Chapter 70
Joseph at sixteen had become, fully, the person he had always been pointing toward: broad-shouldered and steady, with Leroy's laugh and Marcus's quality of attention and something that was entirely his own a directness about people, a commitment to being present with whoever he was with.
He was not academic in the way Elise was academic. He was thorough and capable and worked hard, but what lit him up was not ideas in the abstract but people in the specific. He worked on Saturdays at Leroy's logistics business and had, within six months, reorganized the package tracking system in a way that improved accuracy by thirty percent. He did not see this as remarkable. He saw it as just looking at how things actually worked and adjusting accordingly.
'He's going to run something,' Leroy told Marcus.
'Don't put that on him,' Marcus said.
'I'm not putting anything on him,' Leroy said. 'I'm describing what I see. Same way your mother described what she saw in you. He's going to run something real and he's going to run it well. I'm not predicting. I'm observing.'
Marcus watched his son. He thought Leroy was probably right.
But what he loved most about Joseph at sixteen was something else: the way he treated people. Every person he encountered teachers, peers, the delivery drivers at the logistics company, the neighbours in the yard received the same quality of genuine attention. No hierarchy in his regard. No performance of respect. Just straightforward, complete presence.
He had gotten this from his parents, Marcus supposed from Nia's precision and Marcus's attention and the household they had built, which was warm and direct and honest. But he had also gotten it from some source that was entirely his own.
Marcus told him so one evening.
'Where does it come from?' Marcus asked. 'The way you are with people.'
Joseph looked at him. 'Where does it come from?' he repeated, as though the question was odd.
'Yes.'
Joseph was quiet for a moment.
'From you and Mama,' he said. 'And Grandma. And Uncle Leroy.' He paused. 'And from just thinking that people are the point. Everything else is how you serve that.'
Marcus held that.
He was forty-three years old and his sixteen-year-old son had just said one of the truest things he had ever heard.
'Yes,' he said. 'That's it exactly.