrubbery and a skateboard abandoned on the postage-stamp front lawn. He grips a blue graphite pencil and scratches at the paper with long, spirited strokes. His backpack rests at his feet, the pockets zipped closed, and for the first time since his arrival she wants to know what he has in there aside from art supplies. No phone, apparently. What about a wallet with an ID card? And where is the townhouse he’s drawing? Is that his?
She stands opposite Josh and waits until he registers her presence. She doesn’t want to startle him like she did this morning when she flew into the kitchen after the dish crashed, forgetting he was here in her semiawake stupor. He yelped. She screamed. She then spent several minutes reassuring him she wasn’t upset about the broken dish, not really, since he apologized profusely. He helped pick up the larger fragments, then took the broom from her. He wanted to sweep up his mess.
Lucas rounds the table and stands behind Josh. He studies Josh’s sketch, the details of which are stunning for his age, from the precise alignment of the asphalt shingles to the grain patterns in the wood porch railing. Lucas points at the roofline. “Great rendering, but your pitch is off. Your windows aren’t to scale either.”
Olivia glares at Lucas. Not a good introduction, bro.
Josh drops his pencil and leans back in the chair. He cranks his neck to look at Lucas. His gaze finds hers. Questions swirl in his mind. She can see them reflected in his eyes, taking shape in his mouth. He doesn’t utter a word, only exhales lightly and tugs on his bottom lip.
Her throat clamps tight. He’s so like his mom. Lily tugged her lip, too, when she was nervous.
“Josh, this is your uncle Lucas.” She paces her words, hoping he