Temporary Father (Welcome To Honesty 1) by Anna Adams Page B

have given forth with the “1812 Overture” as she dragged the groceries out of her trunk. She hummed instead.
    “Beth, I have to talk to you.”
    She banged her head into the trunk lid. “Aidan— I didn’t know you were there.”
    “Now.”
    His pale face scared her. “Are you in trouble?”
    “Can we go inside?” He reached for her bags, but she drew back.
    “You can’t carry this. I’ll call the doctor.”
    “Listen to me.”
    “Where do you hurt?”
    “It’s Eli.”
    His tone, totally disengaged, cut straight through her. The bags slipped out of her hands.
    Aidan picked up her stuff with robotic determination. “Don’t let him see you like this. You have to get him help before he knows you know.”
    “What’s wrong? Stop fooling with those things and tell me where my son is.”
    As if she were standing outside herself, she wondered at her shrill tone. Aidan kept scooping up the groceries she’d dropped, and then he coaxed her up the porch steps.
    He set the groceries on a table in the hall, not noticing when a can of dog food rolled across the cherry surface. He chose an open door and pulled her through, shutting it behind them.
    “He’s not hurt right now,” Aidan said. He let her go and she tried to push past him. His face darkened. “Not physically.”
    Aidan took her elbows and eased her into a chair. They were in the living room.
    She stared at him, half her mind on murder. If she could only get all her body parts working at once. “Where’s Eli?”
    “I have to tell you some things.”
    “You look terrible. Something’s wrong with you.” Something besides a cruel streak.
    “I was walking in the woods and I heard Eli talking to Lucy.” He explained what Eli had said, but she seemed to hear him on a weird delay, where she understood him about five words after he’d spoken.
    “You can’t be right.”
    “I know how you feel. You’re tempted to let it go because pretending your son can get better on his own is less frightening than looking a possible suicide in the eye.”
    She refused to acknowledge that word. “Kids say crazy things when their pets are hurt.”
    “You’re afraid for him. I’ve felt it since the first time I saw you together.”
    No one looked that somber without reason. She stood, angry that he should read her mind. “Do you get off on saving the day?”
    “I was waiting for you to say something like that. Listen to me. I’ve been through all the stages.”
    Fear chilled her. She burrowed into the soft leather chair.
    “You want to think I’m wrong because you should have seen if your son was in trouble, and I don’t know you well enough to drive when you rush your dog to the vet.”
    “I hope you’re a raving lunatic.”
    “I feel your fear for Eli.”
    She tried to lick her lips. She couldn’t. Her mouth had gone completely dry.
    “You can’t put your finger on it. You’ve talked to him, but he acts as if you’re the one with the problem.”
    “You’ve been eavesdropping—are you a peeping tom?”
    “My wife, Madeline, killed herself a little over a year ago.”
    “No,” Beth said. “I knew she died, but—”
    Aidan came closer. His body warmth reached out to her. All her blood must have drained somewhere. “I tried to help her, but she thought I was her problem—that I used the doctors and hospitals to get her out of the way.”
    “Aidan, you must be seeing things.” No wonder his features looked honed by every second he’d lived. “That doesn’t mean my son—”
    “You’re absolutely right.” He knelt in front of her. “Prove me wrong. Take him to a doctor. Force him to talk. Lock him in a room where he can’t hurt himself, but make sure.”
    Her errant blood rushed back into her brain. She leaned over to still the spinning room.
    “I don’t want you to live as I do, wishing I’d left Madeline no choice but to get well.” Stumbling like a sleepwalker, he went into the hall.
    He couldn’t be right. It was his guilt