“Give me back the phone, then. I’ll do it.”

Tillie looks at my cell phone in her hands, sighs, and passes it to me. We’re sitting in the car by a fast food place, an hour away from Indiana. I tried convincing her to call sooner—the minute we were out of Houston, in fact—but she told me to just keep driving.

She didn’t feel safe until we had entire states between them. We drove through the first night altogether, but last night both of us were too exhausted to go on and got a hotel. Even then, I heard her get up more than once to check the lock and peek through the curtains.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” she insists. “He deserves it. And—and honestly, some part of me really, truly hates him, even though I don’t think I could say that about...well, anyone.”

I pause, the “9” already dialed, and look at her as she gets quiet and stares at her reflection in the darkened glass of the windshield.

“But,” she adds, “some part of me does still love him.” She wipes her eyes, almost furiously. “That’s really stupid of me, huh?”

“No,” I say, my voice gentler now. I think of Donnie again. A lot of our friends didn’t know why I stayed with him. Aunt Betty was definitely confused by it, and she didn’t even know how bad things really were—the little bit she saw of how he treated me was enough to pass judgment, and a pretty accurate one, at that.

Still, until the evidence got impossible to ignore, I convinced myself I loved him, and that he loved me. Maybe he did, in his own way. But not the way you should love someone.

“My last boyfriend,” I tell her, setting the phone in my lap, “was really controlling, and that’s how I felt about him, too. I hated him, but I cared about him at the same time. I’ve had a few boyfriends like that, actually.” My brow furrows as this sinks in, even though I’ve known it, on some level, for years. Why did I put up with it for so long? I knew I deserved something—someone—better than them. Instead of going out and finding it, I wasted months or years, waiting for them to magically transform.

“Your father was like that,” Tillie whispers, nodding. When I look at her, she corrects, “Your biological one.”

“So this poor taste in men is genetic?”

She laughs through her sniffling. “I think it’s just a coincidence. If you’d grown up around him, that’d be different, but the fact is...sometimes, smart women get fooled. Simple as that.”

I think of Shepherd again. Now that I know why he left—why, exactly, he worried about dragging me down—it’s harder to be mad at him. I still am, but the feeling isn’t smoldering in my stomach, anymore. If anything, it’s just a slow burn in my chest. When I’m ready, I’ll let it die out.

“I still have to call,” I tell her.

“I know.”

I pick up my phone, unlock the screen, and finish dialing 911. When the dispatcher answers, I clear my throat and say, “Hi. I have the location for someone with warrants, Nicholas Lawson? He’s wanted in Indiana. And Crossbridge County.”

While I give the dispatcher the address, I see Tillie put her hand over her mouth, then her chest. I know that feeling. It’s the same one I had the day I left Donnie. Her heart is breaking.

Then, her hands slip down by her sides. She droops in the seat, relaxed and defeated, all at once.

I know this feeling, too. It’s when you think, No, my heart isn’t breaking; he already did that.

This, this is the feeling of breaking free.

“Fifteen months.” Dad turns the chip over in his palm and passes it back. “I’m proud of you, Shepherd.”

“Thanks.” I put it into my pocket, blushing. “It wasn’t easy.”

He spreads his hands. “It’s not supposed to be.”

Back in the day, my father’s way of speaking annoyed me: he talked in riddles, things that could have, and did, come straight out of his devotional emails to the congregation, or his sermons on long Sunday mornings.

Now, though, I nod. He makes more sense than before. Maybe it’s just me.

“Is Mom here?” I ask. I know she’ll cry and hug me without reserve, the way Dad did on the porch a few minutes ago, though I hadn’t expected it from him. With Mom, I always knew all would be forgiven. It already is. But I still have to apologize. Not just for stealing from her, but for hurting her—for hurting both of them.

“Tuesday,” he reminds me.

