Nostalgia crosses Tess's features in a painful grin. "No matter how much Gavin loved us, and I know he did, he wasn't fulfilled. He had a serious need to do more with his life. Working at the mill in Brandon and cutting trees was a job that got us by month to month, and eventually we bought a house." She motions around the shabby-chic decorated bungalow. She could star on an HGTV special with the treasures she finds at flea markets and refurbishes to sell at the shop on Fourth Street. "But Gavin let his dream go because I wanted to get married. He buried it further when the kids were born, and yet it clawed its way to the surface when those planes crashed into the World Trade Center."
My heart stops as understanding sinks in. "He enlisted," I whisper.
Tess nods as a tear slips beyond her lid. "It's what he wanted to do when we graduated high school, and I begged him not to. I got down on my knees and pleaded with him not to do it. And because he loved me so much, he stayed. My God." Flicking the tears from her cheeks with her fingers even as they keep falling, she sinks down into the armchair next to me. "You'd think it happened yesterday by the way I'm acting."
I reach over to take her hand in mine and squeeze. "At fourteen, Cara couldn't understand why he had to go. She felt abandoned because Gavin had made a choice and it wasn't her.
"Caden blamed me for a while. He thought I should have let him go when he wanted to, and that Gavin only stayed because he had kids. Cade felt he'd been the burden holding his father from really living. Gavin tried to explain his need to serve. Cara didn't get it, but Caden did. Then Gavin was gone and he . . ." Tess swallows the last part of her sentence, and coffee sours my stomach.
"He died," I say, but she shrugs.
"Gavin went missing over ten years ago. He never came home, and the government stopped looking. Presumed dead, they say."
"You think he's alive?" I ask, failing to keep my astonished tone from rising. JT stirs beside me, as does Gus, and I work to settle them both with a soothing hand.
Her eyes well up again. "I don't know. I just feel like he's not gone."
Oh my God. "This is why Caden left after high school. Leah wanted more, and he-"
"Had the same dream as his father. He didn't want to repeat what he felt was his father's mistake." My pulse speeds. It all makes sense now, last night and then his withdrawal from me today. "He's going back."
"Maybe, but maybe not. Losing Justin pushed him to the edge. But since he came home, he's grown so much. He feels a lot for you and JT. More than he has for anyone." Tess glances at the sleeping baby and smiles, but it's short-lived. Looking back to me, she sniffs. "He's never told me this, but I secretly think he's been looking for Gavin for the last twelve years. That's been his driving force, because he didn't have a family to worry about. Now everything has changed, and it's compounded in his mind. Give him time, Piper. Caden is a good man who's seen and lost too much in his thirty years. He needs patience and love to get him to the other side of whatever's going on in his head."
I nod, but the painful truth stabs into my heart. If what Tess believes is true, Caden's need to find his dad is strong. Maybe stronger than the tentative bonds holding us together, and I don't know what that means for me.
JT coughs, distracting me into a new set of worries. He's sick. It's time to call it a night, and after hugging Tess for a long moment, I pack up and head home.
JT WON'T SLEEP. Red-faced and agitated, he cries and coughs. I rock him, I feed him, I bounce and then change him. Gus paces back and forth, looking out the door every five minutes. JT coughs some more, and a green discharge comes with it. I leave a message with the doctor's answering service. We repeat the cycle.
The second-worst night of my life never ends. At two in the morning, Caden remains missing in action. Like his father?
I stop thinking about Gavin when JT spikes a fever. I call the physician's urgent care line. JT's pediatrician is calm to my frantic and rushed review of the thermometer: one hundred and one. Her advice to administer ibuprofen and a cool bath, and bring him to the office in the morning does little to alleviate my growing anxiety. I pace with JT, bouncing and singing until my arms ache and my throat is raw. Cool compresses and medication do little to decrease the heat radiating from his little body. At four, he hits one hundred and two, and his chest rattles. It fucking rattles like a toy and I call again, screeching my fear through the phone.