Henry takes the rag, not quite hot but better than the faucet’s ice, then kills the engine. Reaches over the backrest and under the covers to unearth the boy’s face. Flushed. Gaunt. The fever sheen exaggerates the valleys under his eyes. Working the tab of motel soap into a lather, he asks how his big eight-year-old boy is doing this fine morning.

“I didn’t finish my homework.”

“Uh-oh. Can you get detention for that? Suspended, or—don’t tell me—expelled?”

The boy is unamused.

“C’mon. Let’s get you cleaned up.” Henry reaches for Mom’s shawl, but Junior pitches back.

“I don’t think I can go to school today.”

“Why? Because of your homework?”

“I’m sick.” He tugs the covers up. “I’m sorry, Pa.”

“Junior, buddy,” Henry starts. “You know how important today is for your pa, right? For both of us. You got to tough it out and go to school, so Pa can do what he’s got to, too, okay? And I know you can, because you’re tough. Know how I know how tough you are?”

The boy shakes his head.

“Because you’re eight now, that’s how.”

The boy is trying not to cry. Before he can say anything, Henry beats him to it, snatches something off the floor. He lifts the boy’s birthday present, arranging its plastic limbs into a bodybuilder’s flex.

“Need you strong as Randy Savage today. I mean, do you think a little cold ever stopped the Macho Man, huh? C’mon. How about showing me those big-boy muscles?”

Two twigs creep out from the covers. Bend.

“There’s my tough guy.” He grabs a wrist before it can retreat again and shucks the covers aside. The boy’s cotton pajamas are darker, sweated through and vacuum-sealing his frame. A damp stain on the bench’s nylon might pass for a shadow, except it doesn’t mimic its corresponding body’s shivers. After pulling the boy into the front seat and peeling off the pajamas, he drapes his withered, naked son across his lap. Lathers Junior’s hair first, massages his scalp, then squeegees the suds down his neck to scrub his back. Finds an odd tension when extending the boy’s arm, limp yet trembling. He hands over the rag, so much of its heat already lost, telling the boy to get his feet and weenie while his pa fetches some clean clothes, okay?