“How long has it been since you took this car in for an oil change?” As I say it, I know the question comes out of the blue, but it suddenly occurred to me, and it’s not like I have anything better to do than make mundane conversation.

Paige is behind the wheel of the Escalade, driving us down the I-5, skirting the edge of the Central Valley, where we’re eating up one monotonous mile after the other, and the passing landscape that alternates between desert and farmland has one thing in common: a harsh, numbing flatness, stretching as far as the horizon.

There’s very little to fasten your eyes on during this trip. No towns, few trees, not even any tacky billboards to roll your eyes at. The most interesting part of the drive is the road rage that ensues when a truck driver ventures into the left lane to pass another truck, slowing everyone down to well below the speed limit. Too many people in this world just have no chill whatsoever.

We’re making good time, though, and the back seat’s been mostly quiet, but we still have over three hundred miles and more than five hours to go. That’s a lot of time for the kids to run out of patience and start manufacturing crises. Paige made the trip up all by herself a week ago, which just confirms that I married one hell of a brave woman.

“Uhh…” she says in response to my question, her eyes shifting behind her sunglasses, flicking toward me.

“You’re supposed to do it at least once a year,” I point out, taking care not to sound antagonistic.

“Yeah,” she replies, sighing, “I’m just busy.”

“I can do it when I have the kids next weekend,” I offer, and then I wait with bated breath to see if she has a comment on the whole kid-sharing arrangement.

“Okay.” She gives me a grateful smile. “Thank you.”

Right. Well, what did I expect her to say? No, Logan, you won’t have the kids next weekend. Because you’re going to move back in with me and the kids, and you’ll get to see them every day and every weekend?

She sent me a text saying she loves me. I saw it right away, because I was still awake, lying there in Frank and Gwen Waters’ guest bed, trying to talk myself out of feeling overly optimistic about how things were going between us. It felt like we were going in the right direction, that we were figuring things out, but I didn’t dare invest too much hope in it. Not yet.

Then her message arrived, and ever since, caution has eluded me. She came to my room because she couldn’t stay away. She told me she loves me. How am I supposed to be anything but encouraged by that? Giving her space and time is now officially tormenting me. It’s become an affliction, and only she has the cure.

I love you, too, I texted her back. And then, You’re my everything. I wanted to tell her so much more, wanted to pour my fucking heart out, but I thought better of it, deciding less was more.

We didn’t really get a chance to talk yesterday. The whole day was about saying goodbye to Mia and Jay. We visited and placed flowers on Lily Waters’ grave, where Paige, Mia, and Cam told my kids stories about their great-grandma. Then we took a trip to Angel Island for a short hike, a favorite of Lily’s, and so of course it’s also special to Mia, who was so close to their grandmother. That the late matriarch of the family should be a big part of her last day here only makes sense.

The day culminated with a backyard barbecue, where, thankfully, Friday’s tension seemed to be forgotten, or at least ignored. The absconding couple received gifts they seemed to not have expected. A satellite phone from the parents—“Now you’ll have no excuse not to keep in touch,” said Gwen—and a cute little family photo book from Paige and the kids, which Abi presented to them with the comment, “It’s so you don’t forget our faces.” Which gave everyone a chuckle.

And then Cameron outdid himself by giving them a big bag of condom boxes, which he dumped onto the table in front of Mia, saying he didn’t know what kind of access they’d have to birth control where they were going and, with a sly look at Paige, adding that apparently the women in his family are extremely fertile.

That joke was a blatant case of “too soon,” because no one laughed—except Mia, who might or might not have stifled a snicker—and then Abi flitted over from trying to do cartwheels on the lawn and asked what all those boxes were, and before anyone could think of a response, Cam jumped in with, “Tiny coffins for your dead cousins.”

At which point everyone agreed he would be doing the dishes all by himself.

That easygoing mood didn’t extend to today, however.

“Saying goodbye was pretty awkward this morning,” I comment to Paige now, referring to how her parents seemed to not only be reserved with me but with her, too.

