Free Finding Their Son by Debra Salonen Page A

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    “Really? I figured you’d be a great dad.”
    He nearly choked on the swallow of soup that was halfway down his throat. He hadn’t realized he’d voiced the thought out loud.
    “What are you—a mind reader? Do those funny streaks of color hide your antennae?”
    She laughed and wiggled her index fingers upward through her hair. “Like in My Favorite Martian? I used to watch reruns on Friday night. While you were making the All-State Boys’ Basketball team.”
    “For all the good it did me,” he muttered under his breath. He knew she was close enough to hear, so he quickly asked, “How come you weren’t at the games?”
    “I was. Sometimes. If Mom was seeing somebody halfway decent. But when she was alone…well, weekends were tricky. Sobriety-wise, Fridays were the worst day of the week.”
    He didn’t need her to explain. His father had only remained sober during basketball season because he had such high hopes for Eli. Once those hopes were squashed, Dad went back to his usual pattern: work, drink, tear down everything you spent the week building, pass out, promise to do better, work, drink…et cetera, et cetera.
    Neither spoke for a few minutes, then Char straightened and folded her hands on the table in front of her. He studied her hands. Short nails. No polish. Three, handcrafted rings—two with stones, one plain. All pretty and delicate on her strong, resourceful-looking fingers.
    “I suppose I should fill in the blanks about what happened,” she said. “That journal you were reading ended with me admitting I was pregnant. What came next…” Her voice trailed off a moment, then she added, faking a smile, “Is in another book. Black cover. For obvious reasons.”
    He wiped his mouth with the napkin and pushed the bowl aside. Easing back against the chair, he said, “Okay. Tell me what happened. But make it the truth. I’m a cop. I can tell when someone’s lying.” He wished. He’d neveronce suspected his wife had been keeping a life-altering secret from him all these years.
    “I told you before,” she said stiffly, her small, pointed chin lifting. “I don’t lie.”
    Their gazes met and held. He believed her. “Go on.”
    “You read the passage about what happened the night you came to my aunt’s. I didn’t plan it. Obviously.”
    He believed that. “You acted on impulse. I get that. What I don’t get is why?”
    “I was fifteen. Kids that age do dumb things without thinking about the repercussions.”
    Fifteen. Micah was fifteen. “Why me?”
    “I had a crush on you. I don’t know why, but I sorta built up this fantasy about you and me. If you read any of my earlier diaries, you’d see your name mentioned quite often. So when you showed up out of the blue that night…Well, I guess you could say I took advantage of you.”
    He hadn’t heard anyone use that phrase in a long time. His ego wasn’t wild about the idea that anyone could have used him, although that summed up what Bobbi did.
    “It was a dumb thing to do, I know,” she said. “But…” She took a breath and slowly let it out. His gaze was drawn to her chest.
    Damn. He’d held those breasts in his hands and didn’t remember? What the hell was wrong with him?
    She pounded her fist on the table to get his attention. Eli was ashamed but he wasn’t going to apologize. “I’m trying to remember.”
    “Well, don’t. It wasn’t that great. You were drunk. I was a virgin. It was over…fast. And you took off when I got up to go to the bathroom. Some bloody bandages were all that was left behind. I burned those in the incineratorbehind the house and never told anyone what happened between us.”
    He wondered if she burned the sheet, too. Had it contained a smear of her virgin blood? A sadness he didn’t want to feel passed over him.
    “I read about your wedding in the paper. They described the whole thing. Right down to the kind of flower in the lapel of your tux.” Which she’d cut out and pasted into