Chapter 3 - THE GREEN DRAWING GARY WANTED GONE
The next morning, Brooke found Ethan sitting on the living-room floor with his crayons.
He had redrawn the picture Gary destroyed.
A house.
Four people.
Brooke.
Ethan.
Melissa.
And a tall man standing beside a green truck.
Brooke recognized the truck immediately.
Lucas still drove the same old Ford he had owned when she was little, although the paint had faded badly.
“Is this why Gary got mad?”
Ethan nodded.
Brooke sat beside him.
“What did he say?”
Ethan looked toward the hallway before answering.
“He said Dad isn’t family.”
Brooke’s stomach tightened.
“Has he said that before?”
Another nod.
“Mom says not to talk about it because everybody fights.”
Not once.
Not yesterday.
A pattern.
Brooke suddenly remembered Ethan’s missing Father’s Day project the previous year.
Gary had said the school lost it.
A birthday card Brooke once found torn inside the outside garbage bin.
The way Melissa changed the subject every time Brooke asked whether Lucas knew where they lived.
Brooke had accepted every explanation because she had been eleven when Lucas disappeared from her daily life.
Children believed adults who told stories confidently enough.
At noon, a county family-services worker named Carla Jennings arrived because Ethan had been present during a domestic disturbance.
Carla did not immediately accuse anyone.
She asked questions.
Who lived in the home?
Who disciplined Ethan?
Had Gary ever used the belt on him?
Ethan said no.
That mattered.
Gary had scared him with it.
He had not struck him.
Then Carla asked whether Ethan had been frightened of Gary before yesterday.
Ethan stared at his crayons.
“Sometimes when I talk about Dad.”
Melissa’s head lifted.
Carla noticed.
So did Brooke.
Later, when Ethan left with a neighbor for a few hours, Brooke confronted her mother.
“You knew Gary was doing this.”
“I knew they argued.”
“He’s nine.”
“Gary gets frustrated.”
“He had a belt.”
“He didn’t hit him.”
Brooke could not believe the defense.
Then Melissa said something worse.
“Your father showing up again has everybody upset.”
Brooke went still.
“Lucas didn’t cause what happened.”
“He has always caused chaos.”
Brooke looked toward Ethan’s green drawing.
For years, every uncomfortable thing connected to Lucas had been described the same way.
Chaos.
Stress.
Danger.
Maybe some of that history was real.
May you like
But Brooke was beginning to wonder how much of it belonged to him.
And how much had been useful to everybody who wanted him gone.
