He Threw Dirty Water at the SUV to Stop His Father

CHAPTER 2 - A MOTHER'S LAST DAY

His name was Daniel Mercer.

He said it in the SUV as if the boy should have known it all along.

The boy sat stiffly in the passenger seat, arms crossed, jeans damp from the dirty water he'd splashed over the windshield. He was twelve, his name was Eli Bennett, and he did not trust the man beside him.

Daniel drove too fast and then not fast enough.

"What happened?" he asked. "Why was there a wreath with her name on it?"

Eli stared ahead.

"Because the church ladies thought she'd be gone by noon."

The words landed hard.

Laura had collapsed that morning in the apartment above the laundromat where she worked. Her lungs had been weak for months. She'd hidden the bills, hidden the pills she couldn't always afford, hidden the fear. By the time Eli called 911, she was barely breathing.

"Why didn't she ever call me?" Daniel asked.

Eli laughed once, bitter and small.

"She did."

Daniel turned.

Eli pulled a folded bundle of envelopes from his backpack. Some were yellowed. Some had been returned. Some had never been opened at all. Every one of them was addressed in Laura's hand.

Daniel Mercer. Cedar Ridge Development. Chicago.

"I found them in her sewing box."

Daniel took one at a red light. The envelope had his old company address, one he had not used in fourteen years.

"I never got these," he said quietly.

"Maybe you didn't want to."

Daniel's grip tightened on the wheel.

"Your mother vanished. I came back to our apartment and she was gone. The landlord said she'd moved out with a businessman from Milwaukee. He said she left a note."

"What note?"

Daniel's eyes darkened.

"I never saw it. He read it to me."

At the hospital entrance, Daniel barely had the SUV in park before he jumped out.

Inside the ICU waiting room, a silver-haired nurse looked up from the desk and froze.

Her badge read: M. Alvarez.

She stared at Daniel like she'd seen a ghost.

Then she said, "You came back. Laura always said you would."

And from her pocket, she pulled a sealed letter with his name on it.

"She made me promise to give you this only if her son ever found you."