“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I hope so. But I think the goal is for it not to matter whether you know. I think the goal is to be the kind of person who doesn’t do that regardless of whether there’s a Danny in your life.”
“The kind of person you want me to be,” he said.
“The kind of person I think you actually are,” I said. “Which is why tonight was such a surprise.”
He was quiet.
“I was showing off,” he said. “For Marcus. The text.”
“I know,” I said.
“It was stupid,” he said.
“It was,” I said.
“I feel sick about it,” he said.
“Good,” I said. “Not because I want you to feel bad about yourself. But because feeling sick about it means you understand what it was.”
He picked up the photograph from the movie theater.
“He looks like he loved his job,” Leo said.
“He loved it more than I’ve loved anything in my professional life,” I said. “He talked about movies the way you talk about books.”
Leo looked at the photograph.
“Sam,” he said. “The waiter. He was like that. You could tell. He cared about doing it right.”
“Yes,” I said.
“He was reading the specials back, trying to make sure he got it right,” Leo said. “And I was texting my friend about how funny it was that he was trying to get it right.”
He set the photograph down.
He put his face in his hands.
He was not crying but he was close to it and he was deciding whether to be close to it or to pull back, the specific negotiation of a fourteen-year-old boy with his emotions in front of his mother.
I let him negotiate it without helping him.
“I think,” he said finally, “I need to apologize to him.”
“To Sam,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Is that possible? Can I go back?”
I thought about this.
“I think that’s possible,” I said. “I’ll call the restaurant tomorrow and explain the situation and see if Sam would be willing to receive an apology.”
