Wayne stared as it rolled down his jacket, caught briefly on the zipper tail, then plopped to the ground.
He turned wide, wide eyes to Diggy. “That was cow poop.”
Diggy got back to his feet, dusting his pants with his clean hand and shaking poop off the other.
“You’ve got poop in your ear,” Wayne said, pointing.
Diggy instinctively poked a finger into his ear. A finger crusted with poop.
Wayne grinned, and Diggy was ready to take another swing, until Wayne’s expression suddenly shifted to sadness.
“Mom says people fight instead of think.”
Diggy sighed for him. The guy was still using the present tense to talk about his mom. “What’s so great about thinking?”
BACK AT THE HOUSE POP SERVED BACON, EGGS, TOAST, QUARTERED ORANGES, and tall glasses of milk. The cut oranges were a tip-off—Pop usually stuck a whole one by his plate—but it was the place mats that put Diggy on full alert that Pop wanted to talk about something serious that Diggy probably wouldn’t like.
He crumpled two strips of bacon into his mouth and gulped some milk. Pop wouldn’t talk about the real thing he wanted to talk about until after they had eaten, and Diggy preferred to get things over with rather than stew.
He glanced out the kitchen window, but the view didn’t include Mr. Graf’s truck.
Diggy forked at his eggs. Pop had added cheese—tip-off number three. Diggy’s knee bounced. He took a couple of bites of toast but needed more milk to get them down. Did Pop think dealing with Mr. Graf when they took Wayne back would be that bad?
Pop’s coffee sat on the table, cupped between his hands. The mug, like the fork, was left in its place. Though he leaned back in his chair as if he was relaxed, his eyes squinted against nonexistent brightness, and his orange hair, usually combed first thing, already had its end-of-day muss.
Wayne didn’t know the cues. He ate like it was breakfast. Maybe special for a Sunday, and like it was a lot better than anything he’d had in a while.
Which it probably was.
When Wayne finished eating, Pop eyed Diggy’s plate. Diggy shook his head no, and Pop nodded.
He sat forward. The coffee mug slid back and forth from palm to palm a couple of times before Pop caught himself and set it aside. “We need to talk about what comes next.”
The words might as well have been the snap of a twig in a dark wood. Wayne froze like he’d seen a yeti.
“I think Harold needs some time,” Pop said. “He was out every night this week.”
“You checked up on him?” Wayne asked.
“While you’re my responsibility—”
Diggy cut him off. “Just because you might have—you know—with his mom doesn’t make you his father.” Diggy stumbled over the words, but he’d said them. They had needed saying.
“Maybe not,” Pop conceded. “But Harold left Wayne with us, so we have to watch out for him. Even if that means we have to watch out for Harold, too.”
It sounded like Pop … Diggy needed to puke up what little breakfast he had eaten. It was a greasy cannonball at the bottom of his stomach.
“You want me to stay?” Wayne whispered.
“I do.”
Just like that. Pop had chosen Wayne just like that, like it was easy and no big deal.
He hadn’t even talked with Diggy about it first.
“He’s already got a father!” Diggy yelled.
“I know that,” Pop argued. “I’m not suggesting anything else, but that father is not in his right mind just now.” He turned to Wayne. “But he will be, with some time. Harold can do it. He was a little wild before Ann, but together they were good. He can do it for her, he can do it for you, and he will, because he loves you.”
Diggy hyperfocused on the fact that Pop called Mrs. Graf “Ann.” Mrs. Graf was Mrs. Graf, Diggy’s old teacher. It was weird to think teachers had first names, and disorienting to think Pop had known Wayne’s mom as Ann. Even if they had been circling around the idea of it all night, Diggy didn’t like Pop calling Mrs. Graf “Ann.”
He didn’t like Pop telling Wayne to stay, either.
He didn’t like what that seemed to mean. About Pop and Mrs. Graf and Wayne.
Mrs. Graf had married Mr. Graf, and if it hadn’t turned out that great, it was just too bad for Wayne.
Diggy slouched deeply into his chair.