She looks at me briefly and opens her mouth before clamping it shut again. A sugary pop song flows out of the car speakers, making my teeth ache.

Frowning, I ask, “What?”

“I didn’t exactly tell you everything I talked about with them on Friday,” she says reluctantly. When I arch my brows, she sighs. And then, with her gaze on the fast-moving traffic and her arms gripping the steering wheel, she tells me what her family’s actual concerns were.

And she shares with me everything she was forced to say in response, to convince them they were wrong.

After she’s done, I just sit there in the passenger seat, slack-jawed and dumbstruck. They thought what? She had to tell them what?

I mean, what the fuck?

“I decided to wait until after we left to tell you that stuff,” my wife says, taking her eyes off the road for a second to watch me with an expression full of regret and sympathy. “It just seemed like it might cause more problems.”

“No, really?” I blurt out sarcastically. “You think so? Jesus Christ.”

“They were worried about me,” says defensively, adding, “And the kids, too, probably.”

“Yeah. I’m sure they were.” I laugh bitterly. That makes total sense. Since they thought I was the kind of piece of shit who’d beat up his wife, it follows that I might be hurting the kids, too. That’s just fucking logical, isn't it?

“So.” She turns on her blinker as we come up on a truck going below the speed limit, crossing into the left lane to pass it. “I mean, you could not take it personally.”

“I could,” I agree sourly, and by that I mean it sure would be nice if I could.

Some part of me actually recognizes that I probably should. You don't work my job as long as I have without realizing that it's often the people who seem the nicest that are capable of the ugliest behavior. And what kind of family would they be if they didn't put Paige’s welfare above a possible insult to me?

But it still stings, and I can't just shrug and move on. To be accused of something you're not guilty of is devastating, makes you feel helpless and voiceless. This is why I'm a criminal defense attorney.

And then there's her having to share details of our sex life. That I really don't give a shit about. If her parents have a problem with it, I'd be happy to tell them that anything they might find unsavory, their daughter’s been the instigator of since day one. If at any point she doesn't want to do it that way anymore, I'd say, “Okay, cool.”

Doesn’t mean I don't like it. Or that it doesn't turn me on. But that's because her very existence turns me on. And anything that gets her going? It's fucking hot as hell.

An urgent bleeping comes out of the speakers all of a sudden, and in my pocket, my phone starts vibrating. Huh. I didn't realize my phone was connected to the car. The word “Pop” shows on the dashboard screen, and instead of digging my phone out, I just answer it there.

“What’s up, Pop?” I say after hitting the button, raising my voice slightly.

“Hey,” comes his husky voice, “you busy?”

“No. I’m in the car with Paige and the kids. We’re driving back from her parents’ house.”

“Oh.” My dad sounds nonplussed. “Okay.”

Guess it's not surprising he finds that confusing. I kind of do, too.

“You’re on speakerphone,” I warn him. Phone etiquette 101.

“Hi, Mike,” says Paige cheerfully, and the two of them exchange some polite small talk about their respective well-being followed by traffic and the weather.

“What’s going on?” I cut in when their conversation peters out.

“Well, I don’t know…” Pop says, being uncharacteristically timid. “I thought maybe you could come over today, which you obviously can’t, so it can wait then, unless you wanna do it over the phone…”

I squint at Paige in confusion, a look she returns in kind as I ask my dad, “Do what?”

The other end goes silent for a few moments. “I found…what you asked me to find for you.”

Oh, shit. I sit up straighter, my heart skipping a beat.

My mom.

He found my mom?

“Right now is fine,” I tell him, because after twenty-eight years, this time is as good as any to find out what happened to my mother. “Paige knows.”

“What about the kids?”

Glancing over my shoulder at the three little bodies in the back seat, I reply, “Elliott and Abi are asleep. Freya’s got headphones on.”

“Okay.” Pop blows out a breath, which sounds like radio static. “Logan, I don’t—” He falters again, and I steel myself. “Well, there’s no easy way to say it. Your mom’s dead, son.”

