All it took was one lap through the toys until he hated himself. Rather than considering what gift options Junior might actually want, all his mental energy had been spent tallying and comparing price tags.

He went back to the action figures. Scattered on an ankle-high shelf was an assortment of toys on clearance: professional wrestler figurines. A failed series featuring the biggest stars from the sport-theater’s heyday. The names of these steroid-charged pituitary cases were sure to be as meaningless to anyone born after the ’80s as all the higher shelves’ characters were to him.

A folding chair of nostalgia smacked him at the sight of his old favorite. Jets of sparks crackled and burst among stadium spotlights, an orchestra began marching through the opening bars of “Pomp and Circumstance,” and Slim Jim peppers prickled his tongue. Maybe Junior would get a kick out of learning about his pa as a boy, flexing in front of a boxy, wood-paneled TV, turning furniture into turnbuckles and sofa cushions into archnemeses down for the count.

Plus it was only $4.97.

At the checkout counter, he asked for paper, double-bagged.

Outside he dropped the tailgate to make a workbench. At that point, only the Winnebago sat at the far end of the parking lot. From the diamond-plated utility case, he withdrew a utility knife and a roll of tape that was down to its last band. He slit along the seams of the brown paper, flipped the blue-ink logos outside in, then wrapped the gift up, careful to be conservative with the last shreds of tape. Sure enough, the tape ran out before he’d finished, leaving one flap of paper jutting out stubbornly. He doubled back inside to ask the greeter for a favor.

Junior isn’t simply a smart kid. Inherited all his parents’ skepticism but none of their lip, making him observant, perceptive, seemingly wise beyond his stubby eight years. Of course he’ll sense Henry’s excitement about this gift, will absorb the heat of his father’s enthusiasm like a skillet over blue flames. Looking forward to something feels foreign. Awkward but thrilling, like the ecstatic angst of his first time with Michelle. Can’t believe how much he still misses her, even now, after everything. Even though he hasn’t quite forgiven her. Even though there’s no forgiving him, either.

The boy’s face is so soft it’s all lobes. Hardly a hint of his mother’s piercing features, for now at least. Searching for a trace of Michelle in Junior, Henry spots the mess of melted ice cream splattered down the boy’s arm and hand, which he’s now kneading into his navel.

Henry steers them onto the freeway, the asphalt and landscape ahead of them as barren as they are behind. Junior, sensing his father’s gaze, swallows a wince. He turns away, staring out or into the cling-wrap cobweb. “It hurts.”

“It’s okay,” Henry says. “Pa’s right here.”

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