PART 28

In September, a full school year later in the way memory measures, my son asked if Dad could take him for pancakes.

“Grandpa,” I said, to make the word precise.

“Grandpa. Not Grandma’s house. The diner.”

I called Dad.

Dad said yes so fast I heard the loneliness in it and decided loneliness was not a reason to refuse a pancake if the rules stayed clear.

I dropped them off. I sat in the car for the first ten minutes like a man who could not yet believe a diner was only a diner. Through the window I saw my son talk with his hands. I saw Dad listen. I saw no one snatch anything.

When I went in at the end, there was a smear of syrup on my son’s chin and a look on Dad’s face I did not recognize from the recliner.

“He told me about the science fair,” Dad said.

“Volcano,” my son said. “Not a real one.”

“Good,” I said.

On the sidewalk Dad cleared his throat.

“I told your mother last night that if she ever takes a phone out of a parent’s hand again I will be the one who calls. I should have been that man already.”

“Say it when it counts.”

“I am practicing in rooms where it is easy so I can do it in rooms where it is not.”

That is the only training that works.

I shook his hand. It felt strange and correct.