"I'm sorry," I said. "For what I said at Dad's birthday. It wasn't true. Not the part about you. You're not a coward. You're the least cowardly person I've ever known. You kept that store open by yourself for five years after I walked out on it and on you, and I said that because I was ashamed I left, and it was easier to make it your fault for staying. And what I said about Grandpa was the worst thing I've ever said to anyone. He'd be so proud of you he'd be insufferable. He'd be telling strangers at the hardware store." I took a breath. The cold went all the way down into my lungs. "And I'm sorry about the knight."
Torben's face changed. "The knight?"
"I've been sorry about it for twenty-four years. I think about it every Christmas. I think about you diving for it in June until your lips went blue. I think about that lug nut." I unzipped my pocket. My fingers were stiff and it took me two tries. I took out the little box with its new silver paper and its red thread and its index-card tag that was too big for it, and I went up the porch steps and held it out to him. "I made you something. I lost it at the mall on Saturday. A stranger caught it when I dropped it over a railing, and then it fell out in a Santa picture and ended up in his hat, and then in his sister's mashed potatoes. And then he cleaned it with olive oil. It's had a long week. But it's here."
Torben looked at the box for a long time without taking it. Then he unfolded his arms and took it, and turned it over in his big hands, and read the tag. Twenty-four years late. I'm sorry. G. He pulled the red thread and it came undone. He peeled the silver paper back with his thumbnail, carefully, the way our mother opens presents, so you could use the paper again. He opened the lid.
He didn't say anything. He took the knight out and held it up into the stripe of light from the door. He turned it all the way around, exactly the way I had at the Fox. He ran his thumb down the ridges of the mane.
"You made this," he said.
"Eleven months. At the community center. I ruined six. One looked like Elvis."
His mouth twitched. "You made this from the pictures. Grandpa's pictures. From the album."
"And from memory."
"The nose is right," he said. His voice was very rough. "Grandpa always made the noses a little bit long. Like they were sad. Like they knew something." He closed his hand around it. He looked at me, and his eyes were wet, and so were mine, and neither of us did anything about it. "Do you want to know what the fight was about? On the dock?"
"I've tried for twenty-four years to remember," I said. "I can't."
"I can," Torben said. "It was the first day of summer. I was going out fishing with Fitz Hendershot and his brother in their boat, and you wanted to come, and I said you couldn't, because you were a baby and you'd ruin it. And you said I'd be sorry. And then you walked down the dock and threw the knight in the lake." He laughed, a short wet sound. "Fitz Hendershot is in prison now. For mail fraud. You didn't miss much."
"I'm so sorry."