The street was empty. Oakland at midnight smelled like rain that hadn't fallen yet. Sam walked fast, hood up, backpack bouncing against his shoulders. He didn't have a plan. That was the point of running — you didn't need one. You just needed to be gone before the leaving could happen to you.
He went to the garage first. Iron & Oil, dark, the big door shut. He sat on the stoop a while, chin on his knees, and thought about the bike and the ride on Saturday. His chest ached. He stood up and kept walking.
The pier was where he ended up. The water under the Embarcadero lights, black and shining, lapping at the pilings the way it had lapped them for a hundred years. Sam sat down on the edge with his legs dangling and his backpack beside him and watched a container ship move slow across the bay, all lit up like a floating city.
"Mind if I sit?"
Sam flinched so hard he nearly dropped the backpack in the water.
Frankie Callahan stood behind him, hands in the pockets of his vest, beard catching the dock light. He didn't look angry. He didn't look surprised. He looked like a man who had done exactly this walk before.
"How'd you find me?" Sam said.
"Dot called," Frankie said. "She woke up and the window was open and your bed was made, which — no offense, kid — is the tidiest crime scene I've ever seen." He sat down on the edge beside Sam, groaning a little at the knees. "And then I came to the pier. Because when I was seventeen and scared out of my mind, this is where I went."
Sam stared at him. "You ran away?"
"Oh, I ran," Frankie said. "My dad died, and the house got too quiet, and I took his old Triumph and rode all the way to Nevada before I figured out that running doesn't fix anything. It just moves the fear to a new zip code." He was quiet a minute, watching the water. "I slept under a bridge that night. Woke up with a crick in my neck and a raccoon eating my sandwich. Came home the next day. Nothing had changed except me."
Sam picked at a loose thread on his backpack. "The papers —"
"I know," Frankie said.
"Everybody keeps saying it's a good thing. Dot and Tom and Ms. Alvarez. And it is. I know it is. But what if —" His voice cracked, and he hated it. "What if they change their minds? What if I'm too much? What if —"
"Sam." Frankie turned to look at him, really look. "You don't have to be brave about this. You just have to let people show up."
Sam's eyes burned. He blinked hard at the water.
"Dot cried when she saw the window," Frankie said quietly. "Not mad. Cried. Tom was already in the truck with the keys before she finished the sentence. Jerry's driving around the warehouse district right now looking for you, and Pete's calling the shelters. Do you know why?"
Sam shook his head.
"Because you're theirs now," Frankie said. "Not on paper. In the way that counts. And people who are yours don't leave just because it gets hard. Ask the Shovelhead. She sat in a garage for thirty-one years, and nobody threw her away."
Sam let out a breath he felt like he'd been holding since the kitchen table. A tear got loose. He wiped it away fast, angry at it, and Frankie pretended not to notice, the way good men do.
"Can we —" Sam swallowed. "Can we go back?"
"Whenever you're ready," Frankie said.
They walked back together, slow, the way you walk when there's no rush. Halfway there, Sam realized he was still holding the shop rag, folded tight in his fist like a lifeline. Frankie saw it and smiled.
"Keep that," Frankie said. "You're going to need it Saturday."
Chapter 12
The Uncle
Frankie was under the Shovelhead, checking the rear brake line one more time, when the shouting started.