Emotion rippled across his face. Then I watched him perform a maneuver I knew well: smile at me as if I’d mentioned the weather or asked him how work had been. Calm and pleasant.

It was the first time in years—maybe ever—that I seriously wondered if I wasn’t the only member of my family holding onto shameful secrets and uncomfortable guilt from those awful years.

“I’ll wrap up some food for you, how does that sound?” he said. Another maneuver I’d perfected over the years. A light, rapid subject change to avoid any emotional pitfalls or entanglements.

“That sounds good, Dad,” I said. “Thank you. You’re too sweet.”

He got Styrofoam containers and began filling them with pastries from the glass container near the register.

“Now it’s been a while but if I remember correctly, on the rare occasion he ate here, Dean the Machine was a pork roll man.” He said this innocently, in a tone devoid of mischief.

I peered up from eating the last of my breakfast, thinking about Dean saying I needed this more than I realized. Something as simple as lemon water ice was able to smooth the lines in his forehead and release the tension in his shoulders.

I fiddled with my ponytail. “I guess if you have any lying around, I wouldn’t mind bringing Dean some of his favorites.”

“You got it,” Dad said with a wink.

I knew criticism well. It was always the first choice out of my mother’s mouth, and that habit of hers never changed. But that night I’d gone down a Dean Knox-Morelli rabbit hole, I hadn’t only seen videos of past bouts and matches. There were articles, written by local sports writers and national commentators alike, ripping Dean’s decision to shreds. Every headline used some iteration of Philly’s Greatest or South Philly Golden Boy, raged at an athlete leaving the sport one match before he was favored to become the next light heavyweight boxing champion. I did come to understand that Dean hadn’t just pissed off drunk assholes at Benny’s Bar but an entire industry that had gotten behind his career.

I hoped another tiny surprise would elicit that same crooked grin on Dean’s face. That it would bring a measure of random, just-because joy for a man who seemed unsure of his place in the world.

I shifted on the stool and ignored those badminton-playing butterflies. Because I wasn’t getting too involved at all.

Not one bit.

17. Dean

Seventeen

Dean

I stood in front of the vacant lot holding a cup of coffee. A guy from the rec center had just dropped off the dumpster. It sat behind me, empty, ready for what I hoped was our final cleanup day before whatever we decided to do with it.