But I had never felt anything as sharp as the fear that had me by the throat in that moment, watching another man rise to claim my son in front of the whole town.

“We hadn’t seen each other in fourteen years,” Keegan said into the mic.

“A few months ago, he reached out to me.

He said he wanted a chance to rebuild what we’d lost.”

Warren lifted his hand toward the crowd, ready to be acknowledged.

And then Keegan’s eyes moved off the middle distance and locked, hard and clear, onto mine.

Chapter 13 — The Man Who Stays