"I am fine," he said. "Diane. We have a witness."
Chapter 11: The Riverfront
Tommy Reyes made it to the hall bathroom window before anybody noticed he was gone.
The group home on Whitaker Street had a window that opened onto the fire escape, and Tommy had been mapping it for three days. The house mother found the bathroom empty at six, the window cracked open.
By then Tommy was four blocks gone, running with his sneakers slapping the pavement.
He didn't have a plan. He just had to get out. Casey Tran with her clipboard and her gentle voice. Diane Frye with her legal words. The newspaper man who had stuck a camera in his face that morning outside the DFCS office and asked, "Is the rich man really your family, kid?"
Tommy had ducked behind Casey and said nothing. Frank had always called reporters vultures, and for once Frank might have been right.
He ran until the streets sloped down toward the water, until he could smell the river. The Savannah spread out wide and brown and gold in the sunset, and the tour boats were lit up like birthday cakes.
He knew this spot. He sat on the low stone wall at the foot of the cobblestone ramp, and for a minute he was seven again, and Dale was beside him with a paper bag of hushpuppies from the market.
"Watch me," Dale would say, and he'd sidearm a flat stone out over the water, and it would skip three times, like it was too happy to sink.
Tommy said it to the river before he knew the words weren't for the river.
"Where were you for twelve years?"
"That's the wrong shape," said a voice behind him.
Tommy whipped around so fast he nearly fell off the wall. Si stood at the top of the ramp, hands in his coat pockets, breathing a little hard.
"Don't," Tommy said. "Just don't. How'd you find me?"
"Nadia," Si said. "She tracked the spot from Dale's history."
"May I sit?"
"No."
Si nodded and stayed standing. "How did you know I'd run?"
"Casey called me. And I know something about wanting to run. When I was your age I ran to the docks because my father grounded me. The foreman brought me home by the ear."
"I don't have an ear to be brought home by," Tommy said.
"Then I'll just stand here," Si said.
"Fine. Stand there." Tommy found a stone and hurled it at the water. Too round. It sank without a skip, and he wanted to scream. "Go back to your big house and your lawyers."
"Tommy."
"No." Tommy stood up on the wall, which was stupid, but he was past caring. "Casey wants me to talk about my feelings. Diane wants me to sign papers I can't read. Frank wants me back so he can use me like a dollar bill. And you. What do you want, Si? The truth."
Si looked at him. "To sit on that wall."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
Tommy sat back down because his legs were shaking. Si came down the ramp slow and sat on the wall two feet away.
"You know why I come here?" Tommy said after a while. "My dad brought me. When I was little."
"I know," Si said.
"You don't know anything."
"You're right," Si said quietly. "I don't."
Tommy picked up a flat stone and sidearmed it. One skip. Two. It sank with a soft plip the river swallowed whole.
"Where were you for twelve years?" This time he was asking Si, and his voice cracked on the twelve. "My mom died. My dad died. Frank threw me out like trash in June. I slept under the overpass by the rail yard. I slept there. Where was everybody?"
Si didn't answer. His hands rested on his knees.
"You got money," Tommy said. "Everybody says you're rich. You could have found me."
"I could have tried," Si said.
"That's not an answer."
"No," Si said.
Tommy hated him then, a hot clean hatred that felt better than the confusion. "You don't even deny it."
"What would denying it do for you?"
"It would give me something to argue with!" Tommy's voice bounced off the water. "You just sit there. You just sit there and take it. Why won't you fight back?"
Si turned his head. His eyes were wet, and Tommy looked away fast.
"I fight back at everyone," Si said. "Lawyers. Reporters. My own board. I'm very good at fighting, Tommy. I don't want to fight you."
Tommy's throat closed. He dug in the stone pile and found the perfect one: thin, round, flat as a coin.
Tommy stood on the cobblestones, wound up, threw. The stone skipped four times, five, dancing toward the shipping channel before it sank. He stood there breathing hard, and without meaning to he said, "Dad taught me."
"I can see that," Si said. "Will you teach me?"
Tommy stared at him. "You're seventy."
"Old enough to know I don't know how."
Something in Tommy's chest loosened against his will. He picked up another flat stone and held it out. "Elbow down. Wrist loose. Like you're shaking water off your hand."
Si took the stone, braced his feet the way Tommy showed him, and threw. It went straight up, came straight down, and sank with an embarrassing splash. They both watched it go.
"That was terrible," Tommy said.
"It was," Si said. "Again."
Tommy handed him another. Si threw it. One skip. They looked at each other, and the corner of Tommy's mouth betrayed him.
"You're bad at this," Tommy said.
"I'm bad at a lot of things," Si said.
They sat back down on the wall. The sun was gone, and the river had turned dark except where the boat lights laid gold ribbons across it. Tommy's shoulder was almost touching Si's sleeve, and he didn't move away.
For the first time in days, nobody wanted anything from him. They just sat, and the river kept moving, and it was enough.