Each morning at eleven a.m., Kate Mallory squeezed the brakes on her workday and visited the men’s empty restroom on the 42nd floor. She ran her fingers over the bank of cool, marble washbasins, overseen by mirrors that somehow remained mist-free after the men performed hot-air grooming sessions. It was also the sole male restroom at Hetherington Brokerage and Bonds, where the scents of cologne and creams hung more sharply than urine.

She pictured the young bucks and would-be masters of the universe shedding three o’clock shadows and refining their skincare routines as they prepared for an evening of shepherding clients around the city. They had to be ready for any taste or predilection, no matter how bizarre—whatever it took to win more business and hit those targets. One day, Kate would be in a similarly luxurious powder room, relaxing from the rush of the New York Stock Exchange and prepping for clients, albeit with a different symbol on the door.

The air hinges hissed open, and a harried Tammy Rhodes poked her head and shoulders in. “Hey, Katie, got a spill on the main floor.”

Kate smiled at her friend. “Welcome back, Tam. I’m fine, thanks. How was your mom’s wedding?”

Tammy returned an eye-roll and a brief smile, almost absent of sarcasm. “Moldy Merv’s losing his shit over it. Back me up, hon.”

“I’ll be right there.” Kate attacked a translucent stain with a final, vigorous rub with her cloth, then gave up on figuring out which hyper-expensive beauty oil inflicted such a mark behind the lip of the basin, and wheeled her cart to the exit.

Tammy accompanied her through the trading floor, although it didn’t remotely resemble what Kate remembered from the movies and TV shows of her youth, where people yelled over one another and gesticulated wildly in some adapted form of sign language. Sleek desks and lumbar-friendly chairs supported on-screen graphs and spreadsheets, several phones to each man—and it was still mostly men here—and a buzz of activity churned as money zipped and whizzed between accounts via concealed channels. Kate could practically feel the wealth shooting past her as she navigated to the site of the tragic incident where Mervin Corney was, indeed, losing his shit.

“Don’t make me bring back the clear desk policy, Endo.” Merv stood with his legs apart, looking down on the culprit, both he and Endo sporting thousand-dollar suits. “We all like our coffee, we all hate taking breaks, so don’t fucking spoil it for everyone else, you get me?”

“We’re here, Mr. Corney,” Tammy said.

“About time.” Merv pointed at the floor with a highly assertive finger—so assertive he must have attended a course that taught how to extend a digit in the smuggest manner possible. “This had better not stain.”

“No, Mr. Corney,” Tammy said.

Moldy Merv put both hands on his hips, exhaled through his nose, dropped his hands, and marched off, stabbing a final glance at Endo, the poor MBA graduate who’d committed the crime.

“Don’t worry,” Kate told him, “the tiles are treated. Even coffee and red wine don’t stick around long.”

Endo returned to his chair, mumbled, “It’s not coffee. It’s dandelion tea,” and woke up his computer screen with a tap of his mouse. The blueish square danced to life in his thick-rimmed glasses, and he twisted around to face to the two women with the cloths and spray. “What I mean to say is, thank you. And sorry for the hassle.”

“No problem, kiddo,” Tammy replied. “You worry about all that cash. We’ll keep the building going.”

Already on her knees, Kate mopped the liquid at the edge of the desk to prevent further dribbles. “Not the worst spill I’ll be cleaning this week.”

“Ain’t the worst I’ll be cleaning today.” Tammy joined her, spritzed the woody-smelling puddle of whatever the heck dandelion tea was, and went at it with a cloth. “So, hey, any gossip while I was away? Any spills worth talkin’ about from Aaron’s get-together?”

“Not really. His aunt and uncle keep guinea pigs and got a new one for Aaron as a birthday present. They held the party at their house this year, which was nice of them, but I had to have a quiet chat about them buying him a pet without consulting me. Luckily, they’re keeping it at their house with the others. To be honest, I think it’s so he’ll nag me to go around more.”

“Nice folks,” Tammy said.

Kate finished her part and rose to select a bucket from her trolley, where she squeezed out her cloth. “You want to know what he called it? His new guinea pig?”

“What?”

“Tony Stark. Not Hulk or Thor, but Tony Stark.”

“Like Iron Man?”

“Yeah.” Kate rejoined Tammy on the floor and used a fresh cloth to rinse the spot she’d cleaned. “Jonathan might be an ass, but hey, he’s a rich ass. If he and Jennifer want to provide free babysitting, then I don’t need torturing to say yes.”

“And the other thing? His offer on the house?”

Kate smiled tightly, then changed the subject. Heating up their chat in the middle of their client’s firm would end badly for them both. “I do have some news. While you were living it up in Florida, I enrolled back in night school.”

Tammy sat up on her haunches, having scrubbed all she could. “You gonna work yourself half to death.”

Kate mirrored Tammy’s pose, up on her knees and toes, the job over, the carpet as clean as it had been before Endo’s accident. She took in the floor, the money, and the sense of purpose with which everyone peered at their screens. “Couple of years, Tammy. That’s all I need. Then me and Aaron’ll be fine.”

“What, you finish up your degree and just walk into a hundred-K-a-year job at some swanky law firm?” Tammy stood, knees plainly creaking for her. “Or a place like this?”

Kate rose to her feet and hauled the bucket back to her cart. “I can cope with it. I just need four hours or so overtime this week, and I won’t have to load up the credit card again.”

“And next week?”

Kate sagged slightly. Tammy meant well. She’d never known another life except this one, but Kate hadn’t always scraped her weeks together paycheck-to-paycheck. “Aaron deserves a nice place to grow up. A decent life. If I know I can do a job like these guys, what kind of mom would I be if I didn’t try?”

Tammy lifted her eyebrows. “A mom like me.”

The reply stung in Kate’s throat. She touched her friend’s arm. “You know what I mean, Tam.”

Tammy nodded, but the jab had loosened something in her eyes. Not a massive insult, but sufficient to hurt.

“I’m sorry, it’s just… you know Aaron’d be better off if…”

“If what?”

“Nothing.” Kate sucked back a sob. If disagreements were frowned upon, bursting into tears at the happy thought of swapping places with her dead husband would lead to a worse situation than she was already in. “You think I should take Jonathan’s offer?” Kate asked, switching back to the subject she’d tried to avoid.

“That’s your choice, hon,” Tammy said. “Might make life a little easier.”

Kate stared at Tammy for a moment, and Tammy stared back. A regular impasse between the two—what usually happened when one knew the other was right, but also kind-of wrong. 

“Break time,” Tammy said, leading Kate from the cleaned spillage. “You got a chance to ask Dev for the OT. See how much of a dick he can be about it.”

“If I can handle my brother-in-law and night school, I can handle Dev.”

Kate’s phone buzzed in her tabard pocket, forbidden in the usual scheme of things, but most of the moms and dads, or those with sick relatives, risked breaking the rule. Dev’s one good facet was that he turned a blind eye to it, so long as they were subtle about it.

Kate checked the caller ID and shivered, an icy dread familiar to every parent whenever a particular contact name beamed in their hand.

“I’ll catch up,” she said. “It’s the school.”

As per the rule-breaking rulebook, she pushed out into a stairwell where no camera would witness her take the call.

