The Stranger

by Harlan Coben

Adam tried to pay attention, but it was like all sound was traveling through the auditory equivalent of a blurry shower door.

The grade’s head coach was named Bob Baime, but Adam always thought of him as Gaston, the animated character from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast movie. Bob was a big puff pastry of a man with the kind of bright smile you find only on the dim.

Thomas spotted something in his father’s face. He made a face of his own and did that teenage tumble-walk-clump down the stairs, as though some invisible hand had pushed him from behind and his feet were trying to catch up.

He stared at Ryan and felt that overwhelming feeling he sometimes got when he looked at his boys—part pure joy, part fear of what could happen to them in this cruel world, part wishes and hopes, all blended together in the only thing in this entire planet that felt completely pure. Corny, yes, but there you go. Purity. That was what hit you when you get lost looking at your own child—a purity that could be derived only from true, unconditional love.

When you listen to your gut, you are often just fooled with greater certainty.

Adam tried not to react. He knew that the Internet catered to every peccadillo and taste, even ones that defied the imagination, but the fact that there was an entire website based on faking a pregnancy was yet another one of the moments when a rational human being just wants to surrender and cry and admit that our worst instincts have won.

Dreams are fragile. Dreams don’t last. One day you wake up and poof, the dream is gone. You stir and feel it pull away from you as you helplessly grab at the smoky remnants. But it’s useless. The dream dissolves, gone forever.