He opens the door and sees Lincoln sitting on the stoop reading the metro section. Simon looks behind him as if contemplating retreat but instead closes the door quietly, as if the noise of their meeting will climb the stairs and wake Irene. Nothing will rouse her, not the traffic, nor Simon’s tossing, nothing can breach the wall of sleep that Irene erects around herself with the long hours she logs behind the wheel and on the hospital floor, and the whites she and the other nurses take to “stay positive” on the long shifts. She tries to hide it, but she comes home incoherent and in the morning emerges from the bathroom bright and bruised, like an overripe orange, sweet but wrong.

Simon sits down next to Lincoln and takes a cigarette from the pack on the step. He lights it and shivers, though the September sun is burning off the dawn fog. Lincoln looks as if he hasn’t slept.

“Mornin, Simon.”

“Or a late night maybe.”

“Depends on how you look at it, I suppose.”

Simon studies him and is amazed at Lincoln’s growth in the two and a half years since he was released. At almost-fourteen his body looks twenty. Sturdy. Used to the demands of hard living, too old and too capable for his age. As if his body is impatient for some task that will tax every fiber.

“You supposed to be up north.”

“Could say the same thing bout you, Uncle.”

Simon shudders again, this time at the venom laced through the word uncle, made slick and heavy with dangerous knowledge.

“Well. It didn’t suit me.”

“Me either.”

“You supposed to be in school. I ain’t.”

Lincoln looks at him hard, his eyes limned in red, his cheeks taut.

“I don’t think,” he says slowly, “I don’t think you got any right to tell me what to do.”

“Watch your tongue, sonny. I ain’t your dad, but I am your uncle.”

“If it weren’t for you, my dad would be here right now.”

Simon looks away. “You know.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Who told you?”

“Boo.”

“Goddamn him.”

“After you took off in the woods no one figured they’d see you again. So they talked.”

“Well, shit, Lincoln. Knew you’d figure it out someday. What you here for then?” He faces Lincoln, as if readying himself for a blow. “You might as well give up tryin to make me feel bad. I’ve felt worse than anything that can happen now.”

“I need some money to get back up north. Grandma’s gonna declare me a runaway if I don’t hightail it back.”

“Are you?”

“Am I what? A runaway?”

“If I give you the dough are you gonna use it to go back?”

“Yeah.”

“We don’t got much. Maybe enough for the bus.”

“Who? You and that white bitch that works next door to you?”