“The thing is, Junior, you’ve got no idea how proud your grandma would be of you. Really, though. Know why? Do you want to?”

The boy nodded.

“Because Grandma was smart enough to understand that only you’ve got what it takes to help your pa, to help fix me.”

A quiet spread. Henry shuddered. Had to resituate himself in time and space right there, right here, embracing his son on the floor of their home.

After such sobbing, the boy’s voice was a rash. “But, Pa?”

“But what?”

“Isn’t that? I don’t know,” the boy said.

“It’s okay. You can ask Pa anything.”

“Isn’t that a lot of responsibility? You know, for a seven-year-old?”

Henry remembered he’d chuckled, which had both surprised and worried him. Humor had seemed impossible in the wake of such violence, such shame. And as much as he’d hoped that he possessed the basic tact to tell his son, yes, it certainly was a lot, but Henry believed in him and was so very proud of him and absolutely certain that the boy could handle even the scariest situations or unfairest responsibilities, he couldn’t remember what he’d actually said, because, now, the memory got cut short. Interrupted. Snipped like a joke before its punch line, or a vow of silence to a forgotten secret.

In an instant, six weeks whipped past and then yanked out from under Henry. A knock knock on the front door had thumped him back here, back to now, 4:32 p.m. on December 31.

It was time to go. Time for this to end so whatever that something else was could begin.

“You ready, bud?”

The shape wrapped in the bese saka shawl rocked into a full-body no.

Okay. Henry raked the cash into a single stack. Folded it, pocketed it, then splashed the coins in after. The knocks grew faster, harder. From outside, Sandi said she knew Henry was in there and would call the police if she had to, goddamnit, don’t test her. She wasn’t playing around, and it didn’t agitate Henry at all. Ignoring the knock’s tempo for his own unrushed shuffle, he passed one final time through the husk of what had once been their home, this space where they’d once been a family. He reached down and lifted the boy to his feet. While their eyes roamed loose and nervous, hunting for any stray memories that might have crawled into a vent or gotten caught in the radiator’s grating, their hands held firm. Together and steady now.

The chain dropped, the deadbolt swiped, the knob turned, and the door pulled back from Sandi’s mittened fist. The wind was pushing whorls of snow through a deep lilac dusk. Behind Sandi, at the bottom of the steps, stood two men wearing ski masks and back braces over gray sandstone duck jackets.

“Hey there, Sandi.”