He looked out the window at the streetlights going by.

“I want to understand why he left,” he said.

“That’s all.

Understanding why somebody did a thing isn’t the same as saying it was okay.” A pause.

“And I don’t have to hate him to prove how much I love you.”

That last one landed exactly where I’d needed it to and hadn’t known.

For fourteen years I had believed, without ever examining it, that protecting my son meant keeping Warren out of his life completely.

But the boy in the passenger seat wasn’t four anymore.