It was the school’s counselor, Hester Duval, a gravel-voiced woman who on the phone was frequently mistaken for a man. “Mrs. Mallory, I’m afraid I had no choice but to call you. There’s been an incident at the school.”

Kate hoped Dev would be snacking in the bare office that served as the cleaners’ unofficial break room. They were supposed to travel down to the 30th floor to an overpriced cafe, where they were expected to purchase overpriced snacks or to munch on whatever they’d brought from home. Close to their locker room, management had supplied a couple of banks of chairs, fixed in rows like a doctor’s waiting area—hardly a staff canteen designed for socializing. There was a microwave, too, alongside a list of banned foodstuff that included fish, curry, and pretty much anything that stank up the place worse than tomato soup. Since that trek was a pain in all their butts, they kept lunches here, in the office vacated by a junior exec during last year’s downsizing, with a view of New York City and a collection of mismatched seats smuggled in by the cleaning company’s day-crew.

Kate’s perch was the beanbag chair she’d bought Craig for their anniversary two years ago, intended for the reading corner in his planned man-cave at the bottom of their garden. That would never happen now, though. Each time she sat on it in this place, she wondered if she was disrespecting his memory, saying, Screw it. What would a dead guy want with an overstuffed scatter cushion, anyway? 

At the moment Kate wandered in, Tammy was occupying the beanbag, legs extended, forking salad and pasta from a tub. “You don’t mind, do you? I can move if you make me.”

“Dev?” Kate said. “Anyone seen him?”

The other two in the room, Marla and Joanne, shook their heads without looking up from their sandwiches.

Tammy said, “He was just leaving. Doing his rounds, making himself seen. You know what these new kids are like.”

Kate did know.

“Anything up?” Tammy asked.

“Aaron,” Kate said, low enough so only Tammy heard properly. “He’s never violent. Never. But he slapped a girl. Slapped her.”

“Why?”

“That’s the weird thing.” Kate put her hand on the door but didn’t open it. “Apparently, he said he ‘had to.’ Wouldn’t say why. Just that he had to.”

Tammy frowned.

“Yeah, I know. But… I have to go in person.”

“Just do it, Katie. We’ll be okay.”

“I know you will. But I need to clear it with Dev.”

“Eat first. Did I tell you lately that you’re way too skinny?”

“Not for at least a day,” Kate said. “You’re slipping. But I’ll eat on the train home. I promise.”

Kate departed, her stomach objecting as she left without opening her paper sandwich bag stored in the mini fridge.

She returned to the floor, heading for the vicinity of Moldy Merv’s office, since she figured Dev would be nearby. His goal was to be seen micromanaging the cleaning crew, such lowly humans viewed by those in lofty positions as slackers who’d happily rip off the hand that fed them for a few extra minutes of free time. The term “office” was a loose one, though, as Mervin Corney wasn’t a manager with a glass cube, but a supervisor who’d fashioned himself a space out of five-foot-high partition screens, a construction Kate thought of as Merv’s “den” since it resembled the forts Aaron and Craig used to build with sofa cushions.

Look out, Dad, it’s a mom-ster!

Ah, hide, hide! I’ll protect you, my prince!

Merv acted the part of a junior exec, bonused on the performance of the brokers around him. Rumor said he got the job not because of his managerial acumen but his length of service and his willingness to be the first in and last out of the office. He was also impervious to being the least popular guy in the room. At least when senior management wasn’t present.

Something he had in common with Dev.

Kate spotted her own supervisor inspecting the door to the brokers’ break room, where she and her colleagues were allowed to enter and clean, but not consume food or drink, lest they taint the slick atmosphere with their poorness. As she approached, she heard Merv in conversation with the mildly spoken dandelion-drinker.

“Jesus, that’s two hundred grand you cost us.”

“I’m sorry,” Endo said. “It looked good for it. I—”

“You should’ve shorted the goddamn company instead of investing.”

Not talking about the spill, Kate assumed.

Endo said, “The price didn’t drop that far—”

“I know. It’s sarcasm. You know what that is, don’t you? How’d you even get this job, anyway? Thought you people were supposed to be good with numbers.”

“Me-people?” Endo said.

Merv stuttered for perhaps half a second before cartwheeling out of the racial-stereotyping quagmire. “Traders. Math geeks. You MBA-people.”

“Right, sure.”

“Just get out of my office and make up the difference.”

Endo stepped out from the divider space, wearing the look of a lost puppy as he shuffled away.

“Hey,” Kate said. “Are you okay?”

Endo glanced around, confused, as if Kate’s voice had descended from thin air. “Oh, hi. Yes, I’m fine, thanks.” Endo added a frown, then walked away at a faster clip.

“Kate,” Dev said, loud enough for Merv to hear at the center of his den. “You’re supposed to be on a break.”

“I am on my break,” Kate said. “I need to ask you something.”

Dev adopted a pose depressingly similar to Merv’s hands-on-hips admonishment of the stain situation. “Yes?”

“Two things, actually.”

“Overtime again?”

Kate’s head tilted to one side. She softened her eyes. “All the big firms we service are still clean freaks. No one wants to risk being patient zero. So I know there’s O.T. available. Four hours. Six if it’s there.”

“I need reliable, Kate. If I give you eight till twelve on Saturday morning up on sixty-one, you promise you’ll be there?”

“I do.”

“On time?”

“On time.” She snapped a Boy Scout salute. “Promise.”

Dev took out an oversized smartphone and entered her on the rota. “What’s two?”

“Two?”

“You said there were two things.”

“Right, two.” Kate lowered her voice and ushered Dev away from Merv’s den. “I need to leave early today.”

“Kate…” His reply came out in a warning tone, but ebbed away as if he was too tired to finish the thought.

“It’s Aaron, I don’t know what happened, or rather, why, exactly, but they want me to go in.”

“Is he sick?”

“Not sick, but… They need me there in person.”

Dev blinked at the floor a few times, nose-breathing as he pretended to consider it. “You ask for overtime, then drop this on me?”

“It’s urgent. Seriously, Dev. Please. Just an hour early.”

“You want the OT on Saturday.” Dev flashed his big-screened phone. “But you don’t want to finish your shift here. Think about it.”

Kate weighed up whether begging some more could prove worthwhile, but she waited too long and her cheeks flushed as she bit her teeth together.

“I’m sorry,” Dev said, walking away. “It’s your choice.”

Only when she tried to move did Kate realize she’d grown jittery, swapping from one foot to the other.

Tammy had come along at some point, waited until Dev passed down his verdict before stepping in.

“It’ll be okay,” Tammy said. “We can cover.”

“He’ll pull the overtime. If I miss my payment on the car, I’ll have to put it on the credit card again or lose it, and I don’t want that. Cards are almost maxed already. But… Aaron, he—” She cut herself off. “I need the overtime this week. I need it.”

“So you’re not going to the school?”

Kate swallowed back the urge to shout, smoothed her restless legs and feet, and calculated she had enough time to wolf down her sandwich but not the yoghurt before resuming her duties. “I don’t have any choice, Tam. Guess I’ll be late for school.”

