“Like in a booth?” Alex said.

“Yeah.”

“Not really. I mean, if somebody’s mom’s late picking them up from school, sometimes somebody’ll use the one in the lobby to call home or something.”

“Right,” John said. “But nobody that you know of uses one, like, often, right? Or, nobody has maybe a dad or older brother you know of that uses one?”

Alex shook her head disinterestedly.

It was quiet for a while.

Alex acted as though she might be getting a nibble and bounced her line, but nothing came of it.

John decided to take the conversation further. Though he didn’t suspect the caller from home was anything to worry about, it couldn’t hurt to have a little bit of a chat . . . He couldn’t remember the last time he and Poppy had the Good Touch, Bad Touch talk with Alex. They had made a point to do that with both kids, he was sure of that, but he couldn’t remember how long it’d been, which probably meant it had been too long.

John cleared his throat, adjusted his posture, and said, “There’s no one from home you can think of, other than your friends from school, who ever tries to get in touch with you on the phone. Right?”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know,” John said. “Like a teacher, or one of our neighbors, or one of your friends’ dads . . . I just mean, nobody like that . . . You’ve never had any sort of private relationship with somebody like that, right?”

“What the heck do you mean, Daddy?”

John cleared his throat and said, “We’ve talked about good touches and bad touches —”

“Oh my gosh, Daddy.” Alex’s cheeks flushed and brightened fully to bubble-gum pink. “Yes, we’ve talked about that, and they also talk to us about that at school. I know what all that stuff is, like molesters and stuff. Oh my gosh, why do you want to talk about such gross stuff?”

John instantly felt so reassured by this response that he laughed. Then he stopped abruptly, not wanting Alex to think it was a laughing matter.

“I just wanted to make sure,” he said. “It’s been a while since we’ve had that talk, and I want to remind you, don’t ever be scared to say something to your mom or me. About that kind of thing, or any kind of thing.”

“I know, duh,” Alex said. She paused. “Did you bring this up because I started my period last night?”

“No,” John glanced at her stiffly. “Nothing to do with that. But your mom told me.” A few words shuffled around in his mind: Congratulations? Good job?

Eventually, he said, “You’re feeling alright, then?”

Alex said, “It’s not a big deal.”

John reached out a hand to put around his daughter’s shoulders, but realized that his fingers were smelly and stained with fish blood and soil from the bait container, so he just patted the concrete between the two of them.