"I read your new notebook," he said. "I'm sorry. I should've asked."
Theo closed the library book. He didn't say anything.
"You don't have to keep writing it down, man."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Theo picked at the corner of the book's plastic cover. "What if something happens and nobody knows?"
"Then I'll know. Because I'm here. Because I'm off at three-thirty every day and Mama Glo's four minutes away and Ms. Hollis has my cell phone and Dr. Fitch has my cell phone and the lady from the county comes once a month and looks in the refrigerator." He waited. "That's a lot of grown-ups watching, Theo. That's a whole crew."
Theo's jaw worked. Then, very quietly: "At Mama's funeral. Uncle Darnell said I was the man of the house now. He said I had to look out for Lulu because she was a baby." He swallowed. "And then you said it too. At the gas station. Be the man of the house."
Andre closed his eyes.
He remembered Darnell, Monique's brother, crouching in front of a five-year-old in a borrowed necktie in the church fellowship hall. He remembered not stopping him. He had thought it was a kindness. Every man in his family had been told the same thing at a funeral at some point; it was what you said.
"Theo," he said. "Look at me."
Theo looked.
"Uncle Darnell was wrong. And I was wrong. I'm the man of this house. You're eight. You're the kid. You did something so brave this year, braver than most grown men I know, and I'm proud of you till the day I die. But that job you've been doing? Watching the door, counting the food, sitting in this hallway every night?" He put his hand on the back of his son's neck. "You're fired."
Theo stared at him.
"You're fired from that job," Andre said. "Effective tonight. I'm taking it back. It was always mine. I should never have let you pick it up."