He tapped the dot of ash on his forehead. 'Eventually, it all turns to this.' An apologetic smile, self-deprecating. 'This happy thought brought to you by Mark Dooher. Sorry.'

She kept looking at him. 'You're an interesting man.'

Glitsky had ten pieces of bread spread out on the counter. Five sandwiches. Two each for the older boys, Isaac and Jacob, one for the baby – no, he reminded himself, not the baby anymore, the ten-year-old – O.J.

'What are you looking at?' His youngest son didn't sleep much either – night terrors. Everybody in the duplex handled it differently. O.J. was wearing a Spiderman suit he'd slept in, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Glitsky had no idea how long he'd been there.

'I'm making lunches.'

'Again?'

'Again.'

'But you made lunch yesterday.'

'I know. It's going to happen a lot. I make lunch, okay. And let's talk quiet. Nobody's up. What do you want?'

'Nothing. I don't eat lunch.'

'O.J., you eat lunch every day. What do you want?'

'Nothing.'

Outside the window, the trees of the Presidio behind their duplex had come into relief. Morning breaking slowly.

He wasn't going to fight his child over lunch. He would just make something and put it in the box, and either O.J. would eat it or he wouldn't. Glitsky was in his mid-forties. He wore green string-pull pajama bottoms and no shirt. Crossing the kitchen, he went down on one knee, pulled his boy onto the other one.

'How'd you sleep?'

'Good.' O.J. had to be coaxed to give anything up.

'No bad dreams?'

'Nope.'

'Good. That's good.'

But the boy's arms came up around his father's neck, the small body contouring to Glitsky's chest. A moment holding him there – not really an embrace. An embrace might drive him off. 'I know you don't want anything for lunch, but if you did want something, what would it be?'

Eye contact. A shrug. 'Peebeejay, I guess.'