rush over there, it would mean a lot.”
“Yeah. I can come. Don’t be late, okay? I still have work to do for tomorrow.”
“Thanks a million, Adam!” Danny said. “I knew I could count on you. I’ll tell Rose to expect you.”
Adam packed his notes and his computer and headed out. He was on the expressway within ten minutes and at Danny’s within thirty-five.
Danny’s house was a Tudor on a quiet cul-de-sac, just a couple of blocks from the traffic and noise of Northern Boulevard. Rose was waiting on the front steps as Adam made his way up the long walk. She had changed a lot since high school, Adam noted. Her hair was darker, almost black, and it was cut in sharp lines to her jaw. The red of her lipstick still made a striking contrast against the milky white of her face, but she now wore a painted-on smile in place of her adolescent scowl. Adam wasn’t a fan of either, but if he had to choose, he preferred the scowl. She must still have her tattoo, he thought, though it was hidden under her crisply tailored blazer. It was a rose, he remembered. She wasn’t one to avoid the obvious. She was holding Henry. Adam thought the boy’s light brown curls had grown longer since the last time he was there.
Adam grinned at Henry before he looked back at Rose. “Danny told me you had to run out,” he said, hoping she might take that as a combined greeting and dismissal.
Rose nodded. She handed the baby to Adam. “He should be just about ready to go down,” she said. “He just ate and he’s wearing a new diaper. There are more on the changing table in his room if you need them.” She spoke over her shoulder as she entered the house. Adam followed her in. “I thought I had Labor Day off,” she said, “but we have a new client, a very big name, and I got called in. It’s still very hush hush, so I can’t talk about it.”
Adam had no response. On his best day, he couldn’t give a shit about advertising or marketing, whichever Rose did. There was a difference, apparently, but he’d never figured it out. “We’ll be fine,” he said.
Rose glanced up at the clock again. “Shit, I’m late,” she said. “I need to run.” She grabbed a black leather purse and snatched the keys off the hook by the door on her way out. Everything was fine until Adam heard her car pull out. That’s when Henry started fussing, growing more and more agitated so that he was crying loudly within a couple of minutes.
“Are you hungry?” Adam asked. Are you thirsty? There was no answer, of course. Henry’s diaper wasn’t full. “Maybe there’s something in the cupboard,” Adam said. He checked, but most of the food there needed chewing and Henry had one tooth. Crackers and pretzels weren’t going to work.
Henry made it clear that the bottle of formula Adam found wasn’t going to cut it either, but some digging uncovered a pint of peach ice cream in the freezer. Adam figured there was only so wrong you could go with fruit and milk. He scooped a couple of generous teaspoons into a small bowl and fed Henry the ice cream with the tiniest spoon he could find in the silverware drawer. Henry looked at Adam with such surprise and delight that Adam almost laughed.
Adam hummed to him while he ate, and by the time the ice cream was gone, Henry was struggling to keep his eyes open. Adam put the bowl and spoon in the sink, and then he wet his finger under the faucet and used it to clean Henry’s tooth before he took him upstairs. There was a rocking chair in Henry’s room and Adam sat in it, holding Henry against his chest. He rocked Henry for a long time, willing his own muscles to relax as he lulled the boy to sleep. It was a trick his grandfather had taught him the last time Adam had watched Henry, the night of his grandfather’s birthday.
It had been raining for hours that day, and they were at his grandfather’s apartment. Rose was away at the time, on a business trip. Adam had arrived on time, he remembered, in the afternoon. But when he had walked in, it looked like Danny and Henry had already been there forever. Adam could still picture his grandfather bouncing the boy in his lap, singing him nonsense songs while Danny stood alongside him. He remembered the pang of loneliness he felt then, the feeling of being an outsider in his own home.
After dinner, Danny had been called into work to deal with a part of the cemetery that had been flooding. Adam didn’t know what happened when a cemetery flooded, but he imagined it was bad news. That’s what the look on Danny’s face suggested at the time, Adam thought.
Adam smiled as he remembered how, when it was time to get Henry to bed, he and his grandfather rearranged the cushions on the living room couch to make a crib for him. They must have used a hundred feet of duct tape to hold it all together, but after his grandfather went to sleep, Adam still wasn’t sure that it would hold. When Henry had finally conked out in the makeshift bed they had assembled, Adam settled himself down onto the floor right beside him so that if Henry did fall, he would fall on Adam. In the end, Danny was away most of the night. When he finally came home at about four in the morning, he woke Adam and shook his head at all the duct tape, “For God’s sake,” he said, “Rose doesn’t need to hear about this.” As far as Adam knew, she still didn’t know.
Henry was asleep. Adam laid him in his crib and went back downstairs to the living room. He worked productively there for more than an hour, though a phone buzzed several times. After the first few calls, Adam tracked the sound to Rose’s office. Her phone was in the purse lying on her desk, but Adam certainly wasn’t going to go in and get it. He worked for a while longer before Danny texted to say he was on his way home and making good time. Adam dove back into his work, but half an hour later, he was startled by the sound of breaking glass and a scream.
Then he heard Danny’s voice. “You son of a bitch!” He heard more glass breaking and another scream, not Danny. A terrified, inhuman sound.
Adam ran outside. He saw a tangle of legs, four of them, kicking against the shards of glass that littered the street. They were hanging out the driver’s door of a red coupe Adam didn’t recognize. Danny’s car was parked behind it.
Adam sprinted over as Danny slid out from the coupe and onto his knees, pulling the other man after him by his belt. Adam could hear Danny’s grunt over the man’s screams as Danny ground the face of the other man into the asphalt and the glass. Adam shouted and Danny looked up at him for less than a second, but there was no recognition in his eyes. Danny stood up and kicked at the man once, twice, grunting like an animal each time. Adam tried to drag Danny away, pulling at his shoulders, but Danny shoved him, knocking Adam to the ground.
Adam screamed, “Stop it, Danny! Let him go!” But Danny didn’t respond. There was no indication he even heard. Adam got up off the ground and tried to grab Danny’s shoulders again, but Danny twisted away and then turned back toward the man on the ground. Adam saw an opening, and he took it. He punched Danny, connecting hard enough with his cheek that Danny rocked backward. “Let him go,” Adam said. “Let him go.”
For a moment, Adam wasn’t sure what Danny would do, but Danny held up his hands and walked in a tight circle, breathing hard. The man was stirring, Adam saw, but he was in bad shape. The light from the streetlamps was enough to illuminate streaks of blood in the street and in the driver’s seat of the car.
Danny looked untouched except for the bruise that was already rising on his cheek from where Adam had hit him. Only his hands were bloody. He was bent over now, breathing heavily, his hands on his knees.
The other man moaned, and Adam turned to see him roll over onto his side. His suit jacket was bunched under his armpits and his pants had twisted so that his belt buckle was a few inches to the right of center. The man turned his head as Adam knelt down toward him; Adam stared, open mouthed, at the man’s battered face and at the blood running from his nose down to his collar, staining his white dress shirt. The man looked young, Adam thought,