Chapter 2

The Principal of Aaron’s school was a wiry man of indeterminate middle age with a widow’s peak and skin complexion which, combined, reminded Kate of a sophisticated vampire. Sitting before him as she explained her late arrival, his manner, too, morphed into that of a nocturnal creature appraising its prey.

“I couldn’t get away, I’m sorry.”

“Becky’s mom got here in thirty minutes,” Aaron said, perched on the seat beside her, his cheeks rosy, streaked as if he’d been crying. He probably had.

“Becky?” Kate chewed her lip a second. “The girl you hit?”

Aaron dropped his eyes to the floor. His new pose suggested he’d shrunk since she dropped him off this morning. He did a weird pointing thing beneath the Principal’s line of sight—his ring and little fingers crossed while his forefinger folded-unfolded on itself. A nervous tic?

“Indeed,” Mr. Grimes added without moving a muscle. “Aaron has been waiting for you for some time.”

Kate drew her elbows in and met his gaze. “I’m sure Becky’s mom doesn’t have to commute to the city for her job, where her asshole of a boss acts like a spoiled prince. Sorry for my language…”

Mr. Grimes opened a file and offered a sheet of paper to Kate, which released a wave of cheap cologne from the man’s shirt. Nothing like the crisp scents in the 42nd floor restroom.

Kate reached for it, forced a smile, and perused the spreadsheet mapping Aaron’s paltry performance for the school year.

Mr. Grimes laced his fingers together on the desktop. “Because of his father’s passing, hmm, what was it, two years ago?”

“Coming up on eighteen months,” Kate said.

“Yes, yes, we gave Aaron plenty of leeway on his grades, but as we discussed at the last conference, we need him to step up now.”

“And he has done.” Kate ruffled the paper. “Three assignments in the last two weeks, two tests. He aced them.”

Aaron’s head came back up and he almost smiled.

“That’s true. Not outstanding, but a, hmm, encouraging upward trend.” Mr. Grimes glanced between boy and mother, eyes softening as he landed on Aaron. “It was as if his tenth birthday was a turning point. I don’t know. Reaching the ripe old age where you have to break out the double figures? Something symbolic to him.” Back to Kate. “But this uptick in academic performance has coincided with a decline in his, hmm, general behavior. He swore at a janitor. Picked on a younger lad for being—and I quote—gay.” He made bunny ear air-quotes.

“I’m not defending that,” Kate said, summoning all her willpower to balance annoyance at Aaron and her understanding at why he might act out. While the other incidents had cut deep and caused her no end of embarrassment, they hadn’t dropped on days where she’d begged Prince Dev for overtime to make her car payment. “But kids say a lot of stuff they don’t fully comprehend. He knows why it’s wrong to use ‘gay’ as an insult now, and he won’t do it again. And today was… What happened today?”

“Aaron?”

Both adults watched Aaron squirm. He was a small kid for his age—not the smallest in his class by far, but in the bottom five—and he’d always had a mischievous grin. He wore his hair floppy, too, short at the sides, although they’d let it grow out. Since he wasn’t like the hard-faced kids who were already rebelling and testing authority, it seemed so out of place when he tried to push back.

“I told Mr. Grimes already,” he said. “I told the counselor. I even told Becky. Why do I have to go through it again?”

“Because your mother hasn’t heard it from you,” Mr. Grimes said.

Kate found guilting kids to be distasteful, but sometimes necessary; how else did you teach empathy?

She said, “Well?”

“I had to, okay?” Aaron said. “I’m sorry you had to come here, and I’m sorry Becky got hurt, but I… I just had to.”

“What would have happened if you hadn’t?”

“I don’t know. But it would have.” Aaron resumed his slouched position. “It would have been much worse than a slap.”

Silence followed.

Only two weeks earlier, as Aaron helped Kate hang out the washing, he tripped over the basket, and three towels had tumbled onto the damp ground. He’d said sorry so many times, it was as if he was worried she’d whip him or banish him to the sewer for what he’d done. She’d worked hard at cleaning those, he’d said on the brink of tears, and he’d ruined them.

Today, speaking about slapping a girl, he sounded unrepentant. Almost doubling down. There had to be a reason, but he was unwilling to voice it. Perhaps he’d come clean when they were alone.

“You see, Mrs. Mallory,” Mr. Grimes said. “With grades like he’s shown recently, he could end this year in the top half of his class. But if his behavior doesn’t reflect that, hmm, he’s going nowhere this summer.”

They didn’t speak to one another as they departed Mr. Grimes’ office, or as they wound through the empty corridors to the exit, and Aaron couldn’t shake the notion that Mom would never understand. She wasn’t even trying. She seemed to be paying more attention to the trees and lawns as they made for their car, more concerned with herself than him.

“I always promised myself I wouldn’t be ‘that’ mom,” she said, although Aaron wasn’t sure she was speaking to him. “I would never be the one with the bad kid.”

I’m not bad.

Aaron was about to say it, but Mom was talking again.

“Okay, sure, I might end up with no choice in the matter. You choose to behave like that, then I’m already there. But if I’m gonna be ‘that’ mom, I can’t defend my kid being violent.”

“I’m not violent,” Aaron said.

She tutted, gave his hand a tug to hurry him up, as if they were late for something. “If you get kicked out of here, I can’t chauffeur you to the next nearest school.”

“I won’t get kicked out.”

“At least, not one with an above-average standard and a lower mortality rate. You want to go to one of those inner city places? Okay, I can drop you on my way to work.”

Aaron intentionally mumbled his response, knowing it annoyed Mom. “I don’t wanna go to a school like that.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d wondered things like that aloud. After Dad had died, she’d stayed quiet most of the time. But since school started back up, she’d been pushing Aaron to do better. She said things like she couldn’t keep making excuses for him, and that she was working as hard as she could to keep a roof over their heads which made her tired-so-tired all the time. But he never understood why the roof would fall in if she didn’t work as much.

When she got mad with him, as she often had since he’d turned ten, she’d told him a few times he might have to go to a different school one day, not a nice one, although he’d never thought of his current school as special. But if she would just listen to him, she might see why he’d had to do what he did.

As in the Principal’s office, he kept his head down, mumbling a reply he knew he shouldn’t say out loud, but she deserved it.

“What?” Mom said.

Aaron frowned up at her. “You should say ‘pardon’ not ‘what’.”

“Throwing my own words at me, nice. Can’t wait for the teenage years. I asked what you said just now.”

“I said…” He swallowed, noting his tone and dialing back the annoyance he felt. “I said, at least then you won’t leave me waiting so long.”

“That’s what you’re worried about? Me taking too long to come pick you up when the school thinks you’re too naughty to go back to class? Just be glad I came at all.”

He shrugged, eyes back on the ground.

Mom took one of her big breaths. The ones that made her cheeks red. It could tip either way: Yell at him, or calmly say how disappointed she was. She always talked like that eventually, even after yelling. He needed to feel bad for what he did. Not for getting caught.

And he did feel bad. Worse than he could say. But slapping Becky had still been necessary. Essential.

Eventually, at the car, Mom paused.

“Aaron, I can’t afford more problems. Swearing. Hitting some girl because you, what? Felt the urge to?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “How long until you break someone’s property that I have to pay for? Until you get suspended and I have to stay home or find childcare? I’ll be out of the house even more, making up the overtime.”

