Then, in a voice so small Sean almost missed it, Leo said, “Dad?” The man turned fully around. For one suspended second, neither of them moved. Then Leo’s words came rushing out, messy and breathless, the way they do when a child has been holding everything in for too long. He said his little sister couldn’t breathe. He said his mother was at the hospital. He said the landlord had come again and there had been shouting, and he didn’t know what to do. He had found the old envelope and the photograph and thought that if he could just find his dad, maybe things would stop falling apart for one night.
The man stared at him as if the air had been knocked out of his chest. The welding mask slipped from his hand and hit the concrete with a sharp crack. Sean saw the man’s mouth tremble before any words came. “Leo,” he said, and the name seemed to break him open. He dropped to one knee right there in the rain, one hand over his face, as if he suddenly couldn’t bear the weight of what his son had just said.