Prologue

Daniel was dead.

Phillip Buckley couldn’t believe that his little boy was gone, but that was what the doctors had told him.

Daniel was dead.

He had died despite everything they had gone through to save him.

They had had another child despite only ever wanting a boy and a girl, just to save him.

And now something as stupid as a common cold had killed him after the bone marrow transplant had finally taken.

A transplant they had had to wait for nearly two years for, because the doctors weren’t willing to take bone marrow from a newborn.

Everything they had gone through was for nothing, because his wife couldn’t listen to the instructions of the doctors, leave their sick daughter at home, and disinfect herself thoroughly while visiting their baby boy.

Phillip Buckley was heartbroken that his little boy, his Daniel, was gone. He was also incensed because it had all been for nothing.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars gone down the drain because of disobeyed doctor’s orders and a snotty nose.

And now he hadn’t just lost his beloved heir, he also had a hysterical wife and a heartbroken daughter at home, while having to care for an overexcited toddler and setting up a funeral.

But first, Phillip spent some time sitting at Daniel’s bedside, saying goodbye until the nurses asked him to leave because they had to take Daniel’s mortal remains down to the hospital’s morgue.

Phillip wanted to scream and rant, but knew it wouldn’t help, so he nodded, thanked the nurses for their patience with him and the care they had taken with his beloved son, before leaving as the nurses had asked.

—-

When he arrived at home, the first thing he could hear was his remaining son screaming his head off, likely because he needed a diaper change or was hungry, probably both.

Maddie was nowhere to be seen, and his wife sat on the sofa, theatrically sobbing her heart out—mountains of tissues beside her and dabbing at her eyes—while ignoring the child they had made to save their son.

He knew it wasn’t her fault, at least not fully. She was still suffering from postpartum depression and could barely stand to look at the child without having some very negative emotional reactions, but he expected better from his only daughter.

She knew she was to take care of her brother’s needs when she was at home, but for some reason she was ignoring the screaming toddler.

With an aggravated sigh leaving his lips, Phillip Buckley made his way upstairs to the child’s room, pushing the door open, and the muffled quality of the toddler’s screams changed to that high-pitched quality that made Phillip’s head pound immediately.

“Quit it!” he snapped at the boy who was clinging to the side of his crib, bouncing in place with a grimace.

Phillip approached him and scrunched his nose as the stench of a soiled, unchanged diaper registered with him.

He lifted his living son out of the crib, saw that his diaper was so full it had overflowed, and basically coated the boy’s whole back and legs with shit.

With an aggravated sigh, he carried the dirty boy into the bathroom, stripped the dirty clothes off and hosed him down with the shower head, causing the boy to scream louder because the water was cold at the beginning, and his skin was really tender from being coated in shit and urine for God knows how long.

Phillip didn’t care about any of that, though. He just wished to get rid of the ugly stench. Once the shit washed down the drain, he shut off the water, roughly dried the sobbing boy off, put on a fresh diaper and clean clothes, while listening to the boy’s clumsy attempts to tell him he was hungry and hurt.

Phillip barely cared for either, but knew he should do something about it, so he undid the clothes and diaper again, slathered the angry red skin with that special lotion they bought for their children that helped with diaper rash, before carrying the child downstairs to the kitchen.

He settled him in the high chair and prepared a bowl of oatmeal and cut up a banana, because that was the quickest option of food he had for the boy that he could handle preparing.

He could still hear his wife’s sobs coming from the living room, and he knew asking her to help with the boy they had left wasn’t an option. She would probably lose it fully and try to smother the boy again.

He heard soft footsteps approach the kitchen and turned toward the door when he heard the boy squeal, “Mad, Mad!” from his seat.

His daughter stood in the doorway with puffy, red-rimmed eyes marring her tear-streaked face.

“You’re home, Daddy,” she sniffed and approached him, reaching out for him to hug her.