“I won’t do that,” Aaron said.

“How do I know that? A week ago, I’d have sworn on a stack of bibles that you’d never hit someone for shits and giggles.”

“I didn’t do it for that. And Mom, you just swore.”

Mom opened her mouth, then bit back what she was going to say, and ran her hands hard through her hair. “I’m sorry for swearing. But I can already barely afford this car, your lunches, the upkeep on the house, all your fish—”

“Dad’s fish,” Aaron said. “We have to keep them. Dad wouldn’t want you to sell them.”

Kate swallowed. “Yes, right. Your dad’s fish. That… all that… and everything else I have to do to keep things going… Please, Aaron, just be good.” Her eyes glistened, as though she was about to cry, but she blinked a few times and they returned to normal. “Please understand, I can’t be around all the time. But things are going to be okay. I have a plan. It’ll work out.”

“Okay,” again, followed by indecipherable mumbling.

“That doesn’t sound too enthusiastic. I need you to promise me. Please?”

That seemed to be his chance to put an end to this conversation. But Mom hadn’t asked the most important question—or rather, hadn’t let him answer it.

She’d asked him why he did it, why he’d slapped Becky, but hadn’t allowed him to expand, to tell her the whole truth. If she did, it wasn’t likely she’d believe him, because he didn’t believe it himself.

If anyone could help him understand things, it’d be Dad, but he wasn’t here and was never coming back. Without him, he knew Mom would try her best, but it wasn’t enough. Her best, as Aaron had overheard her telling their neighbor, was never enough.

At some point, maybe he’d be able to work out how to talk to her about this. For now, though, it was better not to stress her out too much. Keeping this to himself was a kindness.

Aaron’s eyes felt the way his mom’s had looked a moment ago—damp, raw. “I promise I’ll try.”

“Good enough,” she said. “For now.”

No, he couldn’t fully explain this to her. Not without hurting her. He could deal with it himself.

Until he worked out what to do about it, he just hoped he wouldn’t have to do something even the world’s nicest mommy couldn’t forgive.

Chapter 3

With Aaron sitting up front, Kate drove, her thoughts jumbling together. How had she let that roll from her mouth?

Just be glad I came at all…

Like, she’d leave him alone. Run away. That’s something she’d never contemplate, and should never say aloud, not to a boy like Aaron. What if he thought she was dying? Not just leaving him but leaving him the same way as his father.

Still… would anyone blame her for extreme thoughts, fleeting as they were? Any mom would feel like a failure in the face of what she’d heard, wouldn’t they? The image of her sweet little boy acting violently toward someone—anyone, never mind she was a girl—mixed with her satisfaction at his fine school in their safe district and dumped out a messy sludge.

She could threaten to sanction him if anything like this happened again, then hope he’d be too afraid to repeat what he’d done. And she would find some repercussions. But she favored something restorative, such as an apology letter, rather than taking the plug off his X-Box for a week where he’d simply serve his sentence before figuring out how to be more careful next time. She’d read kids his age responded better when they had to make amends. Besides, the harsher type of punishment only meant more work for Kate. And she was too tired for more work.

It was only a five-minute journey back home, and Kate pictured herself driving not a Toyota Hybrid but a removals truck as she relocated them to a smaller place in a dank, godforsaken neighborhood. Somewhere like—and she hated herself for thinking it—where Tammy lived. That was all chain-link fences and clapboard one-stories with metal detectors in the high schools. Okay, not permanent metal detectors, but they’d utilized them more than once during the previous twelve months.

She couldn’t live there.

She lived here.

Aaron went to a nice school.

Convenient, in their nice neighborhood.

For nice families.

Ah, White Plains. With what the realtors called a vibrant cafe culture (which she could no longer afford), its eclectic nightlife (which she could neither afford, nor find the time or energy to frequent), and A+ schools, she wouldn’t entertain wrenching Aaron away, forcing him to live the way she’d been raised herself. Without Craig’s insurance paying off the mortgage and most of her debts, she’d be living in a trailer park, not a four-bedroom house on a tree-lined street with neighbors whose names she knew, so she was already clinging to this life by her fingernails. And they felt so very brittle this afternoon.

“Mom?”

Kate tapped her thumbnail against one finger, then returned her hand to the wheel. “Yeah.”

“Sorry you had to come out here.”

Finally.

“You want to talk about it, champ?” Kate asked.

“Champ?”

“Uncle Jonathan calls you champ. You don’t seem to mind.”

He shrugged. A more lighthearted shrug than the I dunno shambles from earlier. He was doing that pointing thing again—ring finger crossed over his little one, forefinger extending and retracting.

“So.” Kate turned off the 125 and slowed for the lights of a crosswalk. “Do you?”

A teenage boy walking four dogs crossed in front of them.

Aaron asked, “Do I what?”

“Want to talk about it?”

He formed a fist of his pointing-unpointing hand, then released it and snorted in reply. Not disrespectfully, more of an elongated sigh. “I’m sorry I got mad. I know you work hard.”

She wanted to believe he meant it, but her stomach swayed at the inkling he was manipulating her, the way all moms felt at distrusting their child without evidence.

“And Becky?”

Aaron said nothing.

On green, Kate set off again.

Silence.

A silence so encompassing that Kate had to fill it. “You’re gonna need to talk about it sooner or later, buddy.” Buddy. Yes. Better than champ. “You know I can’t let something like that slide.”

“I didn’t want to,” Aaron said. “But I told you, I had to.”

“Why? You still haven’t given me a reason for a nice boy hitting a girl.”

“I was confused.” He bit his bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth to chew on.

“Confused? Like… Scared?”

Kate waited, hoping he’d been picked on, was fighting off some bully and Becky simply got in the way. She’d be proud if that were the case. Or even if Becky was the bully. If she were a bigger kid picking on him, her gender wouldn’t matter to Kate. Not for a couple of years at least.

Aaron said, “You won’t understand.”

“Try me. I’ve been around a while.”

Aaron almost smiled. Almost. “My homework, where I got the A-grades? And the test and the pop-quiz?”

“That’s good. Your schoolwork is looking up. You’ve been working hard. Did Becky say you cheated or something? Was she copying your work?”

“Nothing like that, it’s… hard to explain. And I didn’t study any harder than usual. That’s what’s confusing.”

“You didn’t work hard for the grades?”

Aaron pouted, his finger-pointing tic moving faster. “If you didn’t study—”

“I just know stuff now.”

Kate frowned, taking the right turn that led to her neighborhood. “You… just know?”

“Yeah.”

“Without studying or anything? The answers pop into your head?”

“Yeah. Or I know where to look to find the answer, like, online.”

Kate thought it through. “That doesn’t explain the slap.”

Aaron shrugged. “It felt right. The same way I knew the capital of Australia is Canberra, I knew I had to slap Becky.”

Kate resisted the eye-roll, held back her groan.

Aaron picked up on it, anyway. “You think I’m just a dumb kid who got mad at another dumb kid.” He stared out the window at the passing cafes and bars. “Forget it.”

Kate could humor him or demand he tell the truth. Flip a coin? No, she knew her boy. This was a child who found ladybugs on the grass and transported them to the hedge where they’d be more sheltered from birds or whatever chose ladybugs as a meal.

