Wilde realized that he was holding his breath.
“The vile man starts to beat me. He broke my jaw. I can still feel it crack some days. He kept pounding on me and demanded to know where you were. I told him I lost you in the woods. I told him to keep looking for you because you ran ahead of me. Anything—anything—to keep them from going back to that house. I don’t know how long they had me. I passed out. At some point, your father and the marshals showed up. The vile man and his henchmen ran. I remember your father wrapping his arms around me. The marshals wanted to take me to the hospital, but I said no, that I needed to get back to the house, to get back to you…”
Sofia Carter just shook her head. The tears started flowing.
“We searched for you. But you were gone. The vile man started burning the world down to find us. The marshals said we had to go now.” She looked at Wilde, and his heart broke. “The marshals took us away. I let them in the end. We were given new identities and relocated. You know this. We had daughters of our own. It’s the weird part of the human condition. We are forced to go on. What else can we do?”
Now the tears started coming down harder.
“But I abandoned my son. I should have stayed. I should have kept combing through the woods looking for you. I should have done it for weeks or months or years. My baby boy was alone, lost in the woods, and I gave up looking for him. I should have found you. I should have rescued—”
And then Wilde moved toward her, shaking his head, and let her fall into his arms.
“It’s okay,” he whispered.
Through her sobs, she kept repeating, “I should have saved you.”
“It’s okay,” Wilde said, holding her closer to him. Then: “It’s okay, Mom.”
And when Sofia heard the word “Mom,” she sobbed even louder.
Chapter
Forty-Three
Oren worked the barbecue because that was the kind of guy he was. Laila was in the kitchen. Wilde sat on an Adirondack chair in the back with Hester. They looked out into the woods from the backyard of the house that Hester and Ira built over forty years ago.
Hester drank a white Chablis. Wilde had an Asbury Park Brewery ale.
“So now you know,” she said.
“Most of it.”
“What?”
“Some of what she said—there were holes.”
“Like?”
He and his mother had talked more, but suddenly George Kissell was there telling them time was up. The danger, he said, was still real. Wilde wasn’t sure how much he bought that, or if he bought that when that little boy was found in the woods, his parents didn’t hear about it or put it together.
“It doesn’t matter,” Wilde said. “We know the important stuff.”
“Your mother abandoned you to save you,” Hester said.
“Yes.”
“That’s all that really matters.”
Wilde nodded and handed her an old Polaroid. Hester took it, put on her reading glasses, studied it. The colors in the photo had saturated with age.
“Looks like a dance floor at an old wedding.”
Wilde nodded. “Silas found tons of old photos his mother had stored in the basement. A lot were water damaged, but I went through them all. This one is from the early seventies.”
“Okay.”
“See the girl in the back by the drums?”
Hester squinted. “There are three girls in the back by the drums.”
“The one with the green dress and ponytail.”
Hester found her. “Yes.” Then: “Wait, that’s…？”
“Mom, yep.”
“Did Silas know who she was?”
Wilde shook his head. “No recollection of her. The wedding would have happened before he was even born.”
Hester handed him the photograph. She closed her eyes and tilted her face toward the sun.
“You’re spending more time here, aren’t you?” Hester asked.
Laila came out back with a large empty platter. Oren started moving a tremendous amount of food off the grill and onto it.
Oren shouted, “Hope you’re hungry.”
Hester looked back at both of them and waved. “We both did good.”
“Outkicked our coverage,” Wilde agreed. “I love her.”
“I know.” She put her hand on his arm. “It’s okay. He would be happy about it.”
They sat back now. Wilde closed his eyes and worked up his courage.
“I have something I want to ask you,” Wilde said.
But before he could go on, he heard Matthew from behind him. “Yo, Wilde, holy crap, you have to see this.”