Heather shushed Trigger when he sat up and woofed once, a surprised little chuff as if a squirrel had caught his attention.
Connor was in the middle of telling yet another slightly off-color joke he had heard at work. He held a half-eaten burger—his second—in his right hand and gestured with his left. Harold was dabbing his eyes with a napkin, his face red with merriment.
Jaxon chuckled, still too shy to laugh out loud and perhaps a little puzzled by the puns his brother used, but his eyes shimmered in the kitchen light, and his skin was taking on a healthy glow. He kept his voice low and quiet, deferential in so many ways, but he was talking more as his confidence continued to grow.
The scattered serving dishes on the table testified to how much of a celebratory meal it was. The potato-salad bowl had been emptied, the sides cleaned as if Trigger had licked them. The bowl of baked beans was nearly as empty with only a few bumps in the bottom. The platter that had held the burgers retained only a few scattered sesame seeds from the buns. Even her iced-tea pitcher sat only a quarter full, a sign that her fresh brew had been a hit with everyone.
Trigger stood and emitted a stronger warning bark. A pair of car doors closing in her driveway answered. Heather stood, already angry at the reporters who would have dared to come at dinnertime. She had warned them all to stay away. She told them she had no plans to talk to them. She wasn’t going to sit down and cry in front of the cameras, no matter what big name wanted to interview them.
She thought she had gotten her point across the day before when she answered the door with a shotgun propped on her hip, to the horror of the reporter on the stoop and the hilarity of Connor, who rolled off the couch, chortling. When the reporter had tried to be offended by the greeting, Heather suggested he go explain to the sheriff and see how much sympathy he got. She didn’t know if he did, because the last thing she saw was him slinking back to his news van.
Irritated by the interruption, she stood and waved at Connor to continue telling his stories while she chased away the visitor. Visions of telling a reporter to go to hell flashed across her mind as she strolled to the front door. She ripped it open, a hand held high to wag her lecture finger, but the anger drained when she saw the sheriff and psychiatrist outlined by the porch light.
After an uncomfortable pause, she gestured for them to come inside. The sheriff, however, took a quick look at the dinner table and stepped back into the darkness. With a wave of a hand, he invited her to join them outside.
Puzzled and worried, she grabbed a coat, slipped it over her shoulders, and stepped into the night, letting the screen door bang behind her. When she stood under the glowing front-porch light, David reached around her and pulled the main door shut, muffling the sounds of her happy family. Desperate to get back to the comfort of a few moments earlier, she demanded, “What’s going on, Sheriff? They can hear anything you have to say.”
“I’ll come in and explain it to everyone, but I need to tell you first. I owe you that, Heather. And then Dr. Sorenson and I can help everyone else understand it too.”
“Get to the point, Sheriff.”
David looked at the psychiatrist and took a deep breath. “I really don’t know how to say this other than to just do it. We confirmed that one of the bodies at the McGregor farm is Jaxon.”
She shivered in the cold as a breeze rattled the leafless tree branches in the front yard. Her mind raced in confusion. “Sheriff, I’ve got some experience dealing with drunks, as you know, so let me be blunt right back at you. What the hell are you talking about?”
He pulled off his hat and squeezed it in his hands. “Heather, one of the bodies at the McGregor house has been positively identified as Jaxon.”
She pulled the coat tightly around her, but it did nothing to ward off the chill deep in her bones. She turned her back to the sheriff and reached for the doorknob. “You’re talking nonsense.”
“Listen. Wait.”
But momentum propelled her through the door. As she entered the den, Connor must have seen the look on her face, because he stopped mid-sentence, the laughter dying in his throat. Harold rose from his chair, but Jaxon—or whoever he was—looked down at the floor. She tried to prevent the sheriff from following her by pushing the door closed. “Go away, Sheriff. This is a family night. I will not have you messing that up.”
He stopped the door with his foot as Harold strode toward them. “What’s going on here?”
“Harold, I didn’t know you would be here.” David looked at the boys at the table and hesitated.
Heather didn’t give him the chance. “The sheriff here is telling me that they positively identified Jaxon’s body in a grave at the McGregor farm.”
Harold paused mid-stride, confusion spreading across his face. He looked back over at Jaxon—or who they thought was Jaxon. His face darkened with realization, and he turned quickly back to Heather and reached for her. His effort to comfort her had the opposite effect, and she shook his hands off, screaming, “No! No! No! That’s not possible. He’s sitting right here. My Jaxon’s sitting right here. He came back. He came back to me. So don’t tell me this.”
She charged across the room, only slightly aware of the color draining out of Connor’s face. She would comfort him soon enough, but her baby, her little boy, needed her. She reached to wrap her arms around Jaxon, but he flinched at the touch and recoiled in his chair. She ran her hands through his hair and begged him, “Tell them, Jaxon. Tell them who you are.”
The boy’s head rose slowly, inch by inch. Tears flowed down his face as he whispered something, too quietly for anyone else to hear. The words were muffled to Heather as the blood rushed through her ears and deafened her. Or maybe she heard it clearly but refused to accept it. Trembling, she leaned in until their faces were only inches apart and asked softly, “What did you say?”
He shifted his eyes with what appeared to be great effort and looked into hers as his head slowly shook back and forth. Dread filled her heart, and she resisted what she already knew deep inside. “Look at me, young man. Now tell me what you said.”
The words slipped out, barely a breath of air but hammering her as if he had shouted them. “I’m sorry.”
Her world froze. She was vaguely aware of Harold’s hands on her elbows. Connor sat across the table from her, a horrified statue. The sheriff was little more than a distant shadow.
She sat down in the chair beside the boy and gathered his hands in her own. Dr. Sorenson settled in behind him and wrapped her arm around him.
Heather struggled to breathe, battling against the pain spreading in her chest and the thick fog clouding her mind. She wanted both to comfort the boy and to understand. When she finally got her voice working again, she asked quietly, “If you aren’t Jaxon, who are you?”
He whispered, “I don’t know.”
The tears overflowed her eyes. “What do you mean ‘I don’t know?’ You don’t know your real name?”
“No.”
She lowered her head and sniffed. “Do you know who your parents are?”
“No.”
“Do you know where you’re from?”
He hung his head. “No.”
She struggled to ask what she needed to know. “Did you know Jaxon?”
He looked up at her, tears marring his face, and nodded.
“Is he… dead?”
He paused, glancing nervously around the room then back at her. His head dipped down then rose up in a slow, painful nod of agreement. His whispered answer seared her heart. “Yes.”
Dazed and unsure what to do, she leaned forward and kissed his forehead. She leaned back, tucked his hair around his ear, and stood. She picked up the empty potato-salad dish and walked toward the sink. Three steps in, her world grayed, and the floor tilted. The bowl slipped from her hands and crashed to the floor, shattering and sending shards flying across the room. Her knees buckled, and she slumped to the floor. In her foggy state, she hadn’t heard Connor and Harold approach, but she felt their hands on her back.
“Mom, you okay?”
“I’m…” What? Dazed? Stunned? None of the words fit. She was utterly and completely lost. Her Jaxon was gone. Her precious little boy was dead.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the boy she had thought was her son carefully place his napkin on his plate and stand on shaky legs. With the doctor’s support, he stumbled across the room and out the front door.