Long Way Home by Helenkay Dimon Page B

and watched his mom pack her suitcase. She lived in California but had been staying at Shadow Hill for more than three weeks. He knew friends were taking care of her cat and the small place she’d bought. It was the first house she’d owned and she hadn’t managed to scrape the money together for that until a few years ago.
    Never mind that Grandma Nanette lived in this sprawling place or that Charlie had money squirreled away everywhere—other people’s, but still. Mom always suffered. Always went without. After years of struggling with depression and poverty but keeping her head high, the bullshit with Callen had her shoulders stooping and her face pulled taut with tension.
    He looked at Leah where she sat on the bed next to the open suitcase, taking things out as quickly as Mom put them in. Loving Leah made him wonder if Charlie had ever felt anything for any of them. Declan couldn’t imagine picking anything over her.
    Not sure what to say or how to break through the impasse, he tried a simple question. “You’re really going?”
    His mom smiled then with only a twinge of sadness at the edges. “Not from Sweetwater. Just out of this house.”
    “Is there really a difference?” Declan could feel her pulling away. When she let them each go as teens, sending them into the world, she’d taken a huge step back. She didn’t hover or interfere. It was a sharp break between childhood and adulthood, but he guessed it might have been the only way for her to let go of him and Beck after losing Callen so many years before.
    Leah made a grumbling sound. “She’ll be five minutes away.”
    The argument made perfect sense, but Declan couldn’t silence the nagging doubts floating through his head. This felt like one more break to him, another way for his mom to let distance do the healing. A theory she seemed to believe in and he rejected.
    “Yes.” She brushed a hand over his hair as she’d been doing since he was a kid. “Callen needs some space. You all need some space.”
    Declan touched the back of her hand. “No one is asking for that, Mom.” In fact, he was desperate to keep her close, fearing that even a mile or two would widen the gulf between her and Callen to an irreparable distance.
    “I do have to admit I like having you here.” Leah picked up one of his mother’s scarves, a muted blue and brown, classy and subtle, like she was, and folded it. “Kind of evens out the testosterone.”
    His mom dropped her hand and winked at Leah before returning to emptying the drawers of the dresser. “From what I’ve seen, you handle my bossy boys just fine without me.”
    He closed his eyes for a second, beating back the words, but they came out anyway. “Maybe it’s easier for you to go. Is that the real reason?”
    “Declan.” Leah hit each syllable with a smack. Looked like she wanted to go after him next.
    He shrugged. “It’s a fair question.”
    With a shirt dangling from her fingers, his mom stopped and stood there, her back highlighted in the mirror above the dresser and her face pale. “Was it a question? It sounded more like an accusation.”
    “He has every right to be a mess.” Declan didn’t have to name names. They all knew he meant Callen.
    “I know that, Declan.”
    She hadn’t used his middle name yet. That meant that, while he might be on the verge of making her furious, he was not quite there yet. “Explain it to me. Can you do that?”
    Leah eyed him with a the-lecture-will-come-later glare. “Now isn’t the time.”
    “I want to understand.” They’d all lived through so much—absentee father and husband, no food, evictions—and for Declan, the waffling from high intensity and dragging loss while on deployment overseas.
    Through it all, Mom had been a constant. Imperfect but decent and hardworking, with a bone-deep love for her sons, even the one she’d let go with Charlie. But her keeping this secret for all those years tarnished some of Declan’s belief in her, and he