Ruth stood silently, knowing she probably shouldn’t be there, but that didn’t help her feet move. She held still and kept quiet.

Rob stole a look at her. “I saw you kiss Ruth, Dad.”

Rafe jerked back, stared at his father then at Ruth. “You kissed her? When?”

“A minute ago,” Rob said.

“Yeah,” Dix said, “I did. Maybe I didn’t plan it, but I did.”

“Well, if you really didn’t mean to—” Rob said, and looked closely at his father.

“That wasn’t exactly the truth,” Dix said. “I wanted to, although I knew I shouldn’t, but I did anyway. Either of you got a problem with that?”

There was a moment of charged silence, then Rob whispered, “It’s Mom.”

Dix had known this moment would come, sooner or later, when a woman finally came into his life. In the days after Christie disappeared, Dix had wandered around in a fog of pain, too busy trying to find her to try to sort things out with the boys. When his brain began to clear some weeks later, he realized the boys very much needed to talk with him about their mother. He also realized he needed them as much as they needed him. What he gave them was as much honesty as he could. In return they got into the habit of always telling him what they were feeling. At least he’d believed that was the case. As for himself, he’d let his own pain stay buried, for the boys’ sake, and they slowly adjusted, accepted what couldn’t be changed. Until now, when his kissing Ruth had finished their unspoken agreement.

Dix ran his hands through his sons’ hair, love, pain, and guilt sweeping over him, nothing new in that. But now Ruth was added to the mix.

Rob said again, “It’s Mom.”

Dix said, “I know, Rob, I know. But your mom’s been gone for almost three years now.”

Rafe said, “Billy Caruthers—you know, that jerk on the baseball team I beat out as pitcher—he was shooting his mouth off about how he bet Mom ran off with a guy she met at the gym. I don’t believe it—but if that’s true, maybe she’ll come back.”

Hard, raw anger roiled in Dix’s belly. “You know that didn’t happen, Rafe.”

Rob’s eyes blurred with tears, but his voice was steady. “Yeah, I know. I told him Mom wouldn’t do that, and that’s when we got into a fight.”

Rafe said, “And Uncle Tony told us that maybe she got real sick and didn’t want us to see her die, and so she left. But if that’s true, Dad, why didn’t she write and tell us?”

“Your uncle Tony told you that? When was that, Rafe?”

“Maybe three months ago.”

Rob nodded. “I asked Uncle Tony if she had cancer, but he said he didn’t know, but it had to be something bad, something that couldn’t be cured.”

They simply didn’t want to accept that their mother was dead. Dix well understood denial because he’d felt the same thing many times himself. “Listen to me, your mother would never have left us, never. No sickness, nothing would have made her up and leave without a word. Why didn’t either of you tell me about this?”

Rob wouldn’t meet his father’s eyes. He shook his head, his eyes on Brewster. “It’s Ruth, Dad. We told you because of Ruth.”

“I see. I didn’t plan to kiss Ruth, but it happened. At some point I have to move forward with my life, with my feelings, hard as that is for all of us. Your mother would want that. I wish you’d come to me when you heard these things and not kept them hidden deep inside. I thought we were well beyond that.”

Rob whispered, “You believe Mom’s dead because that’s the only way she’d leave us for this long.”

There was silence in the entrance hall. Dix looked at his boys. He’d told them the truth since the beginning, but he knew they didn’t want to accept it, and he, because he’d hated their pain, hadn’t pushed it that hard. Well, only the stark truth would do now. And so he said, holding them both away so he could look at them, “Let me say it again, your mom wouldn’t have left us for a single day, you both know that. I pray every day that I’ll find out what happened to her because all of us need to know. I’ll never stop looking, never.

“I know she’s dead, Rob, know it in my head and in my heart. Since your mother left—No, let me be clear about it. Since your mother died, I’ve tried to love you with her love added on to mine, and believe me, that’s enough love to reach all the way to heaven. And that’s where your mom is. And every once in a while, I feel her close by, and I know she’ll always be here for us.