Those contradictions troubled the boy more as he grew older. At thirteen, he came home from the garage after overhearing a heated argument among two members about an incident in another town. He asked Sarah whether loving Silas meant he had to agree with everything the man had done. Sarah set down her knitting and told him the question mattered more than most of the answers adults gave about loyalty.
"No," she said. "You can love your uncle and refuse choices you believe are wrong. You can be grateful for what someone did for you and still tell the truth about the rest. That's the freedom your father wanted for you, and I won't let gratitude take it away."
Toby brought the conversation to Silas the next afternoon. His uncle listened without interrupting, though the boy's questions were more direct now than they had been at ten. Toby wanted to know whether the club still did things that frightened people and whether Silas ever regretted being part of it. The questions were difficult, but Silas answered as honestly as he could without turning an adolescent into the keeper of adult confessions.
"Yes, I've regretted things," he said. "And yes, there are people who see my vest and have good reasons to be afraid, whether I like admitting it or not. I'm trying to be better about what I choose now, but you don't owe this club anything because you know me. You get to decide what kind of man you want to be."
Toby considered that answer for a long time. Then he asked if being a Harris instead of a Cole meant he was rejecting his father. Silas shook his head. "Your father picked Harris because he wanted a future he could live in," he said. "Every time you answer to that name, you're living some of the future he hoped to give you. You don't have to change it to honor him."
The words stayed with Toby through the awkward middle years, when his body grew faster than his confidence and everything about his family seemed different from the families he saw on television. Sarah's illness meant he sometimes missed school events, and Silas's reputation meant teachers occasionally looked wary when his uncle arrived to pick him up. Toby learned to introduce Silas as family and stop there unless someone had a good reason to ask more. It became an important distinction, the difference between explaining who you were and apologizing for it.
Sarah survived several difficult winters, each one requiring more care than the last. There were hospital visits and new medication discussions, days when she was discouraged, and others when she insisted on sitting outside simply to feel the sun. Her illness did not disappear because a bank was paid or because an uncle had found his nephew. But the practical support around her meant that she no longer faced every appointment, bill, and frightening night by herself.
Mrs. Alvarez remained part of that support, as did Louise Navarro and the clinic staff who knew Sarah well enough to recognize her humor beneath the fatigue. Toby grew more comfortable asking them questions instead of secretly searching for answers in old library books. When Sarah was having a difficult day, he learned to call an adult rather than assuming he could solve everything with enough determination. It was a lesson that had to be relearned many times.