“Graduated high school. Millions of people manage it.”
“Millions of people did not walk into this bar at ten trying to liquidate family history.”
Toby smiled.
He took out the silver lighter.
Years of careful handling had polished the high points of the engraving. The missing-jaw skull remained dark in the recessed lines. The hinge still worked. Toby had replaced the flint but rarely fueled it because he did not smoke.
“I almost sold this for eight dollars,” he said.
Silas stared at it. “You would have ruined a pawn broker's life.”
“I think about that sometimes.”
“Do not.”
“What would you have done if some guy brought it in here instead of me?”
Silas considered.
“I would have asked where he got it.”
“And if he said he bought it from a kid?”
Silas looked at Toby.
“Then I would have spent a very unpleasant afternoon finding the kid.”
Toby laughed.
The laughter faded naturally.
“I used to think Dad saved us in the crash,” Toby said.
“He did.”
“I mean, I thought that was the one thing. The big thing.”
Silas waited.
“But he saved us before that too. Leaving. Changing his name. Working ordinary jobs. Not calling you even when he wanted to. All those boring choices were part of it.”
Silas nodded.
Toby turned the lighter over. “I hated him for a while.”
Silas did not look surprised.
“For leaving you?”
“For putting Mom in a position where she had to hold everything alone after he died. For having a past that could find him at all. For making me care about a man I could not remember.”
“Reasonable.”
“I thought you would defend him.”
“I have spent half my life mad at him. I would be a hypocrite.”
Toby leaned against the workbench.
“Then I stopped needing him to be good or bad.”
Silas smiled slightly. “Dangerous maturity.”
“He was Dad.”
“Yes.”
“Complicated.”
“Extremely.”
“Loved us.”
“With everything he had.”
The words echoed Sarah's answer from Toby's childhood.