I guess you hit a little close to home. I’m sorry.”
Fitz imagines that it can’t be very easy for his father to admit he’s wrong. To apologize to a kid. I’m sorry—that can’t be something he says very often. “It’s okay,” Fitz tells him. “Don’t worry about it.” Why not? Apology accepted. Forgiveness is free. And it’s not as if he’s been a model of good manners himself. Really, he’s in no position to judge.
Whenever he’s inclined to judge someone, his mom will usually call him out. She’ll stick up for any underdog, criminals even. You don’t know what they’ve been through, she’ll say, you don’t know what they’ve suffered, you have no idea what you would do if you were in their position.
If he were in his father’s shoes fifteen years ago, what would Fitz have done? He’s heard crying babies before, and they jangle his nerves. An angry woman showing him the door, giving him permission to leave, telling him, ordering him, really, to walk. Maybe he’d ease out the door, too.
One of Caleb’s favorite all-purpose phrases is can’t imagine. He says it when someone tells him about something foreign to him, outside his somewhat limited range of experience. Somebody’s girlfriend woes, maybe, some kind of love triangle situation, say. Caleb takes it all in—he’s a great listener—but that’s about all he says. Can’t imagine. It might seem unsympathetic. Most people want you to say just the opposite, that you get it, you understand—you can relate. But Fitz has come to appreciate his friend’s honesty. He likes that he doesn’t pretend to understand what he really knows nothing about. So what was it like to be his father back then? Fitz can’t imagine. He really can’t.
Fitz likes to think that he himself would have acted honorably. Manned up. Not taken the easy way out. He’d like to think that. But really, he doesn’t know. He does know that he’s taken the easy way himself plenty of times. It’s easy to be brave in theory.
Fitz comes out of his hood and looks around. They’re passing a school now. There’s a line of buses idling outside. A woman in a reflective vest and a handheld stop sign makes them wait while a woman with a stroller crosses in front of them. School is about to let out.
It feels like the longest day of his life. It also feels like the shortest. They crammed a lot into a few hours together. They made some memories. You can say that much.
Here’s the problem. As good as this day has been, it’s been forced. Not freely given. They’ve fed sea lions, he’s had a second piece of pie, he’s heard about the exploding television, he’s made his dad laugh. He’s visited a law office and shared one of his songs. He’s heard his father apologize. But it doesn’t count, not really. What you get at gunpoint, that’s not love. That’s something else altogether. You can take a guy’s car, but you can’t jack someone’s heart. It doesn’t work that way.
Fitz can remember when he realized that Bethany, the teenage girl who lived across the street, was getting paid to play with him when his mom was out. He thought she liked playing with him, building with Lego toys, coloring, lying on the floor with all the figures from his Star Wars bucket around, arranging battle scenes. Then he saw money change hands, the smile on Bethany’s face. To her it was a job. When he figured that out, he felt stupid and ashamed.
They have no future. This is a one-off. Fitz and his father, they’re going to be known as one-hit wonders. Tomorrow, probably, he’s going to get a restraining order, and it will be illegal for Fitz to go within a hundred yards of him. It was fun while it lasted.
Fitz thinks of those Make-A-Wish stories he sees on television from time to time. Some doomed, bald little kid spending the day with his sports hero, playing catch, getting autographs, going home with a big pile of gear. It’s supposed to be heartwarming. But what about the next day? Fitz always wonders about that. And the day after that? It just makes Fitz sad.
“So now what?” his father says. They’re stopped at the light on West Seventh. Fort Snelling is one way, downtown the other, the river is in front of them. “Where to?”
For a moment Fitz thinks his father is giving him a song. He tries—he likes songs with questions in