I suppose I can’t really disagree with that.
“It’s not just the baby stuff, changing diapers and all that. I’m worried about discipline, communication, all that stuff. How to form a bond.” He shakes his head, and his voice trails off.
I pat his arm. “It’s fine, I was only teasing you. Read everything you want to.”
“Fuck if it hasn’t just made things more confusing, though, I’ll fucking tell you. Competing theories, contradictory advice. Fuck me…”
“I can tell you one thing for sure.”
“What?”
“You’ll need to start swearing less.”
He laughs, but agrees with me, then pulls us out into the lazy afternoon traffic.
“The money came through.”
“Good,” I say. “That’s one less thing to worry about now.”
“I figure we should find someone to invest it. Someone we can trust.”
“I’ll speak to my colleagues at work,” I say. “You can talk to Pierce about it? Surely he’s had to have someone money-wise around him to start that gym.”
“I went to see Pierce today, actually,” he tells me. “He offered me a job working with the boys.”
“What did you say?”
Duncan looks at me briefly. “I said yes.”
I smile. “That’s really great. I’m happy for you. What will the hours be like?”
“Mostly after school to early evening. You know, that’s the time to keep them occupied so they don’t get up to things. A lot of them are latchkey kids, and some of them live in homes.”
“That’s perfect,” I say. “It means you’re free when I’m at work. To take care of Thom.”
“Means I’ll see you less.”
“Like I said, we’ll manage.”
We drive in silence for a while. I consider everything he’s said. The money coming in is great, we’re going to need it. It’s a lot, something I’m happy for if only because it provides stability for the future as long as we use it right.
I was surprised to find out how much he had saved up from all those fights. It had simply never occurred to me that it was sitting in a bank account all this time, collecting practically no interest, or at best, something equivalent to a fine layer of dust.
“Do you want to work for Pierce?” I ask.
Duncan chews his lip for a moment. “Yeah. You know, I think, if there was a place like that I could have gone. One that wasn’t overloaded, one that wasn’t so lacking in funding… things would have been different.”
“We might not have met.”
He shoots a look at me. “Nah, we still would have met.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s what I choose to believe.”
“What, like destiny?”
“Do you believe in fate?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Me neither,” he says.
“So how can you choose to believe it?”
“The alternative is worse.”
“Isn’t that like sticking your head in the sand?”
“Yeah, but doing so about some fake alternate reality doesn’t bother me so much.”
“Well, as long as working at the gym is something you want to do, Duncan, then I’m all for it. You’ll need to keep yourself occupied, anyway.”
“I agree. There’s something else.”
“What?”
He pauses for a moment.
“Just say it,” I say.
“I got a call from the district attorney back home. He wanted to know if you’d changed your mind on testifying. He said if you don’t want to, he won’t pursue it, but he’s eager to get everything he can on Glass.”
I shake my head. Damn it, why does the DA keep bothering me with this? “I already said ‘no’,” I tell Duncan. “And I meant it. I still mean it. What’s his name, Windhorst? Windham?”
“The second one.”
“I don’t see why he doesn’t just leave it alone.”
“He could get a court summons.”
“How does that even work internationally?”
Duncan shrugs. “Something to look up, I guess.”
“Well, anyway, I’m not testifying against my father.”
“After all he did to you?”
“He’s my father, Duncan. I… you know I can’t. That whole business with the gun… I’ve done as much as I can already. I don’t want to be there in court to put the final nail in his coffin. It’s not about him… it’s about me. I don’t want to do it.”
“That’s fine, Dee. You know I’ll support any decision you make.”
“They’ve got enough on him to put him away until he dies of old age, anyway. They don’t need my testimony. I’m not going to add needless years to his sentence. Anyway, speaking of Dad, I got a letter from his lawyer.”