Apology

the lessons their parents had taught them both, Paul had been the only one who took them to heart.
Shoe watched his nephew. He thought for a moment that he was seeing his brother Paul again, that he himself had been the one to throw the ball at the girl and that the girl had fallen right before his eyes. This boy, a younger version of Paul, had just reprimanded him for stealing away some part of this girl’s life, and yet, at the same time, Shoe saw himself in this same boy as well. The boy’s presence was like a door opening onto every version of himself, every boy he had ever known.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Shoe said finally.
“I wanted to, but I was scared. I thought they would think I tried to hurt her.”
“But you did by not telling anyone.”
“Yes,” Mario said, bringing his arms down now. “But not like that. I wasn’t trying to hurt her. It was just a game.”
“I know,” Shoe said, leaning back. Part of the chair felt cold against his skin. It made him almost shiver. Hearing his nephew’s words—It was just a game—caused him to pause. He swallowed. As if he could take back the words. Not that he had uttered them, but he would take them in, maybe hide them behind his scar.
“What should we do, Tio?” Mario said.
The question lay on the table between them.
He realized then he should have just left things in place. He should have climbed out of the pit and run as best he could with his foot as it was and found a phone, any phone, and called an ambulance directly. He wanted to go back in time and make a different choice.
Or go back even further.
Back to a time when he was still a boy in another country. There were no hard questions, no actions to take other than waking and surviving and laughing in between those moments. He could barely see his nephew’s face. He knew his presence in this boy’s life had compromised the situation.
Worse, still, was having left the child. Not that he could have saved her himself, but he could have been the one to save her. Maybe his life could be different if only he had a way to get back to certain moments. He could still hear a boy from another life saying, Check, and then laughter when Shoe looked bewildered at the chessboard.
It was the foreman, Mr. Towson, whose picture was in the paper the next day. His white comb-over and large square teeth. His dark eyes. He had been the one to find the girl. He did not mention the anonymous call to the office. He did not mention Josie to the reporters. He was being hailed as a hero.
Mary had come into the kitchen and pointedly set the paper down so that the article was faceup, like the girl had been.
“They didn’t know your name, did they?” she said.
“No,” Shoe said.
She nodded.
“There’s no way for them to know?”
“I don’t think so. I never filled out any paperwork.”
When he had come back the morning before, only an hour or so after leaving for work, she did not question him. He wasn’t her husband. He could do what he pleased. Only that night did she find out from Paul that his brother had quit his new job. Not only that, but Shoe would be leaving for another job opportunity farther south. Now there was this, and her heart felt heavy.
Mary scanned the article.
“Paul is going to see this,” she said. “He’ll recognize the company name.”
“I know it.”
“You’ve brought us bad luck.”
Shoe did not have an answer.
“You know that, don’t you?” she said.
“Yes.”
“We’ve worked too hard to make a life for our family.”
“I know,” he said.
“You don’t know.”
He wished she would make him breakfast now, as she had done the morning before. But that was over. He knew it. He would spend the rest of his life, wherever he happened to be, thinking about those hands of hers.

two
The pediatric ward had been decorated with an undersea theme. Tom followed behind his father as they wove through a corridor full of young children in wheelchairs, some pushing themselves and others being pushed by their parents or by nurses with round, pleasant faces.
Someone had taped a laminated sketch of a blue octopus with orange polka dots over the water fountain. Its suckered arms curved, undulating toward the floor. Tom was thirsty, but he wasn’t going to ask his father to stop. He knew his sister had come to, and it was exciting.
He wanted to ask her if she remembered anything.
He especially wanted to tell her he was sorry for what had happened, for telling her to get out of his life. He hadn’t wanted that at all and he was prepared to play whatever game she wanted to play now. He would go wherever it was she wanted him to go.
“You need to move your legs,” his father said to him.
They passed more children in wheelchairs. Tom found himself nodding at each one, smiling. He hoped they understood he wasn’t making fun. He was letting them know in his own way he had yet to see his sister.
From the ceiling hung ornaments of starfish suspended at various lengths by clear fishing line, just like his model airplane. The starfish twirled as he and his father walked past in a rush. They could have been snowflakes from a distance.
At the end of the corridor, his father knocked on a wide door and then pushed it open slowly. They walked inside to find his mother sitting beside the bed. Teagan was sitting up, looking confused. His mother was feeding her red wobbly squares of JELL-O.
“They used to call that nervous pudding,” his father said, wringing his hands. “I read that in a history book once.”
“Who did?” his mother said.
She kept feeding Teagan.
His sister sloppily licked at