Page 82 of The Night We Lost Him

“Not happening.”

“I also went out to Midwood,” I say. “And you know what’s crazy?”

“That you went out to Midwood?”

“There were more things that felt like our father there, in the house he hasn’t lived in since he was a teenager, than an apartment he lived in until a month ago. How does that make any sense?”

“It doesn’t,” Sam says. “He didn’t even like growing up in Midwood.”

“There’s one way it adds up.”

“What’s that?”

“We are missing the thread. The thread that starts all the way back there and ends on the cliff that night.”

“You sound crazy,” he says. “And that’s not enough of a reason—”

“How is this for a reason? The forensic pathologist got in touch with me. She thinks you could be right. She is suspicious too. More than just suspicious.”

“Nora.”

“Sam, whatever it was, whatever part of his history he couldn’t seem to leave behind, that holds the key to the rest of this. I’m sure of it. It’s what’s behind whatever happened to him that night.”

He starts fidgeting, sliding from foot to foot, looking into his apartment in the direction of where Morgan went.

“Look, I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

“Not okay. Do you hear what I’m telling you?”

He shakes his head. “You don’t get it. I was wrong. You were right. I’ve been trying to figure out who Dad was. Or maybe I just haven’t been able to accept that I didn’t get to know him the way I wanted to when he was still alive. But nothing happened on the cliff that night.”

“You believe that?”

“I believe I got carried away.”

“Carried away with what?” I ask.

“All of it…”

He pauses, like it hurts him, like I’m hurting him, to make him say this part. To make him look at this thing he suddenly wants to pretend doesn’t exist.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” he says. “Yesterday got me all messed up. All that shit you were saying to me in the car. I’m on a path, you know? This is pulling my life apart.”

“Oh, now it’s my fault?”

“No, it’s mine. But I need this to stop.”

“Why? So you can marry someone you barely know? Work a job that doesn’t inspire you the way playing ball did? Get drunk at some fancy party tonight that you’ll pretend you don’t hate?”

“Who are you to say what I’ll hate?”

“Someone who’s been listening to you.”

This is when he starts to close the door.

I catch it with my hand, hold it open. “No. No way. You’re the one who dragged me into this and now you’re just going to bail?”

“You’re surprised by that? Isn’t this the part where you tell me you’re not surprised?”