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would open doors rather than close them. She had hoped, naively, that the name would protect him, that it would give him a chance at the life she had never been able to have. But promises, she had learned, were easier made than kept. Now, eight years later, she stood at the edge of a different town, a small place called Willow Creek, holding her son s hand and wondering if she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life. The Greyhound bus that had brought them here had long since disappeared, its diesel fumes dissipating into the cold winter air, its rattle and hum fading into the distance. The sun was beginning its slow descent toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold, casting long shadows across the frozen ground. "Where are we going, Mama?" William asked, his voice small and tired, his small hand clutching hers so tightly that his knuckles were white. Ruth looked down at her son, at his pale hair and his winter blue eyes, at the face that was so much like his father s. She felt a surge of love so powerful it almost brought her to her knees, a love that was fierce and protective and all consuming. This boy was her whole world, her reason for living, her only source of hope in a world that had given her nothing but pain. "Just a little further, baby," she said, squeezing his hand. "Just a little further." She had heard about this town from a woman she had met on the bus, a kind old woman with a face like wrinkled parchment and eyes that sparkled with knowing. The woman had told her that Willow Creek was a place where people could start over, a place where the past didn t follow you, a place where you could be whoever you wanted to be. The woman had said it with a knowing look, as if she understood that Ruth was running from something, that Ruth was carrying secrets of her own. Ruth had been too tired, too scared, to ask what the woman meant. She had simply nodded and thanked her and hoped that the woman was right. Now, as she walked through the streets of Willow Creek, she wasn t sure if the woman had been right at all. The town was small, smaller than she had expected, a cluster of buildings that seemed to have been forgotten by time. There was a grocery store with a faded sign, a diner with a flickering neon sign that promised "Good Eats," a barber shop with a red and white pole that hadn t been painted in years, and a church with a white clapboard steeple that rose above the treetops like a silent prayer. It was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone else, where secrets were hard to keep, where a woman with a child and no husband would be noticed. She had been running for so long that she had forgotten what it felt like to stop. She led William to the edge of town, where the paved road gave way to a dirt track that wound into the dense pine forest. The trees loomed dark and forbidding, their branches reaching out like skeletal fingers, their shadows stretching across the path like warnings. She knew what she had to do, had known it for weeks, had been planning it and dreading it in equal measure. It was the only way, the only chance she could give her son. "William," she said, kneeling down