“Sort of,” she said and tightened her grip on the steering wheel.

Over the years, she’d done her best not to lie to her son. Not about her past or his father. For the most part, she’d simply told him there were questions she wouldn’t answer. At four or five, he’d been easily distracted. At eight, he’d been determined to find out the truth. Now he asked less, probably because he knew he couldn’t wear her down. But she knew he wondered.

“I got an e-mail today,” she announced. “You re member I told you that I have a brother?”

“Uh-huh. Roy. We don’t ever see him.”

“I know. He’s a lot older and he left when I was twelve. I woke up one morning and he was gone. I never saw him again.”

She still remembered her mother’s sobs, made thicker and louder by the alcohol lingering in her system. From that moment on, her mother spent her life waiting for Roy to return. Nothing else had mattered, certainly not Liz.

Liz had left town shortly after graduating high school. She’d phoned home once, a few weeks later, saying she thought she should check in and tell her mother where she was.

“Don’t bother calling again,” had been the woman’s only response before hanging up the phone.

“So Uncle Roy e-mailed you?”

“Not exactly.” Liz didn’t know how much to reveal. Telling the truth was one thing, but sharing details was another. “He’s, um, in some trouble and I have to help. He has two girls. Your cousins. Melissa is fourteen and Abby is your age.”

“I have cousins? You didn’t tell me about cousins.”

“I didn’t know about them until today.”

“But they’re family.”

True enough, she thought. And the word family implied caring and connection. Maybe in most places, but not in the Sutton household. At least not until Liz had had Tyler. She’d done everything she could think of to break the cycle of neglect. She’d been determined to be a warm, loving mother, to offer her child a safe haven.