I went back to the cleaning contract at Riverview Tower, but only three nights a week. With the support Grant pays now, I don’t need the rest. I’m taking night classes at Pellissippi State to become a paralegal. Monica Reyes says she’ll hire me when I graduate.
“Anybody who can survive what you survived,” she said, “can survive a law office.”
We moved out of the apartment above the bakery in the summer. Not because there was anything wrong with it, but because Nolan needed his own room and my mother needed a real bed. We rent a small house now with a backyard and a big oak tree.
Mrs. Kessler from the bakery still sends us a box of cinnamon rolls every Saturday. She says the apartment’s too quiet without us.
Grant still sees Nolan every other Saturday. The visits aren’t supervised anymore. The criminal case ended with a plea agreement, probation, and community service. He sold the townhouse. He sold the watch too.
Last month, he brought Nolan to a star party at the Knoxville Observatory. They looked at Saturn through a big telescope. Nolan came home talking about it for three days.
“Dad says he’s sorry about the shirt every time I see him,” Nolan told me. “Every single time.”
“Do you believe him?” I asked.
He thought about it the way he thinks about everything, slowly and seriously.
“I think he’s trying,” he said. “I think being sorry takes practice.”
The navy shirt with the silver moon doesn’t fit Nolan anymore.
He grew three inches this year. The sleeves stopped at his elbows and the hem rode up over his belly. The stains never did come out.
He wouldn’t let me give it away.
So my mother did something.
