We went in.
She sat on the edge of her bed, with a lamp on the nightstand and the scent of her hand lotion, and she took Wyatt’s face in her palms.
“Look at me, love.”
He looked.
“You used the word. You listened. You stayed. Do you know how many grown men would’ve hidden under the covers?” Her thumb wiped his cheek. “You did everything right.”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“No, baby. You told the right person, at the right time. And nobody is going to Brookhaven. Not tonight. Not ever.”
Her voice did not shake.
Mine did.
“Mom. You knew?”
“I suspected. Then I knew.”
“For how long?”
She reached under her pillow and brought out a spiral notebook, the kind she’d carried to work every night of my childhood, with a rubber band around it and a blue pen clipped to the cover.
