Chapter 5 - Owen Likes Trains
I felt like an intruder. But I also knew that if I walked out, he'd close that card and bury the whole thing with everything else he'd buried over the years.
Marcus set the card on the workbench. "What's his name?" I asked. "Your grandson."
"I don't know."
"Walter."
"I said I don't know."
Marcus looked at the card. "Owen."
Walter's lips parted.
"He likes trains," Marcus added.
"How would you possibly know that?"
"Because I met Nora last year."
"You — what?"
"She works at St. Aiden's Children's Hospital. I was there for a community safety event, giving a talk. She saw my name on the schedule and recognized it. From that night."
They'd talked afterward, Marcus said. Nora told him she still wrote her father every birthday, every Christmas, every anniversary, and had no idea if he even opened the mailbox.
"She asked me if people like her father ever actually change," Marcus said.
"And what did you tell her?"
"That people change when hiding from the truth finally hurts more than facing it."
Walter looked at the barrel. Smoke still drifting off the top.
"She should hate me."
"Some days she probably does."
Walter flinched.
"She also wants her kid to know where he comes from," Marcus said. "Both of those things are true at the same time."
I thought about Cody out in the yard in his paper crown, fully convinced that being a grown-up meant eating cake whenever you wanted.
"Call her," I said.
Walter shook his head. "After all this time?"
"Especially after all this time."
"What would I even say to her?"
"The truth."
He laughed, bitter. "The truth is I was a garbage father."
"Then start with that."
Behind us, Diana stepped into the garage doorway. She'd left my sister watching the party.
"Aaron. What is going on?"
I gave her the two-sentence version.
She looked at Walter, then at the envelopes scattered all over the floor, and I watched her anger lose its edge.
Cody slipped past her before anyone could grab him. His crown had slid down over one eyebrow.
"Dad, are the police arresting Mr. Walter?"
Walter looked stricken.
"No, buddy," Marcus said fast.
Cody shoved the crown back up. "Then can he come have cake?"
Nobody said anything.
Cody turned to Walter directly. "We've got chocolate and vanilla. Mom said I could pick both kinds because I'm seven now."
Walter stared at him. "Happy birthday," he got out.
"Thanks. Do you want cake or not?"
Walter's eyes filled. He turned his head away.
Diana put a hand on Cody's shoulder. "Go on back to the yard, honey."
"But he didn't answer me."
Walter wiped his face with the back of his hand. "Chocolate," he said.
Cody grinned. "I'll save you a corner piece. Those have the most frosting." And he was gone.
For a moment, none of us spoke.
Then Marcus held out his phone. "Call Nora."
Walter didn't take it. "What if she doesn't pick up?"
"Then leave a message."
"What if she tells me never to call her again?"
"Then you say okay, and you respect it."
Walter looked at the number inside the card. His breathing went thin and quick. I have honestly never seen a grown man so scared of ten digits.
Finally, he took the phone.
Marcus, Diana, and I stepped out onto the driveway to give him room.
Through the open door, I heard the call connect. Then Walter's voice, rough.
"Nora?"
A pause.
"It's Dad."
A longer pause.
"I read your letter."
His voice came apart. "I'm sorry it took me seventeen years."
We walked farther down the driveway.
When Walter came out, almost twenty minutes later, he looked older than he had going in. But something had come off his shoulders too.
"She'll meet me," he said.
Marcus nodded. "When?"
"Saturday."
"Where?"
Walter looked toward my backyard, where the bounce house was tipping sideways under six kids. "She asked if a park would be all right."
He watched them a while. Then he looked at me. "Your party still going?"
"It was, until somebody called the cops on it."
His mouth went tight. "I shouldn't have done that."
"No. You shouldn't have."
"I'll pay for the extra hour on the bounce house."
"You don't have to do that."
May you like
"I know I don't."
That was as close to an apology as Walter had come in the four years I'd known him.
