Chapter 20

Chapter

Twenty

March 25th

10:14 A.M.

Dad was stupid.

It was the first time in his life, Andy had ever thought that about his dad, but it was true.

He had always thought his dad was like a superhero, he was strong, and brave, and he fought bad guys and won. His dad was also lots of fun. They always did stuff together when he wasn't working, and Dad read him stories and tucked him in. Andy always knew his dad was smart enough to answer any question.

Well, he had thought all of that.

Not anymore.

Not since Dad made Elle and Ruthie leave.

Not since Dad wouldn't listen to him. Wouldn't let him call Elle and Ruthie, or go and visit them. Not since Dad didn"t even care that Ruthie didn"t have her ring and she'd be scared, and there was nobody to hold Elle when she had nightmares.

Dad was wrong.

Making them leave wasn't the right thing to do.

His dad kept telling him he had done it for him, but Andy didn"t believe that. Marcia might be the woman who carried her in his tummy before he was born, but that didn"t make her his mom.

Elle was the closest thing to a mom he had ever had, and Dad had made her leave.

It wasn't fair.

Sometimes he hated being a kid. When you were a kid you didn"t get to make choices about your life, someone was always doing it for you cause they thought they knew better.

But Dad didn"t know better this time.

There was something about Marcia that made Andy feel … yucky.

That wasn't the right word, not the grown-up word, but it was how he felt. When he was with Elle he felt safe and warm, he knew she would look after him, knew she would care for him, knew that even though he couldn't always make choices himself that the ones she made would be good.

He didn"t feel that way with Marcia.

When Andy tried to explain that to his dad, Dad had just told him that it was because he didn"t know Marcia, and if he just gave her a chance then he would get to know her and come to love her.

But Daddy was wrong.

Wrong.

And it made Andy mad that his dad wouldn't listen to him and was treating him like a baby who didn"t know anything.

He might only be eight, but Andy wasn't a baby. He was a big boy now, in the third grade, even though he did school at home and not at a school like most other kids his age. He could read, and his writing was real good. He always tried extra hard to make his letters look really clear just like they were in his books. He was good at math, loved numbers, could do his timetables, and division, and addition and subtraction were easy, he even knew fractions and percentages.

If he knew all those things then he could know what he was feeling, too.

"Okay, bud, Marcia's pulling up, I"m going to head out for a while," Dad said.

Andy ignored him and kept on watching cartoons. Only it wasn't so much fun watching them anymore without Ruthie with him. It was his job to protect her, make sure she didn"t get sad or scared, and his dad didn"t understand that. He hated knowing Ruthie might cry and he wouldn't be there to make her laugh instead, or play lots of games with her so she didn"t have time to think about the bad man who had taken her.

"Hey, my favorite son." Dad crouched down beside the couch where Andy was sprawled out. "I love you, you know that right? You understand I"m not trying to hurt you, or Elle and Ruthie. I"m just trying to do what I think is best for you as your father."

"I know what"s best for me, but you won"t listen. You are hurting me, Dad. And you"re hurting Elle and Ruthie, too, and I"m mad at you for that."

Dad sighed and he looked tired. More tired than sometimes when he came home from saving someone. Not even Dad looked happy with his choice to make Elle and Ruthie leave. So if none of them were happy, why couldn't Marcia go away and Elle and Ruthie come home? If Elle and Ruthie were there, Andy would spend time with Marcia if it made his dad happy, but she'd never really be his mom because he already knew he wanted Elle to be his mommy.

Elle would be the best mom in the whole world, she already loved Ruthie so much and Andy wanted a mom to love him that much.

"I know," Dad whispered, standing and kissing the top of Andy's head.

Ignoring Marcia when Dad let her in the door, he kept his attention fixed on the TV. Andy didn"t know why Dad kept insisting on Marcia coming around every day to spend time with him. Didn"t he know that as soon as he walked out the door she barely spoke to him? She didn"t love him, Andy knew that every time he looked at Marcia, it was why he knew she would never really be his mom.

Dad always told him that it was important to know what you wanted in life and to go after it. You had to be brave, had to do what was right, had to make sure you protected those who needed it. You had to be a superhero even if you didn"t have real superpowers like The Hulk.

So that's what Andy was going to do.

He was going to do what was right, he was going to protect Ruthie because that was his job, he just had to be brave to do it.

Leaving the TV on, he climbed off the couch and creeped over to the kitchen door to check that Marcia was inside. She was sitting at the table on her phone just like always so he went upstairs to grab his backpack. This morning when he got dressed, he had put all the things he needed in it, and now he put it on his back and put the superhero ring on his finger.

Ruthie needed this, she needed him and he wasn't going to stay away from her any longer.

If Dad wouldn't take him there then he'd go himself.

Back downstairs, he checked the kitchen again, but Marcia hadn"t moved, hadn"t bothered to check on him or ask him if he wanted to play with her. Yesterday, she didn"t even make him lunch. Daddy was mad when Andy had told him that, but not mad enough to tell Marcia not to come back today or enough to call Elle and ask her and Ruthie to come home.

After he checked out the front window to make sure nobody was out there, Andy opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch.

Success.

Marcia hadn"t stopped him, and his dad wasn't anywhere he could see, so there was no one to stop him as he ran for the trees. This was where he'd lived for almost his whole life, he knew every corner of the woods, he spent all summer and most of the spring and fall playing out there.

So he also knew a tiny little corner where sometimes the cameras didn"t catch and there was a hole he could climb through in the fence.

Didn"t matter if the cameras did see him because he knew his dad would find out as soon as he got home that Andy was gone. All he cared about was that he got to Elle's house before his dad could stop him.

If he could just make Dad and Elle spend some time together, he was sure his dad would remember how much fun the four of them had together, how happy they had been, and then ask Elle and Ruthie to come back home.

It had to work because he didn"t want to feel bad that he wasn't protecting Ruthie like he'd promised her he would, or sad because Elle wasn't there, or angry that his dad wasn't listening to him. He never missed having a mom before Elle came to stay with them. How could he miss something he never had before? But now that he knew how cool it was to have a mom, he wanted Elle back, he loved her, and he knew she loved him, too. He could feel it when she smiled at him, and cooked his favorite dinner, and tucked him into bed at night with a kiss on his forehead.

Andy ran real fast. As fast as he could until he found the spot in the fence he'd noticed last fall. He'd been going to tell his dad about it, but then he'd forgotten all about it and only remembered again when he decided he had to go find Elle.

As he climbed through it, he was glad he'd forgotten because now nothing was going to stop him from going to Elle's house and begging her to come back home. He needed her, and he knew his daddy did, too.