Page 33

“I’m Shira,” said Shira, extending a hand and then wincing as Aunt Ellen crushed it with one of her signature handshakes. “Just a friend. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Sure,” Aunt Ellen said gruffly, very obviously looking Shira up and down. Shira shifted from foot to foot, tugging down the hem of her dress. “You meet at school? Incredible what this kid’s done in so short a time, right?”

“What?”

“With that game of his,” Aunt Ellen said. “Getting all those investors, those awards, those job offers? Kid’s incredible.”

“Wait,” Shira said, glancing back and forth between the two of them, something beeping in the background, and he could see the moment where she realized her blunder. “Wait, it was all true?” She clapped a hand to her mouth with clear mortification. Red roses bloomed on her cheeks. “Oh my god, why didn’t you say something? I feel like such an asshole!”

You were kind of an asshole, he didn’t say. But the cringe on his face must have spoken on its own. Her arms crossed so tightly it looked almost like she was hugging herself. “Oh my god, you felt sorry for me. You pitied me.”

He didn’t respond. She bit her lip, and he wondered if she was thinking about the day he’d tried to kiss her. Not that it mattered, of course. That day was a long time ago, and he had no interest in kissing her. Especially not right here, right now, while in one direction someone was sobbing like their heart might break and in the other it sounded like machines were trying to take over the world.

“Yes? Good. Okay,” Aunt Ellen was saying to a nurse, and then she was grabbing Leo by the shoulder, maybe a little more roughly than she had to. “This is the son. He’ll go with you.” To Leo, she added, “Your dad’s ready. Go. Be a good son.”

Instinct told him to reply, Well, maybe if he wanted a good son he should’ve been a good dad. He even opened his mouth but managed to stop himself in time. Was this what it meant to grow up?

He was glad he didn’t say it when he saw his dad. He again managed not to blurt anything mean out, but Joe looked terrible. Against the stark white background of his hospital bed, surrounded by metal grab bars and hooked up to various beeping tubes, he appeared as if he’d shrunken by half since Leo had seen him earlier. His face was grayish and his eyes red. The hospital gown fit him so awkwardly that his chest seemed shrunken and his legs like sticks.

Joe cracked a smile. “Looking good, huh?”

Leo closed his mouth. He hadn’t even realized it had fallen open. “I’ve seen worse,” he said gruffly. He stood there for a moment, the two of them staring at each other, before Leo moved gingerly toward Joe’s side and perched on the foot of the bed. He noticed, too late, a chair on the other side of the room. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better.” He sounded exhausted. “Glad I don’t have a roommate, at least. And also glad they caught it in time. You know, I’ll start on a diet, take some drugs, hopefully I’ll head off the big one.”

Leo could have made a joke about the drugs, but he was suddenly also exhausted, as if all his energy had puddled at his feet when he’d sat down. So he settled for “Hopefully.”

They stared at each other for a moment again, the silence broken by the sounds from all the machines monitoring Joe’s body and keeping him alive.

And then they spoke at once. “Listen—” “Hey, let me—” Then each gave a snort, and Leo realized, with a start, that the way Joe’s mouth twisted at one end was just like his own.

“Listen,” Joe said, and this time Leo nodded for him to go on. “I always figured you needed time to process and stew and sort through your feelings after the divorce, and that I’d give it to you, and maybe in the end I gave you too much time, because as I was lying there thinking I might die, that was all I could think about. That I might die with you hating me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Leo said weakly, but it was as if Joe didn’t hear him.

“And then I realized, hey, I gave you time, but I didn’t give you much to process. I never wanted to talk to you about the divorce, because I knew I’d been in the wrong, and so I took the coward’s way out. But listen, Leo.” Joe struggled to sit up, the hospital gown drooping over his collarbone. “I’m sorry. Hell, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what the divorce did to you and how it made you feel toward me. I didn’t want to be a husband anymore, but I sure as hell still wanted to be your dad.”

Leo suddenly felt that maybe he might also be having a heart attack. Well, he thought this was the place for it, at least. How exactly were you supposed to respond to something you’ve been wanting to hear for years, without even knowing how badly you wanted it? “Thank you,” he croaked. “I wish I’d let my guard down even a little bit. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully forgive you for what you did to me and Mom.” Joe’s face fell a little bit, but it was the truth. “You’re still my dad, though. And I want to try to make it feel that way again.”

“We could start by actually talking at those dinners your mom made you do,” said Joe.

Leo snorted. “I’ll do my best.”

“Or,” Joe said. “You could start by telling me about your life. Are you still in love with Shira Levinson?” He clearly noticed Leo’s surprise. “You were never subtle about it.”

Leo cleared his throat. “Definitely not,” he said. He was over Shira. For good. He changed the subject. “How are you…You were out on a date the other night, right? How was it?”

They talked about it, actually talked about it, for the next however long, only breaking at a gentle knock on the door. It was Aunt Ellen and Shira—his dad raised an eyebrow at Leo, who shrugged a little bit sheepishly—and, strangely enough, they were holding a menorah. One of the plastic electric ones, with those blue ombré bulbs that screwed in and out. “It’s the first night of Hanukkah,” Aunt Ellen explained. “Shira kindly reminded me, and it turned out they had this menorah at the nurses’ station. We asked if we could bring it in here to ‘light’ it.”

“We thought it might be nice,” Shira said, her voice as bright as her smile. She bobbed her head at Leo’s dad. “Sorry about your heart.”

“Thanks,” said Leo’s dad, bemused. “Sure, let’s light the menorah. Why not.”

Shira scuttled forward to put the menorah on the windowsill, which overlooked the parking lot. Then she paused for a moment, hands on hips, to take it in. Leo said, “My dad really got lucky with the view, didn’t he?”

She spun, her smile brilliant. “I know you’re kidding, but for Hanukkah, yes. The whole point of the menorah is for people to see it burning so that they can all share in the light. What better place for that than the parking lot everyone is using?” Her smile faltered, and she added, so quietly Leo could barely hear her, “Maybe a party to show everybody how great you’re doing.”

“What was that?” Aunt Ellen asked.