“My dad.”
Silas faced the road. “He did bad things.”
Toby's stomach tightened.
“So he was bad.”
“That is not the same sentence.”
Toby considered that.
“Did he hurt people?”
Silas chose his words carefully. “He lived in a world where violence happened. He was not innocent of it.”
Toby looked back at the lighter.
“Mom said he was brave.”
“He was.”
“Can both be true?”
Silas gave him a sideways glance. “You ask harder questions than most adults.”
“That is not an answer.”
This time Silas really did smile, but it disappeared quickly.
“Yes,” he said. “Both can be true. People are inconvenient that way.”
They turned onto Franklin Avenue, then into a neighborhood where pavement cracked at the curbs and shade trees had been trimmed too hard by utility crews. Toby pointed toward a narrow dead-end street.
“That one.”
Silas slowed.
The houses became smaller. Paint peeled from eaves. Several yards were dirt instead of grass. A rusted sedan sat on blocks beneath a blue tarp. Children playing with a sprinkler stopped to watch the black pickup and two Harley-Davidsons move down the street.
Toby pointed again. “Beige house. Chain-link fence.”
Silas pulled to the curb.
He did not immediately get out.
He looked at the bungalow.
The roof sagged slightly over the front room. One gutter hung loose. The fence gate leaned on one hinge. Through the front window, Silas could see the pale curve of oxygen tubing and the outline of a medical machine.
Fifteen years of anger suddenly encountered a poverty he had not prepared for.
Bones killed his bike engine behind them. Mickey did the same.
Silas got out.
“Stay with the truck,” he told them. “Nobody comes in unless I call.”
Bones nodded. His eyes went toward Toby with a new kind of attention.
Silas walked around to the passenger side and helped Toby down.
The boy pushed open the sagging gate. It gave a squeal loud enough to announce them to the whole block.
The front door was unlocked.
“Mom?” Toby called.
No answer at first.
Then came a cough from inside.
Toby opened the door.
The bungalow smelled faintly of bleach, canned soup, and medicinal plastic. An oxygen concentrator worked in the corner with a steady mechanical rhythm, drawing in room air and returning it transformed through a clear tube. A box fan turned lazily in the window but moved mostly warm air.
Sarah Harris sat in a faded floral armchair beneath the only vent that worked properly. A crocheted blanket covered her legs despite the heat because illness had made her feel cold even in July. Her hair, once dark and thick in the photographs Toby had seen, had been cut short because washing it left her breathless.
“Toby?” she said. “Where have you been?”
Her voice was weak but sharp with worry.