“She’s a firecracker, that one,” said Alvin with undisguised admiration in his voice. “Nothing gets past her. Nothing.”
“He ran off,” said Marston. “So I want it to be his choice whether or not to connect with his mom. I mean, from what I know, it seems like there was a lot going on for her too, maybe none of it pretty. But it should be Kell’s choice. I promise I’ll get her number to him.”
After a pause, Alvin said, “Okay, here’s the number.”
Marston hurriedly switched to speaker, then flipped the screen so he could enter contact information for Mrs. Dodson. Mrs. Janet Dodson of Akron, Ohio.
“Akron?” he asked.
“That’s where she’s from, I guess,” said Alvin. “Listen, I want to thank you for calling this in. I’ll confirm it with Wyoming, but if you could give Kell her number pronto, sooner rather than later, that’d be great.”
“Will do,” said Marston, feeling a little lightheaded as he clicked off the call.
There was no question he had to tell Kell right away, and that he had to support Kell in whatever decision he made. But when he arrived at the mess tent, lunch was underway, and Kell and Wayne were duking it out for the butter to slather on their respective ears of corn on the cob.
Kell was, in fact, in the middle of a table, surrounded on all sides, so Marston got a plate of food and sat at the end of the table.
He was used to being by himself, had gotten a lot of practice over the years. Except now he knew what it felt like to not be alone, so it would be far more painful, a lonely march into the future of being single. Isolated. Bereft.
Then he felt Gabe looking at him, a deep scowl across his forehead, his mouth, and Marston knew he was being stupid again. He owed it to Kell to tell him right away, and though he knew he shouldn’t be worried, he was a little.
Standing to bus his dishes, he jerked his chin at Kell, catching his eye, letting him know they needed to go. As for Kell, he stood up with a smile, said something about needing to get back to work, and followed Marston out to the gravel parking lot.
“We’ll be back in a bit,” Marston told his team-for-a-day, Duane, Tyson, and Wayne, all of whom looked up at him like they were a well-trained, responsive team. “Then we’ll get to work. Here,” he said to Kell, holding out Kell’s cellphone. “I grabbed your phone. It’s all charged. Hold on to it and hop in.”
“Where are we going?” asked Kell as he obediently got in the truck and buckled his seatbelt. “In town?”
“No.”
Marston’s throat closed up so he couldn’t say any more than that, couldn’t explain. This was a necessary errand they were on, and he couldn’t stint his responsibilities. It was up to Kell whether or not he called his mom and, after that, it was up to fate. In which, Marston had very little trust.
Chapter28
Kell
Kell didn’t know where they were headed, other than they drove up the switchbacks, the truck slipping in and out of the pine-scented shadows. At the top of the hill, a long, curved slope marked only by the new-looking cabin that he’d been told was the replica of some old time guy who used to live in it, Marston slowed the truck, pulled off near the cabin, and turned off the engine, which pinged as it cooled.
“So.”
Marston wiped his hands on his thighs, like he was nervous, and his face was white, and a little still. He looked through the windshield rather than at Kell, which made the hairs on the back of Kell’s neck stand up.
“When you left home, they considered you a runaway and a missing person. There was a file on you. I called the Fayetteville police department to let them know you’d been found so they could close the file.”
Kell had not known this, though of course it made sense. His parents would want him found and brought back so they could tear him apart and make him fit their ideal mold of what a son should be. Not gay, for starters.
That Marston had made the call to give the police station the news must have upset him, for he still wasn’t looking at Kell as he got out of the truck, his back to the east as he stared across the tops of the trees at Guipago Ridge, a faded gray in the bright noontime sunshine.
Now Kell got out and went to his side, staring at the ridge alongside him as if that would help him untangle what Marston was trying to say, what he was not saying.
“So what’d they say?” he asked, brushing close in a way he was fast coming to know that Marston adored. Only instead of leaning into it, Marston moved away, an infinitesimal inch, but an inch just the same.
“I spoke to Alvin Roebuck,” said Marston, the words quite careful, as though he’d learned them by rote and didn’t want to get any of them wrong. “He’s the guy in charge of your case, or he was while you were missing, though I expect he’s closed that missing-persons file by now.Andcalled your mom. To let her know.”
Putting his hands in his back pockets, Marston flexed his shoulders and looked down at Kell.
“You should know,” he said, his words almost clinical in their precision. “Your parents got divorced right after you went missing, and your mom’s been looking for you ever since. She looked every day. Hired more than one private eye. Called Roebuck and bugged him all the time. Missed you.” Marston swallowed hard and looked at the ridge again. “She missed you a lot, according to Roebuck. So I’ve got her number if you wanted to call her.”
“And my dad?” Kell asked, the spin in his head making him dizzy. “What about him?”
