“Sure,” I lied. “Didn’t you?”
He shrugged, which for Decker meant “no.”
He checked the kid’s fingernails, poked a finger into the elastic of the diaper, and then ran both hands down the bouncy seat’s straps, tugging once to test the security. Satisfied, he stood, and for a second just watched the flatbed with a mechanic’s eye, like maybe he could diagnose the whole thing from a safe distance.
“You want a hand?” he asked.
I shook my head, grinning. “This engine’s like an ex-wife. If you touch her, she’ll get vindictive.”
He didn’t smile, but the left corner of his mouth twitched. “Noted.”
He pulled an upturned bucket closer to the bouncy seat, sat down, and rested his elbows on his knees, not looking at me, not looking at Emilio, just looking at a point somewhere between the floor and the future. I knew the trick: you wait in the silence until someone can’t stand it, and then you win.
I gave it five minutes, working the tensioner and scraping rust, waiting for Decker to get bored and go back to his own problems.
He didn’t. He just sat there, breathing even.
Finally, I said, “I know what you’re doing.”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“Decker, you ever think about, like, what would make a guy leave his kid with a stranger? Not just leave, but vanish?”
He exhaled, slow. “All the time.”
I wiped sweat off my forehead and tossed the rag into the trash. “You got a theory?”
He looked at the engine, not me. “A few. You?”
“Only one. That whoever did it was more scared of what would happen if they didn’t.”
He nodded. “That tracks.”
There was a lull, the kind that would have been awkward for anyone who wasn’t us. I let my eyes drift to the kid, who was still watching me like I might pull a rabbit out of the alternator next.
Decker said, “Jasper thinks he’s healthy. Genetics are good, no sign of withdrawal, no obvious birth defects.”
“Means he’s got better odds than most of us,” I said, giving the wrench a spin.
Decker glanced over, the faintest suggestion of humor on his face. “Want me to run background?”
I shook my head, hard. “No. Not yet.”
He nodded like he expected that answer. “You think he’s coming back?”
I leaned into the engine, said, “I think he already did what he set out to do. Emilio is not a message, he’s a mission accomplished.”
Decker let that one sit. When he did talk, it was slow, like he’d walked every step of the conversation before and was only just now looping back. “You gonna keep him?”
I took a breath. It tasted of old oil and maybe something like fear. “Yeah. If he’ll have me.”
Decker’s silence was a shape in the air, not empty but full of all the things he wasn’t going to say.
Emilio made a sound, soft and questioning, and Decker leaned over, knuckle grazing his cheek. “You’re in good hands, little guy.”
I grunted. “Tell that to the state. Or to the next social worker who rolls up.”
He stood, set the bucket back in its place, and paused by the engine. “We’ll keep an eye out, Hoop. If anything changes, you let me know.”