Mrs. Graf had married Mr. Graf. She was nice and smart. She wouldn’t have married a total jerk. And even if she had, that jerk was Wayne’s dad. He might be a wacko now, but Wayne had said things hadn’t gotten bad until Mrs. Graf died.
That was the part Diggy couldn’t get, though. Wayne’s mom had died. Wasn’t it supposed to be the dad’s job to keep it together for the kid? Everything was all backward, and even though Diggy was there, he wasn’t really part of any of it, except that he was. Wayne supposedly, maybe … was related to him. It didn’t really feel like that meant anything, but that didn’t mean it went away.
How was it possible that yesterday Diggy had sat at this table and had his breakfast and gotten ready for Joker to come home, and today he had … this?
“I think I should go back,” Wayne mumbled.
“It’s not your job to take care of him,” Pop said. “You’re just a kid whose mom has died.”
That Pop’s words so closely echoed Diggy’s thoughts only made it worse. He didn’t want Wayne here! But the thought of him going home was almost as bad.
“Diggy wouldn’t leave you,” Wayne said.
Pop didn’t know what to say to that. He looked at Diggy, looked at Wayne, looked back at Diggy, and finally admitted, “No, he wouldn’t.”
The spurt of pride Diggy felt at having his loyalty acknowledged was almost immediately dampened by the face of Pop’s defeat. Pop usually got his way because he was sensible about what he wanted and went about getting things with logic and kindness. Thinking so almost made Diggy feel like he should want what Pop wanted, too, but how could he? Pop couldn’t rescue Wayne from his real life. No matter how great it might be for Wayne to suddenly have a new and improved dad, life didn’t work that way. How could Diggy see the truth so clearly when Pop couldn’t?
“I can’t make you stay with us,” Pop said, “but when I bring Harold back, will you talk with him here? So I know you’ll be okay?”
Wayne’s head stayed bowed while he nodded. When he did look up, the red in his eyes made the pale blue shockingly light. He stared at Pop almost like he wanted to stay, but he said, “We should call him first. To wake him up.”
Diggy couldn’t imagine the man would still be asleep so late in the day until he glanced at the clock and saw it wasn’t even nine. It felt like years had passed, and Wayne hadn’t even been here a full twenty-four hours.
Pop suggested they shower, as if he smelled something of their morning’s activities, and said he’d call Harold before heading over there but that it might be better to give him another hour or two.
Even though Diggy was smellier, he let Wayne use the bathroom first. He sat in his room while he waited. Like last night, Pop didn’t come up to talk with him, and Diggy stared out the window at his tree. He didn’t want to think about what everything meant, especially about Pop.
Wayne would go home, and things would get back to normal, and they’d never have to talk about today again.
When Pop finally headed out, Diggy sat on the sofa and didn’t complain when Wayne changed the channel every time a commercial came on.
Pop was gone a lot longer than he needed to be to drive to Mr. Graf’s and back.
Diggy couldn’t help but wonder what was going on over there. Was Pop trying to talk Mr. Graf into letting Pop keep Wayne? Even if only for a while? Pop had a choice this time, and he had chosen Wayne.
Did that mean he would have chosen Diggy, too, if the choice hadn’t been made for him?
The worry haunted him the rare times he let himself think about it.
Diggy’s mom had dumped him an
d taken off. Had Pop looked for her? Had he tried to make her parents take Diggy? Diggy didn’t really think so—the Pop he knew wasn’t like that. But that somehow only made it worse.
Pop did what needed doing. Like with Diggy. Pop had kept him, while some of Diggy’s classmates lived with their moms, dads barely in the picture, if at all. He just wished he could make himself believe, deep down in that animal part of his brain, that he would be as close to Pop as he was now even if his mom had never left town.
As much as he hated this whole thing about Wayne, it kind of gave him hope. Which made him feel sick. Because Wayne didn’t have Pop; he had Mr. Graf. And Mr. Graf was who he was, and maybe Pop didn’t feel much like he had a choice after all. Which made Diggy’s thoughts go back to the beginning, like they had ripped off one fingernail and moved on to the next.
By the time they heard the truck in the driveway, Diggy was more than ready to get it all over with. Even if it got bad, it’d be done.