My whole body lurches, my abdominal muscles flexing like I just took a fist to the gut.

Dead?

She's dead?

“How?” I grind out, blinking. “When?”

Paige puts her hand on my thigh, and numbly, I look down at it, watching it, not quite recognizing what it is or what it's doing there as my dad answers, “About two and a half years ago. Breast cancer.”

My mom died of cancer. Two years ago. The facts are racing in a circle in my head, unable to find a place to stop and become clear and defined.

“Okay,” I hear myself saying robotically. “What else—” My voice cracks, like I'm a goddamned pubescent teenager again. “What else did you find out?”

“When she left,” Pop replies matter-of-factly, “she went to live with that guy she’d been seeing. Disalvo. Roland Disalvo is his name. He’s a dentist.”

“Where?” I'm asking a lot of monosyllabic questions. I don't feel like myself.

“In Chula Vista.”

“Chula Vista?” I exchange a stunned look with Paige, and she squeezes my thigh. Drive five minutes southwest from my dad’s house, the house where I grew up, and you’re in Chula Vista. I could ride my bike there.

She lived so close. So close, and she never came to see me. Was she not worried we’d run into her at some point? Paige might know the statistical likelihood. I only know it was above zero.

“Yeah,” Pop says tightly, and for the first time I'm thinking about him, how all of this affects him, and it's not pretty—and I kind of hate myself. “That’s where she was, all these years. Uh. Seems like their neighbors assumed they were married, and she changed her last name, but I couldn’t find any marriage records. So I guess she wasn’t a bigamist, at least.”

“Right.” That there might be the textbook definition of thin comfort.

So. Roselyn Disalvo. That was her name when she died.

Huh.

“Also.” My dad’s voice goes even flatter. “They had a kid.”

“What?” My eyes bug out, and I whip my head toward Paige. She's gaping, her eyes flicking between me and the road.

“A girl,” Pop elaborates. “She’s ten years younger than you. Her name is Cara.”

“Jesus,” I hiss out. I have a sister? A sister named Cara.

Which is Italian…right? It means…beloved. Yeah, that's right. Beloved.

So, to sum up: Mom left us. Shacked up with a new guy, had a kid with him, and gave the baby a name meaning she was loved.

Loved. Cherished. Wanted.

You don't abandon a child with a name like that.

“I didn’t do any digging on her,” my dad says. “It’s not really what you asked me to do.”

“That’s okay, Pop.” I clear my throat, feeling strangely calm. “Thank you.”

“Uh-huh,” he replies. Not: You're welcome. Just, uh-huh. Like, yup, it was a fucked-up thing I asked him to do, and he didn't do it gladly.

We say goodbye and disconnect. Then I'm sitting there, my thoughts going a mile a minute. My mom, the one from the photos my dad kept for God knows why, holding a baby. A little girl. My sister. I have a sister.

Paige has a sister. My kids all have a sister. And so do I.

They thought I was hitting her, hitting my wife. I try to imagine it, raising my hand in anger, putting all my strength into it, my fist connecting with her flesh, and the sound it would make. I try to imagine that it’d make me feel powerful, in charge, bending and controlling her by brute force. Imagine that I was the one giving her the black eye that's finally started fading.

It's incomprehensible.

Then I'm back to my mom, and now she's older and a cancer patient, skinny and wan, her eyes sunken, her hair gone. That beautiful face, so ravaged and unrecognizable.

I see that arm raised again, ready to strike. I see my mom, collapsing to the floor.

A sound escapes me, an unrecognizable noise. Is it even coming from me? My veins turn to ice, and I blink and blink, trying to clear the mental image. But it won't go away. I start trembling, nausea washing over me in waves.

“You okay?” Paige asks from beside me, sounding like she's miles away.

I’m panting, sweating, clutching the car door’s handlebar for balance. “Just…give me a minute.”

But I know I'm not going to be okay in a minute.

I might never be okay again.