For the rest of the journey, until they got home and she could threaten his X-Box cable with a pair of scissors, she guessed letting him talk was harmless enough.

“Okay,” she said. “You know stuff. Like what?”

The shrug again. “Like, whatever.” His face turned slowly to her. The pointing tic had stopped. “Is there anything you want to know?”

“What subject?”

“Anything. History. Geography. Math. Sports, if you want.”

“So, d’you know about the Comets?”

Aaron screwed up his face. “What’s that?”

“Basketball team. Lower league. Me and your dad used to watch the Comets. But never mind.”

“You wanna know who they’re hoping to sign?”

Kate tried to make her smile genuine. “You know that?”

Aaron blinked a couple of times, held still, then shrugged again. “Yeah. Or should I tell you what the score will be?”

Kate’s tongue moistened, as if someone had opened a beer at the end of a tough, hot day. She swallowed it back and the saliva got stuck in her throat before clearing. Her tongue swelled, and an ancient sensation spread from her mouth to her stomach, tingling through her limbs and making her vision tilt.

No—she could not allow that to creep back inside her.

“Well?” Aaron said, an injection of enthusiasm brightening his tone. “Do you want to know the score?”

“Against the Furies tonight? The spread would be plenty, but—” Kate snagged halfway between a laugh and growling at him to ignore her and never raise the subject again. She went for the lighter response. “Well, if you know things like that, I could’ve done with it before...”

Oh, nope. Not going there.

“Before what?” Aaron asked.

Too late.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kate said, finding her foot heavy on the accelerator and having to ease off it. “Pretend I didn’t say anything.”

“Before Dad died.” Aaron’s fingers curled in his lap, the nervous tic resumed—ring and little finger crossed, twitching his forefinger. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

Kate rarely spoke with Aaron about Craig. A year and a half sometimes felt as though weeks had passed. Even now, she always waited for her son to bring it up.

“You argued a lot,” Aaron went on. The boy who couldn’t remember to tidy his clothes before changing into his jammies but recalled two, three, even four-year-old incidents with perfect clarity. “About sports. I sometimes heard you.”

They were almost home, but Kate had opened the can, and now the worms gushed out. “I shouldn’t go into sports scores, Aaron. That was silly of me. It’s not a joking matter. Your dad, he—”

“It’s why he was divorcing you.”

Jesus.

She’d had no idea how much Aaron had intuited from back then, or why he was only bringing it up now.

Had he heard them? Or maybe Jonathan and his loudmouthed, passive-aggressive wife still gossiped and cast blame her way, even now.

Yes, that was more likely. Even when they fought, Kate and Craig kept their voices down. No way to shield their problems from Aaron’s orbit entirely. It was possible he’d picked up on their more intense chats, but more likely Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Jennifer—the J-Js—had spoken carelessly in his vicinity.

“Remember we talked about Mommy’s disease?” she said. “Before Daddy passed?”

“Sure.” Aaron’s hand stilled, his free one lying over it. “It’s why he didn’t live with us for a while.”

Carefully, annunciating in the most neutral tone she could muster, Kate chose the honest path. “Yes. But we didn’t get a divorce, did we? We made up. Because you two were the most important things in the world to me. It was hard. But I made the changes. I beat the disease.”

As she pulled into their road, she opened a window, a thunderstorm-like charge now filling the car, despite the AC.

“You get that I’m better, right?” she said.

“Yes.”

“And you telling me a score isn’t going to make my illness come back. Okay?”

Aaron nodded and his smile peeled into place. “It’d be useful though, wouldn’t it?”

“Sure, we’d be mega rich.” She allowed a brief laugh as she pulled into their driveway. “Joke. Lame one. Ignore me.”

Aaron looked at her in the most serious way she’d seen since the funeral. “You wouldn’t have to work two jobs if you could know stuff like that. Wouldn’t be late to pick me up. And we could have fun on weekends.”

Ah, now they were getting to it.

Aaron, desperate to make life easier without working for it.

Like his imaginary friend from back in kindergarten when he was unable to keep up with the bigger kids’ rough-and-tumble. What was it called? Oh, yes, Harold, like an English king or duke. Harold gave him someone to chase who he could actually catch, and an opponent safe to wrestle with, absent the occasional bruise or graze.

But he was ten now, and that was far too old to indulge fantasies like this.

“Okay, buddy, slow it down.” Kate turned off the engine and faced him.

“Would you be as rich as Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Jennifer?”

Kate’s mouth moistened again, her hunger—not for food—rekindled by a child’s desire to magic the world into being better. “Not quite that rich. But, hey. We don't have to be. I work hard, and it’s worth it. Two years, and maybe I can take the bar exam. Be a lawyer like I was going to be. Like Daddy was. Remember all the good work he did fighting big corporations? I could do—”

“Six points,” Aaron said.

“What?”

“Pardon, Mom.”

“Sorry. Pardon?”

“The team will win by six points. And it’ll be the Furies beating the Comets, not the other way around.”

Kate watched him a moment, but grew distracted as her next-door neighbor stood on the property line, the division between her perfect lawn bordered by flowers and Kate’s slab of grass. Dorothy, toes to an actual foot-high picket fence, fluttered a little wave.

Aaron said, “When you see the score, you’ll believe me.”

Kate had promised herself to humor the boy until they got home. Now they were home. “Sure.” She ruffled his head and opened the door. “But the Comets always beat the Furies. Let’s see what Dorothy wants.”

Chapter 4

Kate opened the door, stepped out, and turned to Dorothy.

“Oh, hi,” the older lady said. “I hate to seem nosy, but thought I’d let you know Sal has been in your place for a while.”

“Sal has a key, it’s cool.” Kate beamed to show she wasn’t put out by her absolutely-not-nosy neighbor.

“A key? That’s nice. Susan was asking after him earlier. Wondered if you two might be a thing.”

Susan lived at the next house along from Dorothy. She was a fitness instructor, a little older than Kate. She’d had children young, married in her twenties, divorced in her thirties, and saw her kids off to college before she’d turned forty. She now frequently pranced about in either yoga pants and a sports top, jogging gear that showed off her muscular thighs and arms, or something that revealed her belly button (pierced) at every opportunity. She was sweet on Sal, but he had shown no interest in a relationship—not just with Susan, but with anyone. He had a sad past and was unlikely to be swayed by a woman just because she was far fitter than she should be at her age. 

“He’s fixing my porch,” Kate said, making a show of helping Aaron out of the car. “No big deal.”

Kate and Aaron headed up the two front steps and Kate paused, looking back briefly toward Dorothy, who was still watching them. She waved again and Kate waved back.

Aaron said, “You still don’t believe me, do you?”

“We’ll talk later, buddy,” Kate said, opening the front door.

A faint whiff greeted her, like food starting to go bad. Only mild, though. Probably something festering in the garbage disposal or an apple core left in place wherever Aaron had eaten it.

Aaron shuffled in. “And stop calling me buddy. If you think I’m a liar, don’t be nice to me. Just leave me alone.”

As he stomped straight up the stairs, bag thumping against his back and fists balled, Kate couldn’t speak. Had her ten-year-old just aged four years? From regressing to kindergarten to fast-forwarding to teenagerdom. All in the blink of an eye.

