“Your mom can’t know I wasn’t there.”
Jasper lowered his voice. “We’ll tell her when the time is right. And when that happens, we don’t need your mom making assumptions because of this accident.”
“But… I was the one who tried doing that trick,” Howard said, his voice rising slightly. “Kelly wasn’t even watching me when I did it. She was inside, fetching her phone.”
Kelly stepped closer to the bed. “I was inside for a few seconds. You were fine. You should’ve been fine.”
“We’ll tell her when the time is right.”
Jasper waved his hands as if to dismiss the whole thing. “This is exactly what we’re trying to avoid, kiddo. We’re keeping things simple. That means you don’t say I wasn’t there. You don’t say Kelly stepped inside for a few minutes. And you don’t say you were trying a trick. Okay? We stick to the story.”
I felt dizzy, like the room was spinning.
He wasn’t even there. He left our son with a woman I didn’t even know existed, and now they were coaching a ten-year-old to lie so they could protect themselves.
“We’re keeping things simple.”
“Okay,” Howard whispered.
Jasper stood and patted Howard’s shoulder. “Get some sleep, champ.”
Kelly leaned over and gave a tight smile. “You’re very brave.”
They walked out of the room together, and the screen went back to showing my son, alone and burdened with a secret he never should have had to carry.
The security guard beside me shifted. “You want me to save that clip?”
“Yes, I do.”
They walked out of the room together.
The charge nurse was waiting near the elevators. “You saw?”
I nodded. “He lied to my face.”
Her expression hardened. “We’ll notify the social worker.”
