Evie knew, of course. She’d known a lot even before he told her all of it, on that night he’d come undone by Dash’s trust and Evie’s gentleness. He’d signed good night to Dash, returning the boy’s hug, something that had become natural for Manus after months of it being more one-way, and waited while the boy climbed into the loft the two of them had built together. Evie watched, smiling, then walked to the loft, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed her son good night. She’d followed Manus out, turning off the light and closing the door behind them.
There was a chair in her small bedroom, and Manus sank into it, staring at the floor, gripped by a sadness he couldn’t name, as though he was grieving about something that hadn’t even happened.
Evie knelt in front of him and touched his knee. He looked up.
I love the way you are with him, she’d signed. And the way he is with you.
At those words, Manus began to cry. He tried to stop himself, but it only got worse. Evie, her expression alarmed, signed What is it?
You don’t know the things I’ve done.
Yes, I do.
No, you don’t.
And then he’d told her. Told her everything. As though some part of him was trying to warn her, save her, drive her away.
She’d listened. When he was done, when it had all come out of him, she said, You’re not that person anymore.
Then who am I?
You’re the man Dash and I love.
Which dissolved him into another spasm of sobbing.
Evie hadn’t said anything more. She stood, turned off the light, and pulled Manus to the bed. Manus hadn’t understood why—they never turned the lights all the way off. They liked to see each other, and besides, without any light they couldn’t sign and he couldn’t read her lips. But then he realized that was the point, they were done with words. Words didn’t matter.
They made love in the dark, Evie on her back underneath him, and when it was done, he cried again and she held him. They fell asleep in each other’s arms and afterward never spoke of what he’d told her.
After that, there was nothing more important to Manus than being worthy of the way Evie trusted him. Wanted him.
Loved him.
And Dash even more. Both of them had been deaf from childhood—Dash, from meningitis; Manus, from a beating at the hands of his father. But the feeling between them was more than that. The boy’s father had never learned sign. Even before the divorce, Evie had told Manus, the relationship had been strained. Dash needed a father. And Manus . . .
He didn’t know what he needed. Not a son, exactly. But someone . . . someone he could teach the good things he knew. The three of them were living together now, in a modern saltbox Manus had built on land they’d bought near Emmitsburg, in Maryland just south of the Pennsylvania border. Evie was done with NSA. The new director had offered her an early pension, the implicit quid pro quo being that she would forget what she knew about his predecessor’s rogue spying and assassination programs, the former of which had built on Evie’s video surveillance and facial recognition work, and the latter of which had involved Manus. And Evie had taken it, both to signal her agreement to their terms and to discourage them from seeking some other means of obtaining her silence.
Dash had helped build the house—on weekends, holidays, and all during the summer vacation before eighth grade. Manus was proud of how fast Dash had caught on, and how well they’d worked together. And grateful that Evie had entrusted him with making sure Dash knew how to use Manus’s tools safely. Once, when Dash was running a length of plywood through the table saw, Manus had caught Evie looking on, her arms folded across her chest, her expression worried. He had signed, He’s okay. And she had nodded and signed, I know.
In the end, maybe it didn’t matter what the bond was built on. What mattered was . . . Dash believed in him, in what he wanted to believe about himself. All he knew was that the way Dash looked at him . . . he needed to be what Dash saw.