“Let’s talk about what you really want to get off your chest.”

He laughs again and fidgets, pacing the room, then taking off his socks and shoes, presumably just to stay busy.

“Something more personal.”

“What do you want from me?” He walks from one wall to another and back, no longer faking purpose. Just pacing. “I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

“I think you do.” I’m the dad with open ears, an open heart, an open mind.

Jonah kicks his dresser. His face is flushed when he screeches, “What are you asking?”

I wait.

“What do you want me to tell you? That I was up there when he died?”

My heart quickens. My skin tingles and head spins, but I stay composed when I say, “Yes. I want you to tell me about that.”

He closes the door and this room shrinks. “I watched him die, and I lied about it, and now I’m fucked. Royally. Because if this investigator finds out, he’s going to think I have something to hide. What do you think will happen then, huh?” The cool drains out of him. Hopelessness fills the cracks. “Could he try to frame me for murder?”

What the hell were they doing on the roof? Did a lover’s quarrel end in suicide? Blind rage? I ask, “What happened up there?”

Jonah slams his back against the door and slides down like some silly girl in a corny music video. I look away, noticing nicks in his furniture, stains on his curtains.

“Jonah?” I keep my tone velvet-soft. “What were the two of you doing up there?”

He takes a deep breath, lets it out over several seconds. Finally, he says, “I go up there sometimes. That key just sits there on the doorframe. No one noticed if I took it, or if I left it unlocked. Used to go up in junior high and pretend I was a sniper. In high school, I’d hang out up there sometimes just to break a rule. Stupid stuff.” He holds his face with both hands, hiding from me like a kid playing games with a baby who believes that what he can’t see can’t see him. “And Nick was curious, so I showed him. He lost his balance and fell, smashed into the balcony and went over the edge. It wasn’t my fault.”

“Of course it wasn’t.” Of course not. Still, the picture blurs. “Why were you up there?”

He lifts his shoulders. “Privacy.”

The crow’s nest was their love nest, then. Mildew, hornets’ nests, splinters, lead paint, but yes, privacy, too. I’m assembling time lines in my mind, aware that young men keep secrets, aware that Jonah’s sexuality is his business, his private acts are none of mine. And yet, this is my house, he is my son, and something isn’t making sense. “Tell me what happened.”