Was he hormonal? Or was it dawning on him just how badly he’d let her down and was processing it this way?

He’d tried to help by making up a sports result, and the motivation seemed to be so she’d spend more time with him. Maybe acting out at school stemmed from the same intent, if only subconsciously.

She’d have serious words about his teenage dirtbag attitude later. For now, she wondered how much of that attitude was her fault, and how much was to do with the same thing Dorothy was hinting at.

Sal.

She needed to keep the guy sweet without leading him on. Couldn’t afford to hire someone to help out the way he did. And if she couldn’t keep the house going, she couldn’t carry on living here. And Aaron didn’t deserve that. No matter his recent spats.

She’d explain later. Properly. A heart-to-heart about how she wasn’t interested in Sal. And even if she did one day start dating again, no man would ever replace Daddy.

First, though, she had to put that thirst to the back of her mind. The one jetted to life by Aaron’s childish fantasy of predicting tonight’s score. She needed to flush it away and leave it there, festering in the sewer where it wouldn’t bother her. Leave it for the rats to eat. Because that thirst, that sense of MAYBE… she couldn’t venture back there again.

Sal.

Perhaps his presence would help. Only one way to find out.

Sal Cantero was a big man, naturally toned thanks to a history of manual jobs, and his half-open shirt attested to clean living. His one vice was the occasional cigar which he would spark with a lighter that held special significance—a gift, Kate suspected, from his late wife. Suspected, because it rarely came up. For two people widowed so soon into their lives, they hardly ever discussed their respective losses.

From polite, if stilted, chit-chat over the years, Kate knew Sal owned a construction firm, having worked his way from the ground up. What started as a handyman side-hustle had grown until he’d brought in too much business for one person, and then it had grown some more. But only as far as he was comfortable. It handled mostly residential and small-commercial projects, significant enough to pay for his house opposite Kate’s, but small enough to slide by the bigger boys and girls who ruled that world. He kept his hand in, though, and never asked his people to do anything he wasn’t able to himself—so he said. Kate had never observed it, of course. 

Still, in the eighteen months since Craig’s passing, there’d never been a job he couldn’t help her with. After shaking her hand at the wake, telling her if there was anything he could do—anything—all she had to do was ask, she wondered if he regretted that.

Wasn’t it something everyone said? Something she’d heard countless times since the news of Craig’s death broke? Hadn’t she also said it to every grieving friend or relative she’d known, and never once had they come to her?

What could she offer, though, if they did?

Kate had tried to learn all the maintenance and home improvement skills left floating in the Craig-shaped void, and she had succeeded in more areas than, say, her own mother would have. For all their modernity, though, Kate and Craig had largely divided chores among what they thought of as traditional 1950s lines. It was her choice as much as his, so she never resented the ironing, the lion’s share of cleaning, and running point on school matters. She was more than happy that he took care of unclogging the garbage disposal, resetting trip switches in the fuse box, and replacing blown light bulbs.

Just as Craig would have learned to iron and manage the school run and evade the wrath of the PTA had Kate met her demise first.

She now knew how to wire plugs, change the oil on the car as well as the tires and spark plugs. Last winter, she fixed the boiler with help from You Tube, and knew the garbage disposal inside-out, and there was little the lawnmower could throw at her that she couldn’t pivot and resolve. As for the fuse box and changing light bulbs, that was all a doddle, and whenever Sal solved an issue with the aquarium, she retained that knowledge and applied it the next time the filter or air pump decided to sputter instead of flow.

But there were limits when it came to more skilled tasks, and carpentry was one of them. Hence, why Sal Cantero was currently securing a rail along the edge of Kate’s deck.

She hadn’t called on him for this. He’d noticed it was loose last week after Kate rewarded him for sorting a crackling light switch with a beer, sitting out there one warm evening while Aaron beavered away on his homework—what would become his first A in twelve months. Sal had insisted he pop back and fix it, and Kate saw more in his smile than neighborly grace.

It was clear what that smile meant.

Kate hadn’t led him on. Really. Hadn’t even considered she’d flirted in the slightest. She’d never entertained the notion of Sal looking at her as anything more than the needy single mom from across the road. If his romantic interest in her wasn’t her imagination, she refused to use that to her advantage.

Bringing a new man into her life in that way would not be fair to Aaron, even if she was ready herself. Which she wasn’t. Too much… life getting in the way.

That was the primary reason she’d given Sal a key. Why she’d asked him to pop over while she was out rather than offering him the chance to display his torso on her stoop like the setup for a ridiculous erotic novel or some porn movie.

The Widow and the Handyman.

Only, she didn’t belong in either. Of that, she was positive.

“Hey, Sal.”

He paused in packing away the last of his equipment into a steel toolbox the size of a suitcase. “Hey, Kate. Back early.”

She’d told him she had to visit someone after school, but the business with Becky pushed the lie from her mind. “It fell through. How’s the patient?”

Sal ran his fingertips up the wooden post next to the stairs that dropped into the garden. “Treated wood, good standard. You can leave it to settle a couple weeks before protecting it. But it’s still paler than the top and bottom rail and the balusters, and I could do with giving it a finer sanding. I can’t tell which oil was used originally.”

“We still have some left over,” Kate said. “I’ll take care of it. Thank you so much, Sal. What do I owe you?”

“Oh, I got it at cost.” He patted the post’s cap as he stood. “If I got some paint, I could do ’em all. Do ’em nice, classy color. Or sand ’em down, reapply the wood oil—”

“Thanks, Sal. Honestly. I’m just so grateful for that.”

Sal bobbed his head, shifted his weight to angle on the four steps down to the lawn. He left his gaze there and fumbled his lighter out of his pocket, and flicked it on. A Zippo-looking contraption, it generated a hardier flame, like a weak afterburner, one he claimed never went out, even in the wind. It had been his habit to fiddle with this item for a few weeks now. A nervous tic, perhaps, like Aaron’s pointy finger? He snapped it shut. “Y’ know, the bottom step, it’s creaking some. Might need replacing.”

The step, the electrics, the front door’s faintly cracked paint, the roof tiles askew only a few inches which she hadn’t noticed but Sal had offered to mend them.

“Thanks, Sal, but it’ll be okay for now.”

He nodded acceptance, pocketed his lighter, and picked up his box as easily as Kate would have managed a throw pillow. “Well, offer’s there.”

His easy smile now seemed forced as he made his way to the side gate which led to the drive out front. Kate walked with him, his sweat airborne in a fine odor.

He paused at the gate. “Y’ know…” he said again. A big exhalation, not looking her way.

“What, Sal? Is everything okay?”

He put the box down and faced her. One arm across his stomach, holding the elbow with his other; a curious pose for someone usually so confident.

Oh, no.

He was going to ask her out.

“Sal, I—”

“I gotta ask, Kate.” His eyes roved up the side of the house, then back to her. “I’m always happy to help. You know that. Never, ever hesitate to ask. You got that, right?”

Kate replied slowly. “Never hesitate. Sure. I understand.”

“I mean, I know I got a big house for a single guy. Three bedrooms. But I work out of mine… And I mean, yours was extended to four bedrooms, and it’s real nice, but… Big for two people. I’m thinkin’…”

Kate stepped forward, light on her feet now she didn’t have to reject him outright. A repeat of Tammy’s question.

