Where the hell is all this adoration coming from? How could he possibly feel that way after everything I’ve done and said to him? But then I think back to my conversation with Lion last night. Maybe he was right. After all, you don’t bow down to the will of people like Mrs. Cloutier for fifteen years if you aren’t doing it for the people you love. I realize this adoration is something I always felt deep down. But now it’s coming out in full force.

“Where is all this coming from?” I ask when we resume our walk back home.

“I was so angry at you yesterday. So angry,” Dad says. “It scared me a little, to be honest. Your mother wasn’t around, and I hated the feeling, so I just ended up walking it off. I made it all the way downtown to that building where your uncle works.”

“You did?”

Jesus. Were we clones or something?

“He put some things in perspective. Apparently, I put a lot of pressure on people.”

I give a noncommittal hum, earning a side-eye from him.

“Occasionally.”

I imagine Lion sighing every time he looks up from his desk to see a member of this family in need of emotional hand-holding. I wonder if Ma’s ever visited him too.

If anything good comes out of this, it might be that Dad and Lionel are speaking again. Or at least spoke again.

The walk extends itself. At some point, we both take a left instead of the right that would get us back to the Wyatt. We head south on Broadway, to another little parish of Manhattan. Why did we never do this before? Just walk? Him, me, and Ma?

“I still love this city after all these years,” he says out of the blue. “I can’t help it. I loved New York since before I knew there was a difference between the state and the city. I loved the idea of it. There was a postcard right over my bed as a kid. Don’t know how I ended up with it, but it was mine somehow. My city. Where all my dreams were waiting for me.”

His smile dims. “But when I finally got here . . . I learned it wasn’t my city. I was a part of it, could survive it, somehow, but couldn’t say I tried to make a bigger space for myself than that. And then, in the blink of an eye, it’s been more than two decades.”

“I have, like, so many career aptitude tests I can forward you. FATE gives them out like hot cakes.”

“Might take you up on that.” He chuckles. Then he gets serious again. “So, what happens now . . . with all this?”

“I need to talk to Mr. Vu.”

“Everyone deserves a second chance. The question is what will you do with it.”