I turned back to Thomas. “Why did Daniel tell me you were dead?”
Thomas explained that he and Daniel had fallen out years earlier. When Daniel was twenty, his father had insisted he finish college and join the family business. Daniel wanted a different life, and their argument ended with Thomas telling him never to come back if he walked out the door.
Daniel left, and their relationship remained broken.
“When he met you,” Thomas said, “I think it was easier for him to say I was dead than explain why he wanted me to be.”
Then I asked whether he and Daniel had ever reconciled.
Thomas hesitated before revealing a date I would never forget.
It was the day Daniel had left Hunter and me.
Three days earlier, Daniel had been restless, barely sleeping and taking phone calls outside. Then he packed a bag, kissed our sleeping son on the forehead, and walked out of our apartment. I never saw him again.
