“Don’t you talk about my son.”

The flattop man rose. Went from one wall to the next, leaning on each as if testing their sturdiness just for something to do, circling Henry like some crewcut buzzard.

“Think about your baby,” he said. “Where you’re headed, you’ll be meeting plenty of young men who grew up fatherless.”

In the one-way mirror, Henry’s reflection was vaguely opaque, as if evaporating, already beginning to disappear. Still not entirely convinced that his presence would actually help his baby in the long run, but still. Five was bad, but thirty unimaginable. By the time he got out, Junior would be older than Henry was today. The man rolled a folder into a chubby baton. Thwacked it on the tabletop. As he turned to leave, Henry said, “Wait.”

He wanted his phone call.

When Henry stepped back into the first room, it appeared that Al had made new friends, the other detainees now gathered in a tight orbit around him. He was sweating, gnarled by a comedown, yet laughing at his own punch lines. Even the guard was chuckling from the sidelines. When Al turned at Henry’s arrival, his expression wilted.

“What’d I tell you?” the flattop man yelled. “I said to keep these two separated. Get that fat fuck in a holding cell, now.”

The guard fumbled past the audience and grabbed Al. As the guard lugged him away, Al reminded Henry that these fuckers ain’t got shit. That he and Henry were golden. Him and Henry, forever, dude. He loved him.

And Henry loved him, too, in whatever muddled-up, brotherly hate kind of way Al deserved after ruining their lives. Henry couldn’t go through with this. He had to. One day Al would understand, would forgive him. After all, Henry’d forgiven Al for what happened between them, no—what Al did after Red Lobster. It was whatever. Things happened, and some things were best kept secret, locked away.

Henry swallowed. Forgiving himself would be harder, which he now told Michelle, after sniveling through everything that had gone down since the phone rang last night. He hammered the pay phone. No coins rattled inside. He stuffed his fist into his pocket and clenched the stray coin, a penny, as if for luck, as if that could change anything. With the receiver against the skin of his teeth, he whispered, confessed that he didn’t know what to do.

“What you got to, Hen.”

“But.”

“But what?”

“But Al.”