Noah talked constantly.
Rick barely touched his grilled cheese.
When Noah stepped away, I reached into my pocket.
I placed Chompy on the table.
Rick’s face went white.
“Where did you find him?”
He told me Noah had been crying every night because their mother said Chompy was gone forever.
“I found him in Mom’s car.”
Rick’s lip started trembling.
I kept my voice gentle.
“You’re not in trouble. Neither is Noah. But I need you to tell me what happened.”
Rick looked around.
Then whispered,
“Brent said we couldn’t tell.”
He said Brent warned him that if he talked, I would get angry and stop being allowed to see them.
I felt my hands shake.
“That isn’t true. Nothing you tell me will ever make me stop seeing you.”
And then my eight-year-old told me everything.
There had been a party.
Adults were drinking.
The boys had been downstairs watching movies.
After one in the morning, Laura woke them.
Brent had been drinking.
Rick remembered the bottle.
He remembered Laura telling Brent to stop.
He remembered Brent laughing and insisting he had driven the lake road a million times.
Then the car started going too fast.
Noah became frightened.
The Mercedes left the road.
There was a huge impact.
They hit a mailbox.
Then a silver car parked in a driveway.
Someone inside the house turned on a light.
Brent backed up.
And drove away.
“Did anyone get hurt?”
Rick told me Noah’s booster seat broke and he hit his face against the door.
His lip bled.
Laura told the boys that if anyone asked, Noah had fallen from the swings.
I remembered the scab.
I remembered believing her.
Then Noah returned to the table.
He saw Chompy.
The scream he made was pure joy.
He ran across the diner, hugged that tiny dinosaur against his face, laughed and cried at the same time.
I picked him up.
Rick looked at me.
“Dad, are you mad?”
“Not at you.”
I got them home exactly on time.
When Laura opened the door and saw Chompy in Noah’s hands, her face changed.
“Where did he get that?”
“Found it.”
“In the shop.”
She looked at me.
I looked at her.
Neither of us said anything else.
The next morning, I called an old friend.
Denise Okafor.
We had been in shop class together in high school.
