“I found a couple listings this morning,” I said. “I’m gonna call them after lunch.”

“In general,” he said, “you want to call before five.”

It was almost four-thirty. I hadn’t noticed.

He glanced at the screen. “You into this stuff?” Like it was trash.

I nodded, hurt. He must have known this about me, must have remembered all the programs he watched when he was little. “The show got me all distracted,” I explained. “That’s why I lost track of time.” I held up the pizza. “Nearly got frostbite.”

He took the box from my hand and put it on the counter. “You curious why I came home early?”

There wasn’t anything about him that didn’t make me curious.

He said: “I found you a job at my bank.”

I was quiet for a moment. Then I said: “Because I couldn’t find anything on my own.”

“It’s not like that. It’s only a temp thing, but it’s a good start.”

“And you think I’d be okay at it?”

“It’s not for specialists. I think you’d be fine.”

Abe had become this kind of man, very polite. He used to hurt my feelings when he was a kid, and now I almost missed it. At least when he was willing to hurt me, he didn’t feel like a stranger.

One time, he must have been seven or eight, he got mad because I made him do some chores around the trailer. I’d decided to make it more of a home, even if it was only for two weeks. “I don’t want any chores,” he said. “This isn’t the place I live.” He wouldn’t take out the trash. He wouldn’t even eat a bowl of cereal. He just sat there with his favorite stuffed animal, a green and purple dragon named Smoke. It had a curly tail and hard plastic eyes you could rap-tap-tap with your fingers. I could still hear his little voice. He’s not like other animals. He makes the fire in his belly.

This was his first day, and those were usually the hardest, our starts and endings. He’d brought flannel pajamas from the city, covered in squirrels and too hot for summer, and a chocolate mouse that melted in its foil. His fingers pushed its ears right into its head. “Well, now it’s ruined,” he said, voice flat, and threw it in the trash. “Don’t you have to go to work?”

I left him sitting there while I cleaned houses on the other side of town. I never went into Reno while he was visiting, so I found temp work with a maid service. I scrubbed another woman’s tile floors while my son sat in my house thinking, This isn’t my home. This isn’t my home. But I got back to find him standing in the kitchen with an oven tray of unbaked cookies. He was holding his dragon. “Smoke is baking them,” he told me. “It’ll only take a couple centuries.”

He was kind that day. He was willing to try.