Do you need such a big house?

Trying to help, trying to be helpful, but it was a question Kate had considered over and over, and chosen the answer: YES. She would stay until they dragged her out.

Whoever they were.

“I might not need it,” she said, her hand moving to brush his arm but pulling back at the last second, “but moving would be too much hassle. And here, I have what I need. It’s better than a gym. I mow the lawn myself, work the garden, and I keep the big ol’ house clean.”

She cringed internally at the phrasing, partially mirroring Sal’s laconic tone.

“Usually, I keep it clean, anyway. There’s a smell today. I’ll figure it out. But wherever I go, it’s not much cheaper to live. Nowhere nice, anyway. And besides…” She was rambling, so she changed tack; she stiffened, bit her lip. “Where would I find such great neighbors?”

Okay, right.

There.

She saw it. The flirt. Saw what she was doing as clearly as if she’d been filming it through a Hollywood-standard Imax camera. And she had no idea how often she’d gone down that road.

She coughed and stepped back, but it was too late.

Sal’s posture had relaxed, the difficult subject broached and forgotten. Kate needed to be nice without flirting. Her usual offer.

“At least let me crack open a beer or two. And some Pringles, I think I have half a tube left.”

“Listen, Kate…” The arm crossed his body again, the hand to his elbow. “I was thinking—”

“Mom?”

Aaron stepped out of the French doors.

Saved by the bell.

“Yes, baby?” she said.

He bristled at “baby” and stared at Sal. “Is he done? I’m hungry.”

Sal waited patiently for Kate to deal with Aaron. Good kid. A bit weird, if Sal was honest, but he liked him. He could have done without the boy interrupting what had taken Sal months to pluck up the courage to ask, but it couldn’t be helped. A child, alive and well, interrupting awkward moments, was a problem he’d kill for. Hell, he’d promised so many times that he’d do anything for such a second chance.

No one had replied.

Having instructed Aaron to eat an apple, Kate escorted Sal to the front. If Kate remembered an iota of high school, she probably expected what Sal wanted to ask, and her silence and lack of eye contact testified to this. Sal had to decide: go for it, or let it stew until the next time his bravery gene kicked in.

On the driveway, Kate waved to the ever-vigilant Dorothy, who watched Sal intently before returning to her flower bed.

“Thanks for your help,” Kate said, loud enough for Dorothy to hear. “Please, at least let me pay for the materials.”

Sal rubbed the back of his neck, a second sheen of sweat joining the almost-dry first. He didn’t want to let the moment pass, but was unsure if Kate’s reluctance was nerves or lack of feelings for him. He couldn’t have imagined her hints, though, nervous as they’d seemed.

Keeping on subject for Dorothy’s sake, he said, “I couldn’t take more’n fifteen bucks.”

“Oh, okay.” Kate’s voice rose an octave.

And no wonder. Sal had never taken money before, but it seemed appropriate to the situation; Kate evidently wanted Dorothy to know there was no funny business going on. He didn’t need the money, and would have done the same favors for Dorothy or Bodybuilder Bob, the guy who lived in the house next to Sal’s, or even—with limits—for Susan, but only if she didn’t perform yoga while he was working and ceased touching Sal’s chest whenever she came close.

No, these days, he ran a company more than hammered nails, so Sal was eager to get his hands dirty whenever possible, regardless of which neighbor needed him. For Kate, he had rewired the garage, fixed a half-dozen electrical fittings, welded not one but two leaky pipes in the crawlspace under the house on two different occasions, re-hung the door to Aaron’s room, re-plumbed the automatic sprinkler system that kept the flowers watered without Kate hosing them down daily, and tinkered with the aquarium’s filter, air-pump, and heater—again, all on different occasions. And he’d never needed recompense, even when he was out of pocket.

Kate said, “I’ll run the cash over tomorrow if that’s okay. I don’t have it on me right now.”

“Nah, no need, I shouldn’t have said that.” Sal shook his head, lowering his voice, cheeks flushing. “I mean, it’s all part of the inventory, so any I don’t itemize to the clients, it’s all tax deductible. Really, it’s no big thing.”

It sounded like the end of a conversation, but he stood there, conscious of his arm across his body. His lips moved, as if rehearsing silently.

Then he dropped the bomb. “Perhaps we should get dinner sometime? No pressure, nothin’ like that.”

“I…” It came out as an elongated vowel, as if the dryness in her throat tried to drag it back in before she said something that offended him. Then she switched to a happy, almost surprised tone. “I’d love that! Hey, how about tonight?”

Sal jolted as if he’d touched a live wire with his tongue. “Tonight?”

“Sure. Aaron would love it.”

“Aaron?”

“Yes. I’ll cook!” She had a hand on one hip and a finger in the air. “That’s better than a couple of beers on the deck, right? Steak, chunky fries, peppercorn sauce.”

She put the finger-wagging hand on her other hip and fired a plastic grin, awaiting the answer.

Sal’s neck straightened and his mouth stayed open for a second. “Sure. Okay. Dinner’ll be nice. I’ll go.” He hooked his thumb toward his own house opposite, as casual as a vague acquaintance showing her where he’d parked. Yet his pulse quickened and his face heated up, and he just wanted to get the hell out of there. “I’ll scrub up.” He brought the thumb back and kept it there, a thumbs-up rather than a direction pointer. He let it drop. “It’ll be… nice.”

“It will. It’ll be on the table at six.”

As Sal departed, his broad shoulders a fraction more slumped than they had been, Kate scolded herself at her obvious rejection, her half-assed attempt at faking ignorance. Of course she knew he was asking her on a date, and there was no doubt he saw it.

Yes. I’ll cook!

What on Earth was that?

Hand on her hip, shaking a finger in the manner of a good-old-gal in an old-time musical, about to break into song. The finger wagged to show the audience she had a fan-tab-ulous idea, which she worried had made things more awkward between her and Sal, not less.

It had achieved only two objectives: Sal was gone, and the conversation was over. She congratulated herself on temporarily dodging the bullet. Now she just had to explain tonight’s guest to Aaron.

Chapter 5

Sal came over at 5:45 in a white shirt open at the collar, and blue jeans. He’d shaved, and he smelled clean, but hadn’t bathed in cologne or presented her with a bouquet of flowers.

Good.

Pretending to misunderstand his offer of dinner had worked out well.

“I still can’t locate that stale odor,” Kate said, leading him through. She’d given the place a cursory search but hadn’t found the culprit.

Sal followed her to the kitchen. “All I can smell is dinner.”

When Kate and Craig extended the house a couple of years earlier, they’d knocked through the kitchen to fit a large dining table into the space, allowing Craig to cook up his dinners whilst chatting to guests. And Craig was the chef of the house. Kate cooked more often, especially when it was just the three of them—a fair division of labor. Craig always went the extra mile when friends or family graced their home for an evening, researching more complex recipes to add a bit of zing to whatever they had planned. He even splashed out on a set of ceramic knives in a futuristic-looking block, brightly colored implements that bore too close a resemblance to toys for Kate’s liking. But they were sharp and funky, and Craig had loved them.

