Chapter 4: Everything I Thought I Knew About That Man
I didn't speak for a long time after that.
The boss brought three cups of coffee nobody asked for and set them on the table.
He went back to the kitchen and pulled the door most of the way closed.
A small kindness.
Evan sat across from me.
Walter sat at the far end of the table with both hands wrapped around his cup, not drinking.
I had spent three years building a clean story in my head about Walter Greer.
Cold man.
Cruel at the worst possible moment.
Someone I never needed to think about again.
The man at the end of the table didn't match that story.
"Why didn't you call me?" I asked him.
"When you got sick.
Why go to a child?"
"I didn't go to him for help." Walter set the cup down.
"I went because I was dying and I wanted to see my son's boy once before I did.
That's all it was supposed to be."
"And then?"
"And then he asked me questions for two hours straight.
About his father.
What he was like as a boy.
What he was afraid of.
What made him laugh." Walter's mouth pressed into a thin line.
"Nobody had asked me those things.
Not once, since Daniel died."
Daniel.
My husband's name, spoken by his father's voice.
I hadn't heard anyone say it like that in three years.
"He told me things," Evan said quietly.
"About Dad.
Things you never told me."
I looked at my son.
"What things?"
"That Dad was scared of birds.
Like, actually scared.
Pigeons, seagulls, all of it." A small, strange smile crossed Evan's face.
"And that he cried at the end of every movie, even the ones he pretended were stupid."
I remembered that.
I had forgotten I remembered it.
"He used to leave the room," I said.
"Pretend he needed water."
"Grandpa said he did the same thing."
Grandpa.
Evan had said it without hesitating.
Like the word had been in his mouth for months, waiting.
I turned to Walter.
"What did you say to him?
That first day outside school.
Word for word."
Walter looked at his hands.
"I said, 'You don't know me, but I'm your grandfather, and I'm sorry it took me this long.' That was it.
I thought he'd walk away."
"He didn't walk away."
"No." Something shifted in the old man's face.
"He said, 'I know who you are.
My dad kept a photo of you in his sock drawer.' "
I stopped breathing.
I knew that photo.
A fishing trip.
Walter and Daniel, younger than I'd ever known either of them.
Daniel had kept it folded in quarters at the back of his drawer.
I found it when I was clearing his things and didn't know what to do with it, so I left it where it was.
Evan had found it.
He had carried that name in his head for three years and never said a word to me.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked him.
"Any of it.
Why keep it secret?"
Evan looked at the table.
"Because of what you said at the funeral."
"What did I say?"
"You said, 'We don't need people who only show up when it's too late.' " He looked up.
"You were talking to Aunt Rena.
But I heard you.
And I thought—" He stopped.
"You thought I meant him."
"I thought if I told you, you'd make me stop seeing him."
I wanted to say he was wrong.
I sat there and tried to find the words, and they didn't come, because I wasn't sure he was wrong.
Walter stood up slowly, like his joints hurt.
"I should go.
This wasn't—" He gestured at the room, the overturned chair near the back exit, the notebook still open on the table.
"This wasn't what I wanted for either of you."
"Sit down," I said.
He looked at me.
"Please," I said.
"Sit down."
He sat.
I picked up the notebook.
I turned to the first page, the first entry, eight months ago.
Forty dollars.
Evan's first paycheck.
"He bought me a blanket," Walter said quietly.
"It was November.
I didn't ask him to."
I closed the notebook.
Outside, a car passed slowly.
The diner's sign buzzed once and went steady again.
May you like
"How bad is your heart?" I asked.
Walter's answer was not what I expected.
