Not because he was calm.
Because his legs had decided for him.
“It’s an investment,” he said again, quieter.
“In what?”
He didn’t answer.
Rachel did.
“Mama. Kyle got laid off in March.”
Kyle’s head came up.
“Rachel—”
“He didn’t tell you. He didn’t tell Megan until June.”
“He’s been going to the casino in Oklahoma. Every other weekend.”
“Megan called me in August. She thought I’d known.”
I looked at my son.
My firstborn.
Forty-one years old, with his father’s chin and his father’s hands and none of his father’s stubbornness about telling the truth.
The boy who’d held his father’s hand in the h*spital and promised him, out loud, in front of me, that he’d take care of his mother.
Ray had squeezed his hand when he said it.
I’d watched the monitor jump.
It was the last thing Ray ever agreed to.
“Is that true, Kyle?”
