“Does Mom know?”
The man laughed, and it was such a terrible sound. “Sure. Maybe. She knew what was going to happen. Probably has for a while.”
“When are you coming back?”
The man balked, and it looked as if he were breaking down. “Ox. People are going to be mean. You just ignore them. Keep your head down.”
“People aren’t mean. Not always.”
“You’re not going to see me for a while. Maybe a long while.”
“What about the shop?” the boy asked as Gordo made a wounded noise. Ox hushed him gently.
“Gordo doesn’t care.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t regret you. But I regret everything else.”
The boy looked unsure. Scared. “Is this about…?”
“I regret being here,” Ox’s father said. “I can’t take it.”
“Well, that’s okay,” the boy said. “We can fix that.”
“There’s no fixing, Ox.”
But the boy didn’t listen because he was just that: a boy. He said, “Did you charge your phone? Don’t forget to charge your phone so I can call you. I got new math that I don’t understand. Mr. Howse
said I could ask you for help.”
The man’s face twisted. “Don’t you fucking get it?”
The boy in the door flinched. “No.”
“Ox. There’s going to be no math. No phone calls. Don’t make me regret you too.”
“Oh.”
“You have to be a man now. That’s why I’m trying to teach you this stuff. Shit’s gonna get slung on you. You brush it off and keep going.”
“I can be a man,” the boy said.
“I know.”
The boy smiled.
“I have to go.”
“When are you coming back?”
But he was never coming back.
He picked up his suitcase and was gone.
The boy watched the door for a long time.
Ox said, “He was my father. But he didn’t know me. He didn’t know who I was. What I was. And I don’t blame him for that. He wasn’t like me. He wasn’t like my mother. We were stronger than he was. We never ran because we knew if we did, we’d always be looking over our shoulders and wondering what if?” Ox stood slowly. He brushed us off as we tried to pull him back. He went toward the door, watching the boy inside.