Apology by Jon Pineda (books to read this summer .txt) 📕

through the vegetable bed, pulling back in spots. When he reached the end of the row, he turned and started a new row.

It was this small progress that made Tom smile. He glanced over at his mother. She had been crying.

“I’m sorry,” Elinor said. “This is rare for him.”

Tom looked past his father to see how Micah was doing.

“He’s all right with her,” he said, not realizing it had sounded like a question.

“He’s fine,” his mother said. “She just doesn’t like me lately.”

His mother took a minute to get to her feet and peered to where Teagan was bending down and pointing out more flowers for Micah to pull.

“She seems better,” Tom said.

His mother glared at him.

“She does,” he said, as if to convince himself.

“It’s not her, Tommy.”

He noticed she was observing his father.

Manny guided the rototiller slowly.

“Look at me,” she said. She wiped at her face.

“How long has she been like this, Mom?”

She stopped him. “It was really nothing.”

Tom watched his father. Manny turned the rototiller and started going in the opposite direction. He went back over the black rows of soil. The square he was making grew darker.

“Do you ever wonder?” Tom said. He didn’t finish his thought.

“All the time,” his mother said.

Micah was holding two of the dandelions he had gathered above his head. They dangled like a pair of antennae. Teagan was squealing, running up to him and then away. He was pretending to be an alien. Tom smiled. He remembered he had done the same thing to Micah a few weeks back at a park.

“We found a place that will take her,” his mother said finally. “It’s really pretty.”

.  .  .  .

Micah and Teagan brought over a handful of buttercups.

He knew he had no right to be angry.

“Did you have fun?” Tom asked Micah.

Before the boy could answer, Teagan shouted, “Fun, fun, fun!”

She asked her mother if she would weave the flowers into her hair.

Tom didn’t think the flowers would stay and said so.

Elinor smiled and reached into her jacket pocket. She produced long pieces of string, all of equal length. She used the string to weave and hold together a tiny crown of flowers. Teagan blinked as the crown was fastened on her head.

“You look like a princess, Aunt Sissy,” Micah said.

“Princess!” Teagan said and clapped.

“That’s right,” his mother said. “You’re our princess.”

“When I’m old like Tommy, I get to be a woman.”

“That’s right.”

“Then I live in castles and you come visit me,” Teagan laughed. “I tell you what to do, and you do it, Mama.”

Micah laughed.

“That’s right,” Tom’s mother said absently. “I’ll come visit you in your castle. Stay steady now, or the flowers are going to fall out.”

Teagan froze.

“It’s hard, Mama.”

“What’s that, honey?”

“If I move, I breathe.”

“You silly goose. You have to breathe,” Elinor said.

She stuck her tongue out at her grandson. Micah grinned and ran into the house.

“What’s wrong, Mama?” Teagan said and wiped her mother’s cheek.

“Nothing’s wrong, silly goose. I was just thinking. That’s all.”

“You call me Princess.”

“Okay, Princess. I’m sorry. I don’t know what in the world I was thinking.”

Teagan spread out her arms and walked forward, steadily, as if on a tightrope.

“I fall,” she said.

“Don’t do that,” Elinor said, laughing now.

“I will. I fall.”

“Keep your head straight. You’re not going to fall.”

Tom watched his sister place one foot in front of the other.

He pictured her on a tightrope. High above them. The flowers part of the costume. He wasn’t going to say anything. He didn’t want to break her concentration.

As they were leaving, Manny told Micah he could take one toy with him, that he had to leave the others for the next time he came to visit. The boy nodded at the bribe.

“They’re all yours, Lolo,” Micah said with a serious face. “You keep them all.”

“All of them,” Manny said. He was embarrassed now. “They’re your dad’s toys. This whole side belongs to him. This other side belongs to your Aunt Sissy.”

“Then they should clean it up!” Micah said.

Tom watched his father’s smile fall.

The boy took the keys out of Tom’s hand and ran for the car.

“You and Mom are coming to his game tomorrow, right?” Tom said. “It’s the first one.”

“What game?” Manny said.

“Oh, he knows what game,” Elinor said. “We’ll be there with a bullhorn and a banner.”

It was a strange name. Shoe sat on the bench across the street from the halfway house and looked up at the street sign. Omohundro. How had such a name made its way to this part of the world? It had to mean something.

Behind him, children at the nearby school were out for recess. He could hear their piercing voices. They traded off chasing one another.

He thought of Mario from years back.

How his nephew had loved to play ball into the evening.

Hadn’t he also, as a boy, loved the sound of bodies scuffing the grass of a field? He and Mario were so alike in this way. But then this boy had vanished into another version, one who would endlessly write letters explaining how he was going to make something of his life. Mario had gone on to study hard in school. His nephew was not only a physician, but a surgeon.

A real surgeon, Shoe had bragged to his housemates.

His nephew practiced medicine at the children’s hospital downtown.

Shoe could walk there from the Ghent section. But there was no need. Mario was going to pick him up and take him to lunch.

Once he was released altogether, he would go to live with his nephew.

That was the promise.

He sat on the bench and mused on the name of the street again. He closed his eyes. The sounds of the children chasing each other became the sounds of the cars passing in front of him.

Then the idling engine. A vehicle had pulled up close to where he sat.

“Hey, old man,” a voice came from inside a silver, pristine Range Rover.

“I got your old man right here,” Shoe said and grabbed