Phillip stiffened. He wasn’t ready to comfort anyone when he didn’t even know how to handle his own grief. Not even his beloved daughter.

“Madeline,” he said. “Why didn’t you take care of your brother?”

Maddie looked at him in surprise at the reprimand clear in his voice. Her arms fell back to her sides as she stared at him in silence for a few seconds before she burst back into tears, mirroring her mother’s behavior.

“He wouldn’t eat … and he wouldn’t stop screaming, … no matter what I tried. He also wouldn’t stay still for a … for a diaper change … so I took him upstairs to keep him contained … so he wouldn’t bother Mum,” Maddie managed to utter between sobs, glaring at her little brother, who had frozen in his seat, looking at his sister with wide eyes.

Phillip nodded and motioned for her to leave the room. He wasn’t in the mood to take care of both of his children, and his expression seemed to make it clear which child currently had precedence.

—-

Later that evening, once both children were asleep, he tried to talk to his wife about the situation. He asked her about how to handle the funeral and the children, but she just burst into tears again and was no help at all.

It got so bad, Phillip contemplated calling his in-laws to help handle his wife before he realized Margaret would skin him alive if he allowed someone to see her in less than favorable circumstances.

He was on his own when it came to handling this whole mess. She barely took care of their daughter on a good day since their youngest was born, and Phillip knew now that Daniel was gone, things would get worse when it came to the boy.

There was no way he could go back to work and have Maddie go back to school, while leaving Margaret alone with the boy. A nanny wasn’t an option either.

Margaret barely tolerated the last one in their home, and that woman had threatened to call child protective services on them because of Margaret’s untreated postpartum depression, which clearly threatened the well-being of the children.

It had been a mess from start to finish, and Phillip wasn’t willing to revisit such circumstances again for his own mental health.

Since his wife wasn’t up for any type of conversation, Phillip started to make choices about the boy’s future with their family on his own.

Chapter 1

Phillip’s first step was to contain the boy in his bedroom while he handled everything that had to do with Daniel’s funeral and how his darling wife and daughter reacted to it.

Lots of tears and snot were in his immediate future, and he barely managed to keep himself pulled together because, frankly, losing Daniel broke something in him he wasn’t ready for.

No child should leave this mortal coil before their parents, yet here there were, burying their oldest son on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, surrounded by family and friends.

Whenever people asked about their youngest whereabouts, he said he was with a babysitter, when the truth was that he had put the boy in his crib with a bottle full of water and a cut up apple to snack on before locking the door behind him.

He hadn’t been able to face the funeral and keep track of a toddler. It was just too much.

Margaret was still barely able to function in the face of the casket holding their beloved Daniel, and Maddie had been crying ever since she woke up that morning.

Phillip was at his wit’s end, but he knew soon the worst part of it all would be over. They had decided there would be no wake for Daniel at their home. He cited Margaret as being unable to stomach it, and everyone accepted it when faced with a woman who barely managed to string two words together when someone approached her.

The moment they came home that day, Phillip was faced with a screaming toddler again, and he couldn’t take it anymore. The constant reminder of his dead son was right in his face whenever he turned around, and he just couldn’t do it anymore.

He had looked into giving the child up for adoption, but there was no way to do it here in Pittsburgh without drawing a lot of attention, something he didn’t want.

The scrutiny they were already facing because they lost their child to childhood cancer, as people called it, was more than enough. He didn’t need them flapping their yaps over them giving up their remaining son for adoption because they couldn’t bear to look at him.

Without consulting his wife, Phillip quietly packed a diaper bag for the boy and carried it down to their car, walking past her and getting the car seat ready for the one-year-old screaming his head off in his room.

He went back upstairs, cleaned the screaming child up, fed him a bottle because he couldn’t be bothered to prepare a meal for him, and once again changed the boy’s diaper before taking him to the car.

Phillip poked his head back inside, looked at his wife, who sat stone-faced on the sofa in the living room, and informed her, “I’m going for a drive. Don’t know when I’ll be back.”

