“Joshua’s father is an eco-architect,” she said when she noticed Marty looking. “We moved here when the city hired him as a consultant. Unfortunately, he’s working so he won’t be able to join us.” She led Marty to the top of a stairwell. “Joshua’s playing downstairs,” she said. “I’ll give you two some time alone before lunch.” She began to turn and then hesitated. The look on her face seemed to indicate that she was arguing some point with herself. Marty buried his hands deep into his pockets. He hunched his shoulders and kept his eyes trained on a section of the tile floor where the grout had begun to chip away. “You know why you’re here, right?” she asked. Marty could feel her staring at him. He nodded slightly.
“To apologize,” he said.
“To explain…” she began to say and then stopped herself. Marty could feel her choosing her words. “I’m a firm believer in forgiveness. I think we all need this, that it will be beneficial and healing for all of us, you included. But you have to understand, Joshua is our only child and when I answered the phone that day…” Marty could hear her voice begin to falter like a radio station losing its signal. “Do you have any siblings, or is it just you?” Marty dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands. Joshua’s mother was wearing strappy sandals and he noticed that she’d painted the toenails of one foot a different color than the other. He wanted to ask her why she’d done this, what it meant.
“It’s just me,” he said.
Joshua sat on the carpeted floor of the basement playing a video game that required him to wear a headset. He had yet to acknowledge Marty, who was sitting in an overstuffed easy chair on the other side of the room, his legs crossed beneath him. Marty watched the screen as Joshua lined up a Nazi in the crosshairs of his sniper rifle. He hit a button on his controller, and the Nazi flailed wildly, a spray of red escaping his head before he collapsed to the ground.
“My mom’s making me do this,” Joshua said without looking over. “I asked to take karate lessons, and she said I couldn’t until I did this.” He laid the video game controller on the carpet and stood. He looked bigger than Marty remembered, taller at least, and he seemed weighted down on one side, slightly unlevel as though one leg was longer than the other. Marty hoped he had not somehow done this to him. Joshua wore cargo shorts and a T-shirt advertising the Outer Banks. His hair had been cut short for the summer, and the cowlick was gone.
“She’s a nice lady,” Marty said.
“She’s a lot nicer than my dad would have been to you.” Joshua curled his bare toes and pressed them against the carpet, making hollow popping sounds. “He never works on Saturdays. He just didn’t want to be here for this. He said he didn’t agree with it.” Joshua walked over to a pinball machine that stood in the corner. He pulled back the plunger and released it. A row of lights flashed along the top. “He said he didn’t want you in our house.” Marty heard Joshua’s mother moving somewhere above them. He wondered what she was doing, what color room she was in. He suddenly wanted to be upstairs with her, listening as she explained her husband’s work, or helping her prepare lunch. Joshua clicked the machine’s levers, though he didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the game.
“You jumped me,” he said. “That’s all you did. You tricked me, and then you jumped me.” He walked over to where Marty sat. “You lied to me about Jimmy and I believed you.” Joshua’s face was skinny and tanned. The marks on it had healed. Marty wondered if there was a bump on his lip where the stitches had been. A spray of freckles formed a band over the bridge of his nose. Joshua shook his head as though disappointed with himself. His eyes were deep brown and wild in his head. “This never would have happened if we had stayed in Charlotte. I had a million friends back home,” he said. He looked at the stairwell and then back at Marty. “My mom told my dad what happened, right in front of the doctor. She said assaulted but everyone knows that means beat up.” Without warning Joshua reached into his pocket and took out a heavy black gun. He straightened his arm and aimed it directly at Marty’s eye. Marty edged his body back against the chair.
“I could kill you right now, and nobody would blame me.” His arm was unsteady and the gun wavered at the end of it. Marty pressed further back into the chair. He wanted to yell for Joshua’s mother, but he could not open his mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to imagine himself anywhere else. In the church basement with Ms. Higgins, Clairie standing behind him telling him what to do, calling him a brute. In his room listening to Lebron James spin his wheel into a hum. He tried to picture his mother. What would she be doing right then, at the exact moment he died? Watching TV on mute, vacuuming the den for the third time that day? He thought of how she missed his dad, how she missed Nate. For a moment he hoped Joshua would do it.
“You picked me because I was new,” Joshua said. Marty shook his head.
“Because you were the smallest.”
“Does that make you better or something?” Joshua asked.
“No,” Marty said. “I just want to tell the truth.” A chrome cylinder extended from the handle of the gun. Joshua noticed Marty looking at it.
“This is a high-powered CO2 air pistol,” he said.
“Does that mean BB gun?” Marty asked.
“It means I could shoot you right now and it would probably kill you. At the very least your eye would explode into a giant blob of shit and then you’d be half-blind. How would you like that?” Joshua’s voice cracked and he pressed the cold end of the gun into Marty’s skin. He pushed harder, forcing Marty’s head into the back of the chair. The metal of the gun rubbed against his cheekbone.
“My brother moved to North Carolina,” Marty said.
“I wish I still lived there. I hate this place.” Joshua took the gun out of Marty’s cheek. “What city did he move to?”
“I don’t know,” Marty said. “He left before I woke up.” Marty was still pressed into a corner of the chair. The turtle shell dug into the fleshy part of his thigh. He realized he was crying, silently, hot tears sliding along the crease of his nose. Joshua had lowered the gun and was staring at him. He looked confused. From the top of the stairs his mother called that it was time to eat.
“Your brother moved and he didn’t tell you where?”
Marty shook his head. Joshua looked at him and then placed the gun back into his pocket.
“He probably hates you too.”
For lunch they had couscous and grilled vegetables. The three of them ate at the kitchen counter, Joshua’s mother doing most of the talking. When they had almost finished, Marty asked to use the bathroom. He walked past where Joshua’s mother directed him and slid out the mudroom door. Once outside, he placed the turtle shell beside a soccer ball where he hoped Joshua would find it. Then he cut through the side yard and across the road. He walked along the shoulder for a short while and then ducked into some woods. He heard a creek running somewhere and followed the sound, stepping over undergrowth and fallen trees until he found it moving quickly in the shade. He could see all the way down to the slate bottom. He chose a smooth log on the bank and sat against it. The air was hot, and he lowered his feet into the cool water, sneakers and all. Everything seemed lighter somehow. Minnows flashed silver in the shallows. The sun coming down through the leaves made tiny white ovals of light on the surface of the water. He wondered if this was how Nate had felt riding in his friend’s car that morning, every truck stop and exit sign taking him farther away. His mother’s cell phone was still in his pocket and he did not want to hear it ring. He did not want to go home. If she called he might ignore it or throw it into the fast moving water of the creek. Or he might answer the call and press the tiny device to his ear. “What is happening?” she might say, her voice barely controlled, wonderfully urgent. “Where are you?” He pictured her searching for him frantically, scouring Joshua’s neighborhood, calling the police. The thought raised his skin and made him shiver.