Leo was uncharacteristically sullen and uncommunicative over the weekend, but both Mouse and Henry assumed it was because of Henry's horrible outburst. Henry apologized, of course, but it didn't seem to help much.

"Leo, come here," Henry called as soon as his son appeared Saturday morning.

Leo obediently approached his father, who was sitting on the sofa.

Not mine? flashed through Henry's head, and he banished the thought. He held his arms out, and Leo climbed in his lap, while Mouse watched them from the kitchen. Leo sat stiffly, not melting into his father's arms like he usually did. He deserved that, Henry told himself. He deserved at least that.

"Son, I want to apologize for how I spoke to you last night," Henry said, looking Leo in the eye. Leo looked back at him warily, and again, Henry told himself that he deserved nothing less. "I was upset about something, you know? Something that had nothing to do with you. Something to do with work."

Leo blinked, looking at his father with shock. This was the first time his daddy had ever lied to him in his life. Why? Why wouldn't he just say? It must be really terrible, then. Leo kept his chin firm with an effort. He was a big boy, now, too big to cry about every little thing.

He looked over his daddy's shoulder, to where his mommy stood in the kitchen, holding a steaming cup of tea. He could smell it all the way over here. It smelled like her, just one of the really nice smells he associated with his mother.

She smiled encouragingly at him, but Leo couldn't smile back. He just looked into her kind, kind eyes for a few seconds, so he wouldn't look at his daddy and start to cry. He felt his hand coming up to his mouth, and he put it back in his lap with an effort, but he could tell from how his mommy swallowed that she'd seen, and she knew that he wanted to put his thumb in his mouth. This made Leo embarrassed, because he was too big for that, too, wasn't he?

He looked cautiously back at his father, who was looking at him, searching his face for signs of forgiveness. "Sometimes things happen that we can't control, and we just get mad at the first thing we see, and last night it was you, and I'm so, so sorry for that."

Leo couldn't believe how easily the lie rolled off his daddy's tongue, how casual he was. He didn't know that the word he was looking for was glib; he was too young to have heard that word yet, but it was the word he would've used to describe his father at that moment if he'd known it. Smooth-talking, insincere, shallow. Glib.

His daddy had never, ever, lied to him about anything before, Leo thought to himself.

That he knew of.

He tried to banish the thought, to push it out of his head, but it wouldn't leave, it sat in his brain like a huge, ugly toad, or some kind of noxious, moldy fungus. It sank roots, like it was going to stay for a while. Because if his daddy could lie about this huge thing, about the fact that he might not even be Leo's daddy at all...

What else might he have lied about?

"Do you think you could forgive me for being so mean and rude to you?" his daddy asked. He ran a hand over his face, looking really tired, looking like he maybe hadn't slept very well.

"Sure," Leo replied, nodding for emphasis, trying to look and sound like he meant it. He searched his daddy's face, looking at the familiar features, the first face he could remember, the best face, the most loved.

He put his arms around his father's neck. "I love you," he said, and now he started crying. He couldn't help it.

"Oh, Leo, I love you back, son, more than anything," Henry said, squeezing the little body.

But as Leo heard the words, he thought, "What if he doesn't mean it? How can I even tell?"

He released his father, and went to the table for breakfast. Happy followed to wait hopefully under the table for anything that might come her way.

**************

Leo sat and watched cartoons for a little while after breakfast, still in his pajamas. He tried to concentrate on the TV, but he couldn't. He kept thinking about the words he'd heard.

That daddy wasn't his father.

That he might not belong to his daddy at all.

Leo wasn't sure what that meant, exactly, but he knew it had something to do with the baby in his mommy's tummy, and the sex thing that they told him about. Somehow, whatever they did to him with the Q-tip in his mouth showed them that daddy wasn't his real father.

And his real mother was dead, Leo knew.

So if both of those things were true, then who did he belong to?

This question haunted him all weekend. He wished Happy could talk, so that maybe she could tell him. Happy was a really smart dog, for sure, but Happy also did some really dumb things, like drinking out of the toilet, and eating cat poop whenever she could get to it, though, so maybe not.

By the time he got to school Monday morning, Leo was thoroughly miserable. He didn't know what to do.

"Hey, Gardener, did you go do any yard work over the weekend?" Dominick asked as they walked toward the monkey bars. For some reason, Dominick thought it was really insulting to tease Leo about his last name being Gardener, though Leo had no idea why.

"No," he replied. He looked around, hoping someone else would come play with them.