“Ah,” I nod. “Bingo Night.” My mom spearheads a lot of events at the church, but none produce a higher turnout than the weekly bingo nights for senior citizens. Mom’s the ball-reader, absurdly cheerful. Every bingo night is a party for her. People love it, even if they win magazine subscriptions and candy instead of money.

“So,” he says, changing the subject, “I heard a rumor you’re living near Lafayette Park.”

“Yeah, I’ve rented a room in a house there for a few years.”

“Work going well?”

I crack my thumbs inside my fists and look away. They replaced the rug in the front room, at some point. I notice the coffee table is new, too. “I got fired from the outlet, right after the overdose.”

Dad nods calmly, as though this isn’t news to him. It probably isn’t. When I was little, I honestly thought God had granted him some kind of omniscience. He always seemed to know my whereabouts, who I was with, and what I was doing. When I got older, I figured out the real reason: nosey churchgoers seeing me around town, picking up rumors, and playing Telephone until the info reached him.

I go on. “Tillie, the woman I rent from, told me it was either rehab, or the streets...so I picked rehab.”

“Your mother and I disagreed about that a lot, after you left.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “She didn’t want me to kick you out without offering the choice of rehab first. I don’t know. Maybe I should have.”

I’ve never seen my dad look regretful about anything, much less his parenting decisions, but he does now. It makes me feel guilty.

“I don’t think I would have gone, if you hadn’t kicked me out first. If that’s any consolation. I wasn’t doing heroin yet, so I didn’t think I was that bad.” I laugh, sarcastic. “The overdose really woke me up.”

Dad opens his mouth, but doesn’t speak. Finally, he clears his throat and sits back against the couch. “I didn’t realize you’d done that.”

“You didn’t know that’s what I overdosed on?”

He shakes his head. “The hospital didn’t tell us anything. We thought it was pills.”

“That wouldn’t have been much better, anyway,” I mumble, trying to make him feel better. This aligns a little more closely with the reception I expected: shock, a hint of shame, and a mountain of disappointment.

Surprising me again, though, Dad doesn’t dwell on it. “Well,” he says, exhaling as he gets to his feet, “it’s in the past. The important thing is that you’re clean.”

I follow him to the kitchen. He puts extra sugar in my coffee, and I’m stunned he remembered. Actually, I’m stunned he even knew my preference in the first place.

“Is there something specific that brought you by today?” he asks, leaning against the island. “Not that I’m not happy you’re here.”

Three years ago, I would have been offended at his question, like he thought I was only out for money or a favor. Then again, three years ago, that would have been true. Now, I know he’s just curious: why today?

“A lot’s been going on lately.” I concentrate on the reflective specks in the countertop and think of Lila again: how nothing could stop her from finding her mother, even though the odds were stacked against her. More important than what she found was just knowing she tried.

“I’ve thought about coming by or calling ever since I got out of rehab, but I kept chickening out, expecting the worst possibility.” When I look at him, he’s staring right back, unwavering. “The last few days made me realize not trying at all...that was already as bad as things could get. The not knowing.”

I look down into my coffee. Some sugar is still on the rim. “That,” I add, “and a friend of mine...she just lost her dad.” It feels like lying, calling Lila my friend, but I shrug it off. “That sort of put things in perspective for me.”

“One of our parishioners lost her son to drugs, a couple weeks ago,” he says softly. “That service was probably the hardest one I’ve ever had to perform.” I see his eyes gloss over, but he takes a drink to hide it. “I kept thinking, ‘This might be Shepherd, one day.’ As far as I knew, you were still using. If I’d only bothered to contact you, I could have saved myself a lot of pain. Lot of wondering.”

A lump forms in my throat again. When I look outside to distract myself, I notice they painted the deck from dark brown to light gray, same as the front porch. It was the first thing I saw when I arrived.

It’s funny, how easy it is to spot the little changes.

“So, yes,” he says, “I know what you mean.” Without asking, he tops off my mug. “The not knowing really is the worst.”