Chapter 14 - Why Nick Was Afraid to Leave
Nick told everyone he did not want Tennessee.
The social worker assumed he was afraid of change.
Leah assumed he needed more time.
Thomas assumed Nick did not want to leave Atlanta.
Valerie suspected something else.
She asked to speak with him alone in Harbor House’s courtyard.
Nick sat on a picnic table swinging one foot.
“You don’t have to tell me anything.”
“That’s usually what people say before asking.”
Valerie smiled.
“Fair.”
Nick picked at a loose thread on his sleeve.
“Leah’s nice.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
He almost smiled.
“She has a room for me.”
“Also suspicious.”
“She bought the wrong cereal.”
“Unforgivable.”
Nick laughed.
Then the laugh disappeared.
“She has pictures of my mom.”
Valerie waited.
“I forgot her voice.”
That was the real fear.
Not Tennessee.
Memory.
If Nick moved in with Leah, he would enter a home full of evidence that a family existed before everything broke.
Hope could hurt more than hunger when someone had learned not to expect it.
“What if I mess it up?” he whispered.
“You might.”
Nick looked at her sharply.
Valerie shrugged.
“So might Leah.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“It is honest.”
He looked away.
“Families mess things up.”
“Mine did.”
“So did mine.”
Valerie sat beside him.
“The question is what people do after.”
Nick thought for a long time.
Then he said, “What if she sends me back?”
Valerie’s chest tightened.
“I can’t promise she never will.”
His face closed.
“But I can tell you she spent two years trying to find you.”
“That’s not the same as living with me.”
“No.”
Valerie nodded.
“Which is why you get to ask for a plan.”
“What plan?”
“A real one. Therapy. A social worker you can call. Visits first if you need them. Rules you both understand. Food that never gets locked.”
Nick looked at her.
“You can ask adults to put promises in writing?”
“Sometimes that is exactly what writing is for.”
The next meeting with Leah lasted three hours.
Nick brought a notebook.
He asked questions.
What happened if he ran away?
Would she call police?
Would she take his door off the hinges?
Could he keep food in his room?
Would she make him call her Mom?
Leah cried once.
She still answered everything.
No door removal.
Food allowed.
No forced names.
If he ran, she would call for help because she wanted him alive, not because she wanted him punished.
Nick agreed to a weekend visit.
Thomas pretended to be happy about it.
Valerie recognized the performance.
“You’re allowed to hate this.”
Thomas stared at her.
“I don’t hate it.”
“You hate that good news for him means he may leave you.”
Thomas’s eyes filled.
“That sounds selfish.”
“It sounds human.”
He cried then.
Valerie held him.
For years she had rushed to tell Thomas what he should feel.
Be grateful.
Be polite.
Don’t be jealous.
Don’t make a scene.
Now she simply let the feeling exist without becoming a verdict on his character.
The weekend before Nick’s visit, Daniel’s financial case shifted again.
Jenna signed a cooperation agreement.
She admitted altering documents after Valerie signed them.
She admitted helping Daniel move money.
She admitted the affair.
Then she made one claim prosecutors had not expected.
The physical violence against Thomas was not the first time Daniel used intimidation.
According to Jenna, Daniel once threatened her too.
Not with a fist.
With a file.
He had collected private information about her family and threatened to send it to her licensing board if she backed out.
Valerie listened to the statement with complicated disgust.
Jenna had helped destroy her life.
Jenna had also been manipulated.
Two truths.
Neither canceled the other.
Then Jenna gave investigators a password to a cloud archive.
Inside was a video recorded in Daniel’s home office.
The date was six weeks before the garage incident.
Thomas appeared in the background.
Daniel did not know he was there.
On the video, Daniel told Walter something that changed the custody case completely.
“If the kid keeps asking questions, I’ll send him to boarding school until this is done.”
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