Margaret just nodded, not gracing him with a verbal answer, but it was enough for him to know she understood. Maddie was nowhere to be seen, so she was likely in her bedroom, but Phillip figured it was for the best.

A clean break without another tearful goodbye would be better for her than allowing her to say goodbye to another brother, who wasn’t supposed to exist in the first place.

Phillip slipped into the car, stared at his sleeping son in the rear-view mirror for a few long minutes before deciding that this was for the best.

He pulled out of his driveway and started an aimless drive into the night to take care of one more obstacle between him and a peaceful future.

—-

Crossing the border into Canada hadn’t been a conscious thought at all. He had just done it after over eight hours in the car and five hundred miles on the road, listening to the boy’s excited babbling in the backseat alternate with the boy being fast asleep.

He had changed his diaper a few times and fed him when required before crossing the border with him asleep.

When asked about what he intended to do in Canada, Phillip replied that he was visiting a friend, which had thankfully been accepted without further questions.

He continued his drive and followed the signs on the highway toward Ottawa, because that felt like the safest thing to do.

Phillip didn’t question his instincts when it came to this. He knew the boy wasn’t safe with their family anymore. Maddie had taken to ignoring him, following their mother’s lead despite being instructed otherwise, and Margaret couldn’t even stand to look at the child, much less handle it.

Phillip himself needed to get back to work, else they would soon start to drown in debt, which wasn’t something he ever wanted to experience. He had seen enough people neck-deep in debt at work, and he wasn’t made for the streets.

So, he decided that getting rid of the child they didn’t want in the first place was for the best. Phillip didn’t want a murder on his conscience, and facing the fallout of giving the child up for adoption publicly wasn’t an option either, so instead, he figured that leaving him at a church or a firehouse or something would be the safest option.

He continued to drive around for a while until he reached the outskirts of Ottawa. Asking for directions toward a firehouse seemed like a bad idea, so he continued with the aimless driving and eventually, he hit pay-dirt.

Phillip saw a firehouse in the distance, and given the time of night, the building was locked up. He parked about a block away, pulled the car seat containing the child and the diaper bag from the car, and carried them toward the building.

As he approached, he realized there were no cameras, which eased some of the nervousness that had been brewing in his gut. He placed the car seat with the sleeping child on the ground, leaned the diaper bag against the side of the seat and tucked the boy’s favorite blanket—a light blue thing with hockey sticks and pucks—around him.

For a moment, he stared at the sleeping boy with the light-blond curls messy on his head, and something akin to regret stirred in his gut, but he shoved the feeling down.

He bussed a gentle kiss on top of the child’s head, pushed the bell next to the Save Haven sign beside the door and headed off into the night, knowing his remaining boy would be safe, no matter what came next.

—-

Phillip drove home, using another border crossing to ensure no one questioned the lack of a child in his backseat, and made his way home to Pittsburgh late the next day.

No one questioned his absence.

He figured it hadn’t even registered with either Maddie or Margaret because both females were burrowed deeply in their grief.

The moment he was home, Phillip began to pack up the rooms his boys had occupied. He couldn’t stand the thought of their belongings lying around.

That was what drew Margaret’s attention. She didn’t question him at all, but joined him in packing everything up.

“Are we going to move?” she questioned.

“If that is what you want,” Phillip offered.

“I don’t think I can stay here … where all the memories are,” Margaret replied.

Phillip nodded.

“I got an offer to work at the Hershey office. It comes with a raise and everything,” Phillip admitted.

“Is it still an option?” Margaret asked, vaguely remembering that it had been a while since Phillip had talked about the offer.

“I will make a couple of calls,” Phillip replied, walking out of Evan’s room.

Just like that, it would be easier to explain the lack of boys in their lives. The people in Hershey wouldn’t even know about them if Phillip had anything to say about it, and he had a lot to say about it.