Family Tree

Fletcher Wyndham hadn’t been Caroline’s favorite, back when he’d been Annie’s boyfriend. Caroline hadn’t seen the potential there. All she’d seen was an obstacle to her daughter’s future. In the eyes of a mother wanting a glorious future for her child, he was merely the son of a drifter, a kid who would probably stagnate in his blue-collar job at the garage, drink beer, and play the lottery, eventually turning soft and directionless in middle age.

Looking at him now, she felt shame and regret. She wished she had looked deeper and seen an extraordinary young man. The fact was, she hadn’t looked at all. Her problem with Fletcher Wyndham had nothing to do with Fletcher Wyndham. Or with Annie, for that matter. It was Caroline who was the problem.

Enough with this Fletcher kid, Caroline had said to Annie, when her daughter was teetering on the verge of changing her mind about college. Now Caroline had to admit to herself that what she was really saying was Enough with this Ethan Lickenfelt.

Oh, she had loved that boy in his boxy white grocery truck. She’d been naive enough to believe that loving him would be enough to create a life of blissful perfection, no matter what. At eighteen, she hadn’t understood that frustration and hardship had the power to corrode even the deepest love and thwart the most yearned-for dreams.

The divide between the life Ethan wanted and the one he’d found on Rush Mountain had ruined their marriage. They were both committed to their kids and their family, but ultimately, the strain took its toll. There were only so many lies a person could tell herself before she had to let in the truth.

“Mrs. Rush?” Fletcher’s voice broke into her thoughts.

She wasn’t Mrs. Rush. She wasn’t Mrs. anything. “Please call me Caroline.”

“Caroline. I was just wondering what you thought.”

“Sorry, I wasn’t listening,” she confessed.

“This must be really stressful for you,” he said.

“Yes … but it’s not just that. I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

He frowned. “For what?”

She sighed and pushed the plate of cookies toward him. “It’s a long-overdue apology. Really long, Fletcher, and it’s awful that I haven’t said anything until now. But I want you to know, I was wrong about you, back when you first moved to Switchback. A lot of people were wrong about you.”

He gave a quick, slightly crooked smile. One thing Caroline had not been wrong about—the boy was stunningly good-looking. But that had been part of her problem with Fletcher. How could a guy that gorgeous possibly be trusted?

“Don’t feel bad,” he said to her. “Now that I have a kid of my own, I get how protective a parent feels.”

“Thank you, but that’s no excuse. I never bothered to know you, and that wasn’t fair.”

“I imagine you were more concerned with Annie. Besides, I was probably a little shit, anyway. The longer I work at court, the more I’m convinced that most guys are at that age.”

“When I think of the role I played in keeping you apart, I feel ashamed. None of this would have happened if I’d left the two of you alone.”

“Believe me, you weren’t the cause of our breakup—not the first time, or the second. Annie and I managed to screw things up on our own.”

“Good of you to say. But that Martin Harlow. He ought to be strung up by the balls.”

“I can’t help you with that,” he said.

“He brought her here from L.A. via medical transport, as if she were a piece of defective merchandise, can you imagine?”

“I … no. I can’t.”

“I’m grateful she’s here, though. She needs her family. Now more than ever. Her care team says it could be weeks or months before she can come home, but you know Annie. When she sets her mind to something, nothing can stop her.”

He nodded. “That’s the Annie I knew.”

They were quiet, sipping the last of their coffee. Caroline offered a refill, but he shook his head.

“I heard about your divorce,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“This might be stating the obvious, but I’ll say it anyway—it happens to the best of us.”

“After my divorce, people told me I should look at it as a chance to learn and grow.” Have I done that? she wondered. Some days, she wasn’t so sure. “It’s a big change, I know. How’s your little boy?”

“Teddy’s fantastic. Confused about the situation, but I’m keeping things as stable as I can for him. Bought a place on Henley Street—the old Webster house. The remodel was a major project. Teddy likes being close to school.”

Caroline felt another wave of regret. Fletcher seemed like a good man. Why had she never bothered to get to know him? “And what about you? Do you like it?”

He grinned. “After doing all that remodeling, I’m never moving.”

8 (#ulink_cc91e31c-158e-5cd3-bfec-49443c23bd8b)

Then

We’re moving,” said Fletcher’s dad, dropping a bomb into the middle of his senior year of high school.

“Again?” Fletcher set aside his civics textbook and glared up at his father. The TV was blaring the news that never seemed to cease—the whole country was trying to figure out how to wage war against a terrorist group called the Taliban. Last September 11, the world had been turned inside out by the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. A couple of Fletcher’s buddies had already made commitments to enlist in the military as soon as school ended. Now, with his father’s sudden announcement, Fletcher contemplated enlisting. “I’m not going with you,” he stated.

“You don’t have a choice. I need you, son. And you’re gonna love this,” Dad said, his eyes lighting the way they did when he was convinced he was onto something.

Fletcher wasn’t convinced of anything. He glared at the TV, which showed soldiers being moved around the desert in lumbering transport vehicles. “When?” he demanded.

“After Christmas break.”

“Shit, Dad.” He looked around the little bungalow. Same shabby furniture they had schlepped from place to place, different house. He’d been okay with living in Dover, where they’d been since last summer. School here didn’t suck. He was looking at the home stretch toward graduation and thinking about what to do after. “Shit,” he said again.