APOLLO ARRIVED AT Bennett Park and didn’t even realize how he got there. It had been five-thirty in the morning by the time he reached Washington Heights. His body had become used to hitting the park with Brian at that hour, so even after months away, that’s where his body took him. He had an appointment downtown at eleven, but that was a long time from now.

He entered the park and saw the tops of four men’s heads, gathered in a semicircle by the play structures, and he came out of his hazy state and nearly turned away. He’d been meaning to go to the apartment, hadn’t he? But then they saw him, just a quick glance from two of the New Dads, and Apollo didn’t know what to do. How much weirder would it look if he ran away? So instead he moved toward them. They were his friends—of course he should say hello.

He quickened his pace and almost fell as he reached the playground gate. When he entered the gated area, the four men turned and watched him. To a man, all of them scanned him and abruptly looked away with embarrassment. Apollo saw this but tried to unsee it. The mothers were nearby, at the swings with their kids, exactly as they had been three months ago. Except today his hands were empty. He carried nothing. He had no child. He moved toward the other fathers, and probably for the first time ever, he shook each man’s hand. Then he turned to the play equipment.

“Hi, Meaghan,” he said. “Hi, Imogen. Good morning, Shoji. Good morning, Isaac.”

Apollo grinned at the other dads as the four kids ignored him.

“Imogen is walking so well,” Apollo said.

Normally her father would’ve taken the opportunity to explain exactly when she’d made the progress. More than likely he had a video—ten videos—of the early tries. He should’ve already had his phone out for the other dads to see, but this morning he didn’t do any of that. He registered Apollo’s words with a nod, but then merely blinked at his daughter, looked dazed.

All four of the men looked stunned, in fact. Disoriented. They stole the quickest of glances at Apollo, then immediately looked away, at the children or the trees or Fort Washington Avenue, anywhere but back at him.

Apollo understood this was happening, but he felt addled, too. He didn’t know why he’d come, and now that he was here, he didn’t know what to do with his hands, didn’t know what to say. Should he keep commenting on the kids and their progress, or should he explain where he’d been? Did they want to know about the bullpens on Rikers Island? About his morning shifts on the grounds crew? Of course not, of course not, but what should he talk about instead? He should leave. They talked about only one thing here on the playground, and he didn’t want to talk about that, he couldn’t, but before he turned to go, it came up anyway.

“Apollo,” Isaac’s father said quietly. “We all felt terrible when we saw the news.”

The other three fathers nodded but still refused to look at Apollo.

“We wanted to get in touch somehow, but none of us ever traded numbers with you.”

Apollo almost melted with relief. He took out his phone, but it had no charge. Rikers Island wasn’t in the habit of sending prisoners home with a full battery. It was just an automatic gesture. “I’d like that,” he said.

None of the New Dads spoke. Instead, Isaac’s father put a hand on Apollo’s shoulder and patted it gently. Then he moved so he stood beside Apollo. Shoji’s father then moved alongside Isaac’s, and in an instant the semicircle of fathers formed a barrier that blocked any view of their children.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Imogen’s father said. The man opened and closed his hands, the fingers turning tense as claws.

“You’re mad at me?” Apollo said. His heart beat more rapidly than it had even on his first night at Rikers. “You’re mad at me?” he said again.

“No one’s angry,” Isaac’s father whispered.

“I’m angry,” Imogen’s father said. “I’m angry you came around our kids.”

Apollo tried to speak but only stammered. He had the impulse to smash his phone into the side of this man’s face. “I would never hurt your children,” he whispered.

Shoji’s father looked over his shoulder, catching some movement with his practiced parent’s eye. “Did you snatch that from Meaghan?” he asked. “Give it back. Give it back.”

Meaghan snatched back whatever “that” had been, and Shoji grabbed at it, too. The pair of them screeched as they scrapped. The fathers of both kids turned and rushed in, a tactical support team.

This left only two of the fathers with Apollo. They watched him nervously.

“You’re scared of me,” Apollo said.

“You went into that library with a gun!” Imogen’s father shouted. It sounded that much louder because of the earliness of the morning.

“I was trying to—” Apollo began, but stopped himself.

“We’re really sorry about Brian,” Isaac’s father said. “I can’t tell you how sorry.”

Hearing his son’s name uttered out loud made Apollo’s stomach quake. He hadn’t spoken the name since being handcuffed by the police sixty days ago, but in his mind, his heart, he’d been repeating it a thousand times an hour. It sounded strange in the other man’s mouth. Apollo had the urge to tear out his tongue.

“We’re just trying to be good dads here,” Isaac’s father said.

“I was, too,” Apollo said.

He turned to leave Bennett Park. Six in the morning, and no choice left but to go back home.