“Maybe we should go,” I said to Jeremy, who had the look of a kid who’d been picked last for a team.

“Why didn’t you come?” Jeremy asked.

“Jeremy, we talked about this,” his father said. “You know—”

“Because of your cunt mother, that’s why,” Malcolm said.

Jack said, “Enough.” He gently pushed Malcolm back into the house. Malcolm allowed it to happen, even showing some satisfaction that his behavior had brought about that reaction. Jack closed the door and stepped outside.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “And Jeremy, you know I wanted to be at the trial, I wanted to be there for you, but Gloria, your mother—”

“You don’t have to do everything she says,” Jeremy interrupted.

“She said to me, and these were her exact words, ‘We don’t need a couple of gaylords turning the trial into a circus.’ That’s what she said.”

“You could have ignored her.”

“It wasn’t just her,” Jeremy’s father said.

Jeremy said, “Who?”

Jack Pilford hesitated. “Madeline called me. She said she’d been talking to Grant Finch, who more or less agreed with your mother. That they had a defense worked out, that bullshit about you not understanding the consequences of your actions. They didn’t want to complicate the message with stories about your father—about me—being gay. I guess Finch and Madeline thought gay was the same thing as sensitive, and if that’s what I was, how come none of my influence rubbed off on you while your mother and I were still together. It was all a crock of shit, far as I was concerned, but if they had something worked out, I didn’t want to mess it up. I didn’t want to do anything that might work against you. Not that the world didn’t find out about me anyway.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

Jack tipped his head back in the direction of the house. “That’s what’s got Malcolm riled up. I’m sure it’s just a fraction of what you and your mother are dealing with, but we’ve been targeted, too.”

“Targeted?” I said.

“Harassing phone calls, being mocked online. I’m the Big Baby’s faggot father who didn’t teach his kid right and wrong. How could I, half of them say, considering I’m a sick, twisted pervert.”

It was like a cancer, all this social-media shaming.

“Malcolm’s furious that I’ve had to endure this,” Jack said. He smiled wearily at his son. “But I’ll survive it. One day, when it all blows over, we can do something, get together. How does that sound?”

Jeremy looked at me. “I guess we should be going.”

I said, “Okay.”

“No, wait,” Jack said. “Maybe we could go somewhere, get a cup of coffee.”

“I hate coffee,” Jeremy said, already walking back to the car.