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I looked at Tyler. He was too young to remember the way Mom laughed when Dad tried to dance with her as she washed the dinner dishes. Too young to remember Dad showing him pictures of buildings and explaining how his sons would know how to hammer in a nail correctly before the age of ten.
And Jacob. Old enough to remember, but too young to fully understand everything he lost. He’d never know the pride of walking in with Mom on parent appreciation night. He’d never know the explosion of joy when Dad told him that he was a natural when he used his first power tool.
They’d never know that they lost the two most amazing people on the face of the planet. They’d never know how the loss had torn me up every single day of my life.
I took a deep breath and tried again. “How would you feel about the two of you living here forever and me just coming to visit?”
MRS. COLLINS RAN THE STOP SIGN at the end of Jacob and Tyler’s street. I sat in my car, alone.
Echo.
I had let her walk away and it wasn’t over custody of my brothers. Mrs. Collins was right. Deep down I’d thought loving her was a betrayal of my parents and my brothers.
But I loved Echo. I needed her. And I was going to win her back.
I turned on the car and the engi