Chapter 1
“A small punishment? I’ve got a small punishment for you too.”
Mark stopped moving.
Claudia stared at me from beside the collapsed wrapping table.
I had no intention of throwing either of them into the snow.
That would teach Noah the wrong lesson.
My punishment was simpler.
They were going to tell me everything.
I held Noah against my chest.
His feet were icy beneath my overcoat.
“Why was he punished?”
Mark wiped his mouth.
“He was disrespectful.”
“He’s three.”
“He knows when he’s disobeying.”
“What did he do?”
Silence.
Noah tightened his arms around my neck.
Then whispered:
“I said Mommy.”
Mark’s expression changed.
There.
I looked at him.
“Explain.”
Claudia stood carefully.
“He keeps refusing to accept me.”
I stared.
“You put him barefoot in the snow because he called his mother Mommy?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
Noah corrected her.
“She said Mommy gone.”
My pulse slowed.
Noah’s biological mother, Grace, had disappeared eighteen months earlier.
Mark told me she had abandoned them.
Left Colorado.
Wanted nothing to do with the family.
I never liked the story.
But Grace and I had never been close, and Mark was my son.
I made the mistake parents make too often.
I believed the version requiring me to question less.
I looked down at the wooden airplane.
One wing was cracked from the snow.
Underneath, burned faintly into the wood, were two initials.
G.B.
Grace Bellacorte.
My hand tightened.
“Who helped you make this?”
Noah looked at me.
“Mommy.”
Mark went pale.
Claudia reached toward the plane again.
I moved it out of reach.
My grandson pressed his cold cheek against my collar.
May you like
Then he whispered the sentence that ended every excuse in the room.
“Daddy says I’m not supposed to tell you she comes back.”