"Look what I got," Dominick bragged, lifting his sleeve. Leo looked at the flat, square face with the black band.

"It's an Apple Watch," Dominick said. "My dad had the band special made to fit me, see?" He held his wrist close to Leo's face, much too close for him to see anything. "It's the best one they make, it does, like, everything," he said.

Leo looked at it, then at Dominick's chubby face. "It's pretty," he said politely.

"It's not pretty," Dominick retorted, offended. "It's cool," corrected, smiling at his wrist. "You don't have one," he said to Leo.

Leo just shook his head as Kerry came running up, wispy, white-blonde hair in two of the skinniest braids Leo had ever seen.

"Look!" Dominick said, putting his wrist in Kerry's face. "I got a new Apple Watch! I'm probably the only kid in Kindergarten who has one, maybe even all of Carstairs School!" He laughed. "Leo doesn't have one, he doesn't even have a regular watch like you do," he said to Kerry, inviting her to laugh along.

Kerry just stared at him and took a step closer to Leo. She looked at Leo and lifted her eyebrow, the one closer to him, the one that Dominick couldn't see, and raised one corner of her mouth in a quick, secret smile. Then she turned back to Dominick.

"Yeah, nice watch, Nicky," she said. She crossed her arms. "So what time is it?"

Dominick stared at her. He looked down at his wrist, then looked back at her. "I--I don't know," he finally admitted. "My dad forgot to set it to show numbers time."

"Oh yeah," Kerry said, laughing, as Noah joined them. Her happy voice got really loud. "I forgot, Nicky! I forgot that you don't know how to tell time yet, sorry!" She motioned for Noah and Leo to climb the monkey bars with her. "You're the only one in the whole class, aren't you?" she yelled down.

The three of them climbed to the top, leaving Dominick at the bottom. They sat up there in companionable silence.

"Kerry?" Leo asked.

Kerry looked at him, blinking eyes framed by eyelashes as pale as her hair.

"What time is it?" he asked her, and the three of them laughed and laughed.

"About five minutes until the bell," Kerry answered. "Thanks for asking me."

"I know you love to look at your Elsa watch," Leo responded, nodding.

Just then Leo remembered about his daddy, and his happy mood evaporated.

"What's wrong?" Noah asked. "You were all happy, then you got all sad."

So Leo told them about what he'd heard. While he was telling them, Dominick climbed up and joined them.

"So you guys, my daddy said I wasn't his," Leo concluded. "What does that even mean?" He looked around.

"It means that he probably doesn't want you anymore," Dominick said, nodding his curly head for emphasis. "Cause if he's not your daddy, and the lady isn't your real mommy, then who's left to love you and want you to live there?"

"What?" Leo asked. He was horrified. He was worried that he might throw up, right there on the monkey bars. "You think they might not want me to even live there?" He looked into Noah's concerned brown eyes. "Where would I go live, then?" He looked over at Kerry, whose green eyes were huge.

"Noah? What do you think?" Leo asked, looking back at him.

Noah shrugged. "I don't know," he answered. "I don't even understand how he couldn't be your daddy. I mean, he was your daddy when you were borned, right?"

Leo nodded vigorously.

"So who else could be your daddy?" Noah asked, perplexed.

"It means that your mommy was--was--" Dominick looked uncomfortable, and the other three looked at each other. What could it be that would make Dominick uncomfortable? It would have to be really bad.

"It means your mommy was a slut," Dominick finally said, whispering the last words. "Not your mommy now," he said quickly, when Leo's face got stormy. "Your other mommy, the one who died." He looked at Kerry, embarrassed. "I heard Leah say that to my dad about my mom. She said she was a slut and who knew who that child's father was?"

Leo blinked really hard, trying not to cry in front of his friends.

Just then, the bell rang, saving him, and at morning recess and lunch time and nap time and snack time he carefully talked about other things. He would have to think about everything he'd learned.

******************

Mouse was waiting with Happy at the gate to the school when he came out. She saw him, looking wan and pinched, and was careful to keep her face looking cheerful and unworried. Even seeing his dog didn't draw him out. Mouse was really worried that what happened with Henry was going to have long reaching effects.

They got home, and Mouse asked Leo as they were getting on the elevator what he wanted for his afternoon snack.

"Leo?" she repeated, when he didn't respond.

He was leaning forward, holding the door open and looking out, as if waiting for someone or something to follow them.

Someone or something that she couldn't see.