When Pop and Mr. Graf came in through the front door, Wayne didn’t move, though Diggy stood automatically and ended up fidgeting halfway in and out of the room.
Mr. Graf looked pretty beat up, but not in a fistfight kind of way—no bruises or anything. His hair was newly washed and combed, but that distinct bar smell of cigarettes and beer drifted from him. What hit Diggy all of a sudden was how Mr. Graf wasn’t all that big. He was pretty tall, only about two inches shorter than Pop, but skinny in the shoulders and chest. His legs were actually beany. He had seemed so threatening—dumping Wayne in the driveway, raging at the house last night. It was like bringing Mr. Graf here was a mistake, like they had the wrong guy.
“Wayne? You all right?” Even Mr. Graf’s voice was different. The menace was gone, and he wasn’t hollering, but it was more than that. It drooped, like his jaw was too floppy to form words properly. His entire face, his whole body, slumped. He was pitiful.
Diggy wanted to kick Wayne for still sitting there, not even looking at his dad, but a glance at Wayne sobered Diggy up.
Wayne’s face was like old snow. His shoulders were tensed so high up his neck, he’d practically plugged his ears.
“Wayne,” Pop said, “we’ll be right across the hall.”
“I don’t need a chaperone to talk to my own boy,” Mr. Graf said.
Pop grunted, then looked at Wayne. “We won’t hear anything from the dining room. Unless it gets loud.”
“Listen here, Lawson,” Mr. Graf began, but Pop cut him off.
“Harold. Remember why you’re here.”
Mr. Graf breathed hard through his nose a couple of times. “Yeah, yeah.”
“I thought I’d clean my room,” Diggy said. He’d be able to hear better from the top of the stairs, and that wasn’t being nosy but responsible. Wayne was going home with this man.
“Uh-huh,” Pop said, buying the story for what it was worth—nothing. “You’re with me, kid.”
“Diggy can stay.” Wayne had finally looked around, though his attention was solely on Diggy.
Which was all it took for Diggy to not want to be anywhere near the conversation. “That’s all right. I’ll go with Pop.”
“No. I want you to stay.”
“We don’t need anyone else in our business,” Mr. Graf argued.
“Please,” Wayne said to Diggy, as if his dad hadn’t spoken.
Wayne had barely coughed up the word. It was the little bit of choking on it that sold Diggy, though at this point he’d really rather clean his room. He took the chair farthest away, over by the window.
Mr. Graf glared, then fidgeted, then got that hangdog look again. “I guess I deserve it.”
Pop faded away toward the dining room. After a bit, Mr. Graf decided to go ahead and sit down, too, taking a seat next to Wayne on the couch and presenting Diggy with the fact that he’d chosen exactly the worst seat in the room. He faced them square on, like a judge, though neither looked at him. Wayne stared at the turned-off TV while Mr. Graf looked at his hands, at Wayne, and back at his hands. Diggy twisted away as much as he could, wanting the bookshelves to be as interesting as he pretended they were.
Mr. Graf cleared his throat. “I know I haven’t been the best dad lately.”
Right then, Diggy would have chewed off his own leg to escape. Because there was a but coming. He could hear it. The guy had kicked his kid out of his house, and there was a but.
“You know, my dad used to beat the crap out of me.” Graf said it like it was funny now, like he’d learned that dads did what they had to do and he was a better man for it—no harm done.
Wayne didn’t respond.
Diggy ground his teeth to keep from yelling. At Wayne or Graf—he wasn’t sure which. At Wayne for not saying anything. At Graf for not saying what he should. I’m sorry. Stop. End of sentence. I love you. I’ll stop drinking and get myself together and do everything I can to let you know I love you and want you to come home.
“I don’t think I ever got it right with you.” Graf scratched at his stubble. Pop might have waited for him to shower, but they’d skipped the shaving. “Except once, maybe. You were a colicky kid,” he said, jovial-like, and slapped Wayne’s shoulder too hard.
Wayne twitched with the impact but kept himself turned away.
Graf took his hand back. “Your”—he had to clear his throat—“your mom was up all hours trying to get you to sleep. She looked so bad one night, I made her go to bed, said I’d take care of you.” He chortled, all fake-sounding. “You didn’t want anything to do with me. Not that I blamed you. I’d have preferred Ann, too.” He got that look, like it was then, not now. “You and that screaming. I don’t know how she stood it all those nights. It got to where I about lost it, when I had my idea.” He smiled. “My grandma used to say something about a teaspoon of bourbon curing most anything. All I had was beer, so I gave you some.” He grinned at Wayne, excited by his story. “It did the trick. Ann was ticked when I told her, but that was your last night of crying—I’ll tell you that.”
Diggy gaped, awed by Graf’s total lack of awareness that getting a baby drunk was not a proud-papa moment.
Apparently, Wayne was unmoved, too. Or he’d heard the story before.
After a while, Graf asked, “You got anything you want to say?”
Diggy would have jumped all over the opening, but Wayne remained silent.
“Listen, I’m trying here, okay?” The hangdog hadn’t hung around long. Graf’s tone was tinged with annoyance. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Wayne held his pose—boy watching TV—but it seemed hard now, like he was struggling to maintain the stance so he wouldn’t ruin the shot.
Diggy could barely stand it.
“Look, I’m trying to apologize here—”
“Since when?” Diggy burst from his seat. “You haven’t said one word that—”
“You keep out of our business!” Graf bellowed, on his feet, too. “This is between me and Wayne, and—”
Wayne stood, holding himself tall as he watched his dad. “I’m not coming back until you stop drinking.”
Wayne might as well have set off a bomb in the room.
Diggy noticed Pop in the doorway, and that he seemed kind of unhappily glad, like he had expected this to happen. Was that why he had insisted Wayne talk to his dad here? Did Pop want Wayne to stay that badly?
“It’s what Mom would want,” Wayne said. “Until you get … better.”
“You think your mom would want you to bail out on your family?” Graf shouted. “For some guy who couldn’t keep his hands to—”
“That’s enough, Harold,” Pop said. Not loudly, but meaning it.
Graf clenched his fists tightly, breathing like a mad bull. “I’m supposed to roll over and give up my son because—” Graf suddenly deflated. “Because he asks me to?”
“It’s because you won’t give him up that you need to let him stay. Only for a while.”
“You can’t pretty this up, Lawson, just because you
want to.”
“You dumped me in their driveway!” Wayne raged. “I get to be mad, and I get to stay here as long as I want, and you get to deal with it, because I say so.” He shook all over but still managed to add, “You threw me out like I was garbage.”
The only sound in the room came from Wayne, and it wasn’t that he was making any actual sound but more like the waves of what he felt were bouncing off the walls and making the room vibrate like a giant bell, and all anyone could do was let the echoes pass through them.
Wayne was staying.
Wayne was really staying.
Just as Pop moved forward as if to fix the situation, Graf mumbled, “I guess I don’t deserve any better.”
He peered at Wayne like Wayne was supposed to deny it. Which was more proof Graf was crazy.
“Okay. Well.” His voice was rough, like teary rough. He cleared his throat and flopped an arm at the door. “I guess I’ll go, then.” But he didn’t move.
Wayne’s gaze was a dare.
Graf sighed. “Okay, then.”
He headed to the doorway, dragging, clearly waiting to be stopped, and Diggy got a shiver down his spine. Had this scene played out before? Was this when Mrs. Graf would have called him back, and now Wayne was supposed to?
Minnesota would be hot in January before that happened.
When all there was left to do was walk out, Graf did.
Pop said, “A door that’s shut too long gets hard to open. It’s better to leave it cracked a couple of inches.”
Wayne blinked at him. Heck, Diggy blinked at him, too.
“I think Harold did some barrel racing back in the day,” Pop said. “Why don’t you show him Diggy’s steer, Wayne?”
Wayne’s expression made it pretty clear what he thought of that idea, but he had just announced he was moving in whether anyone liked it or not, so maybe he didn’t think he could ignore Pop. He followed his dad outside.
Diggy stood in the living room, feeling like he was in some weird time loop, like an infinity sign, and on one side he beat the crap out of a sofa cushion, and on the other he curled into a ball. Then he was back at the crossing point, not having moved, with Pop eyeing him.
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