Fitz by Mick Cochrane Page B

did was make me happy,” his father says. “I could have told her that. Instead, I lied. I said that she was a law student, too, third-year, and when I hung up, I felt sick.”
    So you chickened out
, Fitz doesn’t say. That was your dare-to-be-great moment, your chance to declare your independence. But you didn’t do it. You took a pass.
    “When I was offered the position in St. Louis,” his father says, “I was thrilled. A clerkship with a federal district judge was something special. It was my dream job.
    “But now we had to figure some things out—we couldn’t go on like this. For months we’d been speaking only in the present. But now I had a job out of state. At first Annie said that she was happy for me. She didn’t want to hold me back. She never demanded anything from me. But now things were going to change. We had to make some decisions.
    “It all came to a head one Saturday night. I was leaving onMonday for St. Louis. We’d been talking all day, going around and around. We’d been talking for days, really. You were in a little baby seat. It had a handle and a little canopy. I had brought a pizza over, and it sat on the coffee table in front of us, untouched, just looking nasty. It seemed like some kind of accusation, even—who thought this was a good idea?”
    Fitz understands. What kind of person brings cheese-and-pepperoni to this?
    “We got into it again, really arguing this time. It was confusing, all my coming and going, that’s what she was saying. It was making things worse. It wasn’t right.”
    His father says he was ready to respond. There were some points he wanted to make. He wanted to take exception to some of the things Annie had said. Maybe he got a little bit, well, lawyerly.
    “Annie cut me off. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘Cut the crap. You can’t have it both ways.’ She said something about stepping up, being a man.”
    Yes, Fitz thinks. Yes! It’s about time. Step the hell up.
    “I guess I raised my voice then,” his father says. “I just wanted to defend myself. Annie was being unfair. I can’t even remember what it was I said. I was upset. Doesn’t matter. It was loud, it was angry. The pizza box got knocked on the floor. The baby was still in his seat, right there on the couch between us. He startled. He started crying.”
    “That was me,” Fitz says. “The crying baby.” He feels like he needs to remind his father. This story—it’s not all about him.
    “You,” his father says. “You started crying.”
    And Fitz isn’t stupid. The pizza box didn’t knock itself on the floor. Who’s he trying to kid?
    “Annie snatched you up in a flash. Held you close and just like that, you stopped crying. But your face was still beet red. You gave me a look. As if to say, what are you doing here? As if to say, get lost. That’s just what you seemed to be saying. You are not needed here. I belong to her, not you. You’re the problem. You’re unnecessary.”
    Of course, Fitz feels like saying. Who needs a father?
    “Annie told me that it would be best if I would leave. Best for her. Best for you. Best for everyone.”
    “So that’s when you walked out.”
    “Stepped back,” his father says. “That’s what I thought I was doing. Just for the moment, like a time-out. A cooling-off period.”
    “Stepped back?” Fitz says. Can he hear himself?
    “Annie told me that it would be better for all of us,” his father says.
    “Better for you,” Fitz says quietly.
    “I know how it must sound,” his father says. “But it was temporary, that’s what I thought at the time. That’s what I told myself.”
    The rest of the story is pretty much what Mr. Massey calls denouement, falling action. After Curtis left town, Annie moved back in with Grandpa John and Uncle Dunc. Fitz knows things had been testy at home during her teenage years—back then his mom had a wild side—which is one reason she moved out in the first place. But now, they must have come together,