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He left her house for good a few times — three or four — but always came back and stayed. Phone call to her about something — Brons, important mail he’s expecting and if it came, though he was probably hoping she’d ask him over — and she said “What are you doing now, want to come by? Brons is at a friend’s for the night,” or he took Brons for the day, dropped him off and she said, which he was hoping she would, “Want to stay for dinner, even spend the night? Brons will love it if he sees you in the morning and I’ll be honest — one of us has to — I haven’t had sex for weeks and from what you’ve indicated about all the women you’re not seeing, you’ve been dry for a while and could use it too,” and he said “That’d be okay if that’s all it’d be, a deal?” and stuck out his hand and she looked at it and said “Oh sure, we’re gonna shake.” It was Brons. Fine, for that night he wanted to get laid as he was as horny as she said — hadn’t been with anyone since the last time he slept over a month or so ago — but he loved that boy and wanted to live with them again almost solely because he didn’t want to just see him once a week or every other for a few hours that day. Once she called his deep feelings for Brons as bordering on the sick and he said “Why? I think of him, though I have no illusions about this, as like my son. One would think you’d be pleased he has someone who feels that way about him besides you,” and she said “Sometimes I am but other times I think it’s carrying it too far. He has a father. And even if they rarely see each other now, I feel in five years or less Brons-S will grow up to the point where he’ll discover what he’s missing and he’ll want to see him as much as J wants to see him now. And so they’ll see each other a lot and if you’re still around, you’ll be in the way, and maybe even J will go live with his dad. That’s how it often turns out, not that I’d love the idea. But you and I? Come off it, we’ll never stay together and we’ll be lucky, the way we hack out at each other sporadically, if we last another two months. Then when you really leave — and it might be the next time or the time after that. But when every one of your books is with you and you have a rented apartment instead of a cheap room and nothing of yours remains in this house, the boy will be clobbered the hardest by you so far. Maybe double what it was with his father, as he’s older now and remembers more than he forgets and this bad shit tends to get etched into kids his age permanently, but anyway, that for the second time he’s been blown off by the big man in his life. How this will affect his future relationships, male and female — you never liked my psychological speculations but here it is — don’t even ask.”