"Ezra," Yolanda said. "Do you want to say anything?"
He hadn't planned to. He looked at the relay in its bag on the walnut table, at the black craters on the copper, the tiny ruined place where the whole thing had gone wrong.
"Can I have that?" he said to Julian.
Julian slid the bag down the table to him without a word.
VIII.
Afterward, in the parking lot, under a white sky, Mr. Kessler caught up with them by the Toussaints' car. He'd put the watch back on. He stopped a respectful six feet away, the distance of a man who has finally learned there is a distance.
"Ms. Toussaint. Ezra." He cleared his throat. "I owe you both an apology, and I'm aware that saying it in a parking lot is — inadequate. I'm sorry. For Thursday, and for the leave, and for what I let myself think about your son."
Yolanda unlocked the car. "I heard you."
"I'd like—"
"Mr. Kessler. I heard you. That's what I've got today."
He nodded. Then he turned to Ezra, and Ezra made himself look back the way he had on Thursday, flat and patient, and saw that this time the man didn't flinch away from it.
"You were right," Mr. Kessler said. "About the car. About me, I think."
Ezra thought about saying it's okay. It was what you said. It was what adults wanted, so they could go home. But it wasn't okay, not yet, and saying it would be like telling somebody a relay was fine when you could hear it chattering.