The Inmate (33)

“One? That’s it?”

“Okay, uh… two, I guess.”

“But what if they’re small?”

Oh my God, I would let him have the whole box if he would just leave the room right now. “You can have three if they’re small.”

“Yay!”

Josh takes off down the hall with the box of cookies, leaving me and Tim staring at each other in the hallway. Tim shakes his head. “That’s your son? That’s Josh?”

“Yes…”

The confusion on his face almost makes me want to reach out and hug him. “You told me he was in kindergarten.”

“I never told you that.”

“But you…” He glances over my shoulder. “Can we talk outside for a minute?”

I’d really rather not, but I have a feeling I don’t have a choice in the matter. This is a conversation we need to have, as much as I’ve been dreading it. And I don’t want to talk about this within earshot of my son, and Tim knows it.

We step out onto my front porch, shutting the door behind me. I’m standing only a foot away from Tim, and I can almost make out the remnants of the freckles he used to have. I used to know his face so well, even better than my own.

We were inseparable when we were kids. And we thought it would always be like that—Tim especially. When we were six or seven, he used to talk about the future in a way that always included me. He’d say things like, When we get married, we should get a big house with five bedrooms. Sometimes I got the feeling he never stopped thinking that way—he just stopped saying it out loud.

“Brooke,” he says quietly, “how old is Josh?”

I shut my eyes for a moment, hoping maybe when I open them, this will all be a really awkward dream. Then I open my eyes again.

Nope. Not a dream.

“He’s ten,” I say.

“Ten?” Tim’s hand is shaking as he runs it through his hair. “He’s ten years old?”

“Right.”

“So does that mean Shane is…?”

He doesn’t need to finish the question. We both know what he’s thinking. I may as well tell him the truth. He deserves that.

“Yes,” I say. “He is.”

“Oh God.” Tim looks like he’s going to be sick. “I had no idea that you…”

“Well, now you know why I left town.”

“Yeah, but…” He stares at the door to my house. “Does Josh know who his father is?”

“No. And I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Does Shane know?”

I shake my head vigorously. “No. No way.”

Tim looks again at the door of my house, his eyes growing wilder by the second. “Christ, he even looks like Shane.”

“I know.” I bite my lip. “He does look like him, but he’s not anything like Shane. He’s a really good kid.”

“Oh God.”

His reaction is about what I expected it to be. Tim never liked Shane, even before all the terrible things he did. I should have known he would react this way. But it’s still hard to watch. Sometimes people do exactly what you think they’re going to do, and they still manage to disappoint you.

“Look…” Tim takes a step back. “I think maybe I should go. This was… a bad idea.”

He’s not thinking anymore about how when we’re married, we’re going to build a giant two-story dog house in the backyard. Which is fine. A dog house that big wasn’t practical, anyway.

Tim is about to take off when Josh bursts out of the house. He looks slightly breathless, and his lips are covered in cookie crumbs. “Mom!” he says. “The kitchen sink is broken.”

Oh, great. This evening is just getting better and better. “Are you sure?”

Josh nods solemnly. “Yeah. When I turn the water on, it only comes out slow or really fast and I got water all over me!”

I miss my old apartment in Queens. We had a landlord and a super, and if something was broken, all I had to do was call them. I suppose I have to figure out a way to fix the sink myself.

“Tim?” I better ask him before he makes a run for it. “You don’t know a plumber I can call, do you?”

Tim looks over at the house, frowning slightly. “If you want, I can take a look.”

“Do you know how to fix a sink?”

“Maybe. I’ve gotten pretty decent at fixing things around the house.”

I’m not about to turn him down. Plumbers are expensive, and while my parents left me this house, they didn’t leave me much money after taxes took its share. “Okay, thanks.”

Tim follows me into the house. It’s weird because he’s been in this house hundreds if not thousands of times, but not for a long time, and not since the two of us have grown up. I never swapped out most of the furniture my parents had, but it’s not the same furniture from when we were kids. It looks different, but the same. Sort of like Tim himself.

“Do you have a toolkit?”

I think for a moment. “My dad kept one in the garage.”

“I’ll get it!” Josh says.

Tim and I stand there awkwardly while Josh runs to the garage to grab my father’s toolbox. Fortunately, he doesn’t take long. He comes back a minute later, lugging a black toolbox that looks like it weighs more than he does.