Fireside by Susan Wiggs

Radiating from the main square were quaint streets of homes, schools and churches. They passed the Apple Tree Inn, a high-end restaurant where you took your date if you wanted to impress her, thus increasing your chances of getting laid. The Avalon Meadows Country Club was the place where the local nobs sipped martinis and traded travelogues.
    And then there was the Hilltop Tavern. It had been Bo’s home away from home since he’d moved to town. It belonged to Maggie Lynn O’Toole, who had to buy out her ex in their divorce settlement. The bar, located in a historic brick building at the top of Oak Hill, had started life during Prohibition as a speakeasy. Through the years, it had gone through many transformations and was now the most popular watering hole in town.
    Bo lived in a studio apartment tucked into a corner of the building over the taproom. AJ didn’t wake up when Bo pulled into the nearly empty parking lot at the back of the old brick walk-up, and stopped the car. Damn, now what? He hated to wake the kid after the night he’d had. God knew, sleep was a better place for the boy than being awake and fretting about his mother. But they couldn’t stay in the car all day.
    “Yo, AJ, we’re here,” Bo said.
    The boy didn’t respond.
    Bo made plenty of noise getting out of the car and retrieving the bags from the trunk. He took the bags upstairs, hurried back down to check on AJ. He went around to the passenger side and opened the door. “Hey, we’re here,” he said again. “Come on upstairs and you can get some sleep.”
    AJ was already getting some sleep. A fresh gust of arctic air caused him to shudder, but he didn’t wake up. Bo considered giving the boy a nudge, then decided it would be cruel to wake him from a sound sleep into a strange, cold world of worry. He reached into the car and released the seat belt. Bending low in a supremely awkward stance, he snaked one arm behind AJ and the other under his knees, and lifted him up.
    The kid stayed sound asleep. Amazing. Also amazing—for the first time in his life, Bo was holding his son. Twelve years too late, AJ was in his arms, a deadweight. He was small, but not that small. Bo staggered a little, getting his balance on the icy surface of the parking lot. Damn. He could blow out a knee like this. And that would blow everything for him.
    He moved slowly, carefully, waiting to feel some kind of connection to the bundle of humanity. Maybe now that he was touching the boy, it would happen.
    Music pulsed from the taproom, interspersed with laughter and conversation. The afternoon crowd wasn’t too rowdy, but now Bo heard it with new ears. He instinctively hunched his shoulders as if to protect the kid from the intrusive noise. “Let’s get you inside, my buddy,” he murmured, and headed for the door.
    The carpet on the stairs and in the hallway was grungy from winter boots; Bo had never noticed that before. He resolved to talk to Maggie Lynn about replacing it. Inside the apartment, he lowered AJ to the sagging sofa that occupied one wall, under a Rolling Rock Beer clock. The boy still didn’t awaken, just sighed lightly, drew his knees up and turned his back.
    Bo grabbed a pillow from his bed and pulled off the comforter, tucking it around the boy. Then Bo pulled the blinds and stood still for a few minutes, totally at a loss. Now what?
    He’d never noticed before how small the apartment was, how cluttered. He listened to the noise of the tavern below. Was it always that loud? That obnoxious? Suddenly it bugged the shit out of him. He went to the fridge, grabbed a beer. The bottle gave a hiss of relief when he opened it.
    He sat for a long time, sipping the beer and reflecting on his own childhood. He’d had a single mother, too. They’d lived in all kinds of places, none of them anything special. Where he hung his hat had never mattered much to him until now. Having the boy here made Bo flinchingly aware of the small, shabby digs. He knew for a