He stopped and looked up into a tree for a long moment, and I looked up, too, but I couldn’t see what interested him. There wasn’t a squirrel up there or any bird, or anything.
When we started walking again, he said, “I hope this is the right way to say it. Your mother’s current assessment of your father is that he’s basically a good man, means well, wants to do what’s right, but he’s damaged by some bad things that happened to him as a child, and he’s weak. I agree with the weak part. There’s no way to know if what he says happened to him as a boy actually happened. But even if it did, bad things happen to all of us, and that doesn’t mean we can hurt others just because we ourselves have been hurt. Are you with me so far?”
“Yes, sir. I think so.”
“Your father’s going to divorce your mother.”
I almost broke into a dance. “Good. That’s good.”
“No, son. Divorce is never good. It’s sad. Sometimes it might be necessary, but never good.”
“Well, if you say so.”
“I do. And these days it’s no-fault. If there’s no property to split—and there isn’t—and if he doesn’t want custody of you or even visitation rights—which he doesn’t—then it’s not even necessary for your mother to agree.”
“She should agree.”
“It’ll happen just the same. Anyway, when marriages fall apart, some people sometimes get bitter, they get very angry.”
“Not my mom.”
“No, not her. But sometimes people can get so angry, they do foolish things. Sometimes the fight in court is about the children, one of them trying to punish the other by taking away the children.”
Alarmed, I halted. “But you said he doesn’t want me. And if he does, he can’t have me. I won’t go. Never.”
Grandpa Teddy put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, son. No judge in this city would take you away from a woman like Sylvia and give you to your father.”
“Really? You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. And he says he doesn’t want you, but he’s a man who says all kinds of things he doesn’t entirely mean. Sometimes people do reckless things, Jonah, they don’t want to leave it to a court, they take matters into their own hands.”
“Could he do that? How would he do that?”
We had walked almost to Saint Stanislaus, and Grandpa said, “Let’s rest a bit on the church steps there.”
We sat side by side on the steps, and he took a pack of Juicy Fruit gum from a pocket and offered me a stick, but I was too scared to want any. Maybe he was a little scared, too, because he didn’t want any chewing gum, either, and he returned the pack to his pocket.
“Let’s say you’re walking home from the community center one day, and your father pulls to the curb in a car and wants to take you somewhere. What should you do?”
“Where would he want to take me?”
“Let’s say it was somewhere you’d like to go, maybe to a movie or for a milk shake.”
“He wouldn’t take me anywhere like that. He never did before.”
“Well, maybe he wants to make things right with you, apologize for things he’s done by taking you out for some fun.”
“Would he? I don’t think he would.”
“He might. He might even have a present for you, wrapped and on the passenger seat. You’d just have to get in the car and unwrap it while you go to the movie or for that milk shake.”
The air was warm and the steps were warm from the sun, but I was cold. “I’ve got to walk the line you talked about, give him respect.”
“So what should you do?”
“Well … I’d have to ask Mom, was it all right to go with him.”
“But your mother isn’t there.”
“Then he’d have to come back later, after I talked to her, but even if Mom said it was all right, I wouldn’t want to go.”
Three crows landed on the sidewalk and hopped along, pecking at grains of rice from a wedding the day before, each of them studying us warily with glistening black eyes.
We watched them for a while, and then I said, “Would Tilton … would my father ever hurt me?”
“I don’t believe he would, Jonah. There’s an emptiness in him, a hollow place where there shouldn’t be, but I don’t think he’d hurt a child. It’s your mother he might hurt by taking you away from her.”
“I won’t let that happen. I just won’t.”
“That’s why I wanted us to talk, so you wouldn’t let it happen.”
I thought about the two trash-talking delinquents in Riverside Commons a few days earlier. “Boy, it’s always something, isn’t it?”
“That’s life. Always something, more good than bad, but always interesting if you’re paying attention.”
He offered me the gum again, and I took a stick, and so did he. He took the paper and foil from me, and he folded them with his paper and foil, and he put them in his shirt pocket.