Fabian

Fabian, the longtime superintendent of Apollo Kagwa and Emma Valentine’s building, is the person who finds Apollo and Brian Kagwa after the crisis in their apartment. His practical role in keeping the building running becomes an act of intimate intervention: he enters when something is terribly wrong, discovers both father and baby, and continues to remember them afterward. His response is not to explain what happened or demand its details, but to pray for the child and for Apollo.

Identity and Place in the Building

Fabian is in his late fifties, was born in Puerto Rico, and has kept the building running since long before Apollo and Emma moved in. He is also the man who hung the door in Apollo’s apartment, a small detail that makes his familiarity with the home physical as well as professional. When Apollo wakes on a laundry-room couch, Fabian is standing over him with a broom handle; a length of green garden hose is coiled over his shoulder. The unceremonious arrangement captures Fabian in the midst of ordinary building work, even as Apollo returns to consciousness in extraordinary circumstances.

His manner is described as that of an experienced, unflappable sherpa. He watches Apollo closely, crouching to meet him rather than making a show of alarm. He remarks that Apollo’s eye has been repaired well. Apollo touches the reconstructed cheekbone and thinks that the visible damage might better have matched what he felt inside. Fabian answers by recalling the