It couldn’t be, Frannie told herself, taking several calming breaths. “Your father doesn’t like to fish,” she told him. “And you heard your grandmother say that she doesn’t think he’s living nearby. It’s not him,” she said with a confidence she wasn’t feeling.
“How do you know? This lady said he looked just like the guy on the poster. It could be him, Mom. It could be.” There was a plea in her son’s voice that tore at Frannie’s heart.
“I’m going to call Lois and see what she thinks.” Frannie started to walk out of the room, but Alex stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Auntie Lois doesn’t know about this.”
Frannie frowned. “What do you mean she doesn’t know? She must have given that woman our number…”
Guilt made his eyes dart back and forth nervously.
“Alex, you didn’t put up the posters with our phone number on it, did you?”
She could see by the look on his face, that was exactly what he’d done.
“Alex!”
“I wanted to be the one to get the calls, not Auntie Lois. He’s my father,” he said on a note of frustration.
Frannie pushed an errant curl away from her forehead. “Oh, good grief! Our phone number’s out there for all the world to see?”
“You don’t need to get upset. No one’s even called except for this one lady. And she was really nice, Mom.”
Again, pain knifed through Frannie’s heart. She could see how much Alex wanted this strange woman to be the connection to his father. She closed her eyes momentarily, trying to find the words to tell her son that the man this woman had seen couldn’t possibly be Dennis.
“It can’t be him, Alex,” she began.
“Why not?” he demanded.
Because I don’t want it to be. She pushed aside that thought and said, “I told you. Your father doesn’t know how to fish.”
“Maybe he learned.”
“He hates cold weather. Why would he live in northern Minnesota?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but we need to go find out. Will you take me?”
Frannie stifled a groan. “I wish you’d let me talk to the woman who called and gave you this information.”
“She said she lives in Minneapolis.”
“You should have written down her phone number.”
“You can call her. All you have to do is press star sixty-nine, and you can get it.”
Frannie realized he was right. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Because she’d been too upset over the fact that there was even the tiniest of possibilities that the man spotted along the North Shore might be her ex-husband.
The woman who had phoned Alex was named Margaret, just as he’d said. She was also very nice and helpful, as he’d written on the slip of paper. Only, Frannie soon discovered that Alex hadn’t written those adjectives about the woman who’d phoned. They were the words Margaret had used to describe the man she’d seen at the North Shore.
As well as repeating what Alex had already told Frannie, the woman told her that this man didn’t seem like the type to abandon his kids. By the time the phone call ended, she had told Frannie enough about the man’s personality to convince her it couldn’t have been Dennis.
Frannie knew her ex-husband would have no patience for fishing or for helping a couple of senior citizens change a flat tire on their car—which is what the man had done for Margaret and her husband.
“Are we going to go there?” Alex asked as soon as she’d hung up the phone.
Frannie wanted to again say, “It’s not him,” but she stifled the words. “I’m going to call Lois and see what she thinks.”
Alex groaned. “Do you have to?”
“Yes.” Frannie dialed her sister’s number. As soon as she heard the voice-mail recording, she remembered that her sister was out of town for the weekend. “I forgot. She’s in Chicago and won’t be home until Tuesday.”
“What does that mean? That we have to wait for her to get back before we can do anything?” he asked, obviously hoping that the answer to his question wasn’t yes.
“There’s no point in driving all the way to the North Shore without first investigating whether the possibility exists that it is your father,” Frannie answered patiently. “If—and I say if—there’s a chance it is your father, then it’s up to the authorities to investigate, not us.”
“You mean we’re not going to go?”
Frannie tried not to let the devastation on his face tug on her emotions. It wasn’t easy.
“I’m sorry, but that’s my final word on the subject. We wait until we talk to Auntie Lois before we do anything,” she said firmly.
“Do what?” Emma asked as she entered the kitchen, backpack slung over her shoulder.
“It’s none of your business,” Alex said, stomping out of the room.
“What’s wrong with him? Aren’t we going to the arts festival?” Emma asked.
“Yes, we’re going. Just give me a few minutes,” Frannie replied. “Watch Luke for me, will you?”
Frannie found Alex in his room, lying on his stomach on his bed, his elbows supporting him as he played a video game.
“I know you’re disappointed, Alex, but you don’t need to take it out on Emma.” Her words were met with silence. “Get your stuff together and we’ll go to the arts festival at the park.”
“I don’t want to go,” he grumbled.
Frannie put her hands on her hips. “You wanted to earlier this morning.”
“I changed my mind.”
Frannie could see the stubborn set to his shoulders. If there was one thing she knew about Alex, it was that when he made up his mind about something, he didn’t change it. “Alex, I can’t leave you home alone.”
He sat up then and said, “I’m ten, not two. I’ll keep the door locked and won’t let anybody in. Satisfied?”
She wasn’t. She knew that some parents did leave their kids home alone for short periods of time, but she wasn’t one of them. She didn’t doubt that Alex would be fine on his own for a couple of hours, yet she wasn’t ready to set a precedent. If she left him today, then he’d want to stay home alone the next time she had to go somewhere that was of no interest to him.
“Come on, Mom. I’m almost eleven,” he pleaded. “I’m responsible. Didn’t I prove that to you that time you had the flu and I had to take care of Luke because you couldn’t get out of bed?”
“But I was still in the house.”
“You couldn’t even lift your head off the pillow,” he reminded her. “I did a good job taking care of everything. Even you said so. Please, let me try it just once,” he pleaded. “I won’t answer the door, and if the phone rings I won’t say you’re not here. I’ll say you can’t come to the phone, like I’m supposed to do.”
Frannie could feel her resolve weakening. She knew Alex wouldn’t enjoy the arts festival as much as Emma and Luke would. And then there was that look of devastation on his face when she’d told him they weren’t going to go looking for his father. It tugged at her heart in a way that made her fall