Don't I Know You? by Karen Shepard

really have one. Sometimes he wore a shirt with his name on it.
    Manuel liked Steven and his mother. He did stuff for them without their asking. Once he’d helped make Steven’s Halloween costume.
    He rolled his father’s name over in his mind. Benjamin Engel. Benjamin. Ben.
    â€œWhat happens now?” he asked.
    His father sighed and rubbed his thighs like he was rolling out clay. It was something Steven did too.
    â€œWell, I talked with the detectives today, and I’ll talk to them again tomorrow. I got to tell you, though, it doesn’t seem like they’ve got much to go on.” He smiled. His front tooth was chipped. “We’re all doing what we can,” he said.
    Steven flashed on the guy running down the street. White T-shirt. Jeans. White socks. Green and white Adidas.
    Most of the dogs were leaving. They climbed the stairs like a parade. The doorman opened the gate at the top with a flourish and a bow. One by one the dogs licked his face.
    â€œI meant about me,” Steven said. He hated his father for misunderstanding. He hated himself for not being able to just keep quiet.
    His father twisted his wedding ring around his finger. “Of course you did,” he said. “Sorry.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” Steven said.
    The park smelled of dog poop and car fumes. He couldn’t smell the water. He held his greasy fingers up to his nose.
    â€œYou’ll come live with me and Trish and the twins,” his father said.
    He said the twins would love having an older brother, but he’d taken too long to answer, and he wouldn’t look Steven in the eye, and Steven knew that whatever it was he’d been waiting to hear his father say, this wasn’t it.
    His father reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Do you want to see some pictures?” he asked.
    â€œNot really,” Steven said.
    His father seemed hurt. “Okay,” he said. He held the wallet in both hands like an egg .
    W hen Steven got back, Sam was hanging out the doorway of her room, listening to Phil in his bedroom. She saw Steven at the end of the hall and gestured him down, holding a finger to her lips like a kindergarten teacher.
    He stood next to her. Her hair touched his bare arm. She pointed at her father’s partially open door and mimed a phone to her ear. He nodded. She looked at him. “Nice shirt,” she mouthed.
    â€œI don’t know his name,” Phil was saying.
    â€œYes,” he said.
    â€œShe told me about him,” he said.
    â€œShe wasn’t seeing him anymore,” he said. He sounded annoyed.
    Sam was chewing on a strand of her hair. The blond got darkerwhen it got wet. He tried to figure out which boyfriend Phil could be talking about. Kitty appeared, making figure eights around their legs. “Meow,” Sam said to her quietly. “Me. Ow.”
    â€œYes, I’m certain,” Phil said. He sounded more annoyed.
    Steven’s head was hot. He leaned it against the door frame. He’d read a murder mystery about a woman who’d been stabbed. At the crime scene, to find out the time of death, they’d stuck a meat thermometer into her liver.
    Sam took him by the shoulders and steered him into her room and onto her beanbag. She closed the door and came back over. She sat on her heels, staring at him.
    He felt folded over. Sometimes his mother used to carry him with his back to her front, holding him under his knees. His knees would be up by his nose. She’d carry him like that until he started to slip. It always felt good and bad to be let go. He closed his eyes and pushed his eyelids around over them.
    â€œDo you need something?” Sam whispered.
    He nodded.
    She waited.
    He didn’t know what to ask for.
    She put a hand on his knee. He kept his eyes closed and asked her to leave. She only hesitated a minute before she did, closing the door behind her.
    Later, when he asked her what she thought