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“Kam—”
He cuts me off without looking up. “Maybe I can get another job and go in a few years…” He finally risks a glance at me, and his eyes are red-rimmed, full of despair and shame. “I don’t want you to think I’m a-a…” His voice goes quiet as he whispers brokenly, “fuck-up.”
I want to grab him and shake him and hold him and fix it, all at once. Shit, it’s probably time I told him about his mom. After all, I already came clean about Steven, and that was murder, so…
I kiss the side of his head.
“Kamden, I will never in a million years think something like that of you. But, baby boy, you’re going to that school.”
“But—”
I hold my index finger over his lips. “Shh. Let Daddy speak.”
He nods mutely.
“I paid your mom a visit.”
His mouth starts to open against my finger.
“Ah, ah, ah,” I chide. “Be good.” I lower my finger from his lips. “I went to the house while you were at the safe house.”
Kamden blinks. The misery on his face doesn’t disappear, but it changes, confusion cutting through enough to make his eyebrows pinch together.
“You went to see Mom?” The words come out hushed, scraped thin.
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“The day we first had sex.”
His eyes widen. “Oh.”
There’s enough going on behind them that I can practically watch him sorting through the last couple of weeks, attaching this information to the times I left him alone.
His hands tighten around his knees. “What did you do?”
He knows me so well already.
I sit beside him on the floor, close enough that our thighs touch. “I got your things.”
“What things?”
“Documents, mostly. Birth certificate. Social Security card. School records. Whatever she still had that belonged to you.”
His mouth falls open slightly. “She had my Social Security card?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought it was lost.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Oh… That’s good.”
His gaze drops to the sewing machine between us, but I know he isn’t looking at it anymore.
“There were some things from your dad too.”