These days, with the knife block and the multicolored blades stored in a safe corner of the worktop, Kate tried to use the dining table for meals. They chose the same two chairs of the eight place settings each time, but more often lately, she and Aaron ate off trays in the lounge. Too often for her liking. Breakfast in the kitchen-diner was never a battle, a routine Aaron appeared to enjoy, although it was normally achieved with the TV on—an older 20-inch model which kept him quiet. Evenings, though, had got difficult, and sometimes it was preferable to flop into an easy chair and put the big television on.

“Hi, Mr. Cantero,” Aaron said brightly.

Yes, Kate had had words with him, ordering his best manners to the fore, this dinner a chance to say a big, hearty thank you to Mr. Cantero for all the help he’d given them since Daddy passed away. He’d agreed without backchat.

“Hey, Aaron.” Sal nodded in greeting, as a man would greet another man in a bar. “Something smells good.”

“My mom cooks great fries. I like the thick ones best.”

“Me too.” Sal glanced Kate’s way at this. “Chunky fries’re great.”

Kate cooked the fingers of potato in an air fryer, another product she’d bought from an infomercial using a credit card and hadn’t yet paid for. The salesgirl made it sound like Kate was poisoning her child using a deep-pan fryer for fries and chicken, and whatever else she submerged in vegetable oil to feed him. It took longer, but tasted fine. Unfortunately, she’d mistimed it, so the steak was keeping warm under the grill.

“Hope you don’t mind it well done,” she said.

He waved her off. “However it comes, I’m good.”

“Grab a beer from the fridge.”

He did so and offered her one, to which she said yes.

Aaron piped up again. “Can I change the channel?”

The TV was on, as it usually was at breakfast. Before Sal arrived, Kate had flicked it away from the cartoons and muted it to hold a conversation about Becky, but Aaron had deflected with questions regarding Sal. In the end, she’d let it drop and concentrated on not burning the steaks.

“Leave the channel,” Kate said. “Tell Mr. Cantero about school.” She lowered her chin. “The good stuff.”

Aaron watched the TV screen, a news channel silenced, its ticker along the bottom with breaking news and sports scores.

“You want to see the how the Comets are doing,” Aaron said.

Kate watched the screen, the ticker showing 0:0 for all games, since there were still ten minutes until the opening tip. The early start in the lower leagues was an attempt to draw in families and locals who didn’t want to drag themselves into the city or spend money on NBA games, and she and Craig had enjoyed the local sport. They’d have taken Aaron if he’d shown any interest.

She said, “I’m keeping our conversation going. It’s rude to have cartoons on when we have guests.”

Aaron half-moaned an, “Okay, Mom, I suppose.”

“Your mom isn’t interested in sports,” Sal added with what he probably thought was a reassuring smile.

Aaron met him with a blank expression.

“Have you washed your hands?” Kate asked, checking the fries.

“Yes.” Aaron showed her his hands, flipping them front and back.

“When?”

“When I got home.”

She switched off the grill. “Wash them again.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

Aaron resumed his dead-eyed stare. “Really, Mom? You don’t just want to talk about me to Mr. Cantero?”

Kate was about to snap at him, but Sal’s presence soothed her tone. “Aaron, you’ve been in the garden since then. Please wash your hands. I don’t need to talk about you to Mr. Cantero.”

Aaron slipped off his seat and tramped toward the door, but Sal stopped him.

“Hey, kiddo?”

Aaron stopped and his jaw stuck out, but upon casting a glance at his mom and her returning a “remember your manners” look, he said, “Yes?”

“Call me Sal, okay?”

Aaron looked fully at Kate.

She had hoped Sal wouldn’t do that, but she’d be the queen-bitch-mom if she contradicted him.

“Hands,” she said.

Aaron folded his ring finger over his little one, then put them back to normal and departed, his attitude unclear. Kate was just thankful he didn’t cause her any embarrassment. The finger thing was a concern, but she put it—and his sullen demeanor—out of her mind as she plated up the first portion of food.

Just the two of them.

“So.” She used tongs to transfer the biggest slab of beef to Sal’s plate. “He really is doing better.”

Sal made his way over. Not quite a saunter, but not far from it. “You look nice.”

She’d made something of an effort tonight, out of her crappy work clothes and into something more pleasant than the sweatpants she wore most evenings. Not trying to impress. Just as dolled up as she dared without leading to more misunderstandings about her intentions. She liked Sal, but how she felt when he asked her out proved she wasn’t in the market for a boyfriend. And she’d never thought of Sal that way, although she had to admit he looked great and had a kind heart.

“Thanks,” she said. “You do too.”

“Want me to turn off the box?”

“It’s okay.”

“Sports stuff comes on in about a half-hour. You sure?”

He knew about Kate’s issues, had listened when she’d spoken about them on one of those evenings where she’d thanked him with a beer for another odd job that she couldn’t manage alone. Only that night there’d been too many beers, three being too many for her, and she’d TMI’d herself so much she woke up with a yawning ache in her gut. She’d been hesitant when she saw him later that week, but he hadn’t mentioned it.

Tonight was the first time. Probably the first time it had cropped up between them.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I can cope with scores in the background.”

“Still…” Sal moved toward the TV remote.

“Please leave it on.”

Her words must have landed harsher than intended because Sal held up his hands, a beer in one of them, as if surrendering. “Okay, we cool.”

As Kate switched off the whooshing air fryer, she heard a sound like running water. Aaron washing his hands.

She said, “Sorry, I mean—”

“What’s that?” Sal asked.

“What?”

“That noise.”

Now Kate thought about it, there was no washbasin nearby. “Aw, not another leaking pipe.”

Both previous leaks had only become known once a sizeable puddle had formed, and it was audible from the garden or decking. Never from inside the house.

Sal was frowning, roaming the kitchen, following his ear. “Out there.”

He wandered out into the hall, Kate keeping up, her own brow furrowed, calculating what it might cost if Sal couldn’t fix it using materials at hand. They followed the sound into the lounge where Kate found the source of the noise.

“What the…?”

She had to steady herself. Her eyes bugged at what Aaron was doing. Sal stepped back in shock, unable to comment.

Kate didn’t blame him.

She screeched, “Aaron Franklin Mallory, what in the name of God are you doing?”

What Aaron Franklin Mallory was doing was standing on a footstool. He’d propped open the 30-gallon fish tank with a copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the tank containing Craig’s tropical fish—those Aaron had forbidden her from selling or giving away, and which she’d agreed to maintain despite the cost of food, filters, and occasional medicine. She’d been sure it was a symbol of his father, and hanging onto it was a way of remaining close to the man. He’d done the cleaning and the feeding, kept a close eye on them every single day.

And now he stood over that tank, his winkie in hand, urinating into the water.

The stream of piss ended. He shook himself off, before flipping his shorts back up into place.

Kate steadied herself on Sal. Not for balance, but because it didn’t seem real. She was literally struggling to comprehend it. A single question burned from within. One she had to grind out, even though she was still processing the odd scene.

“Why?”

Aaron looked more miserable than in the Principal’s office, tears shining in his eyes as he stared back. He switched to poor Sal, who obviously didn’t know where to place himself, then back to his mom.

As earnestly as anyone had ever spoken a sentence, he said, “I had to, Mom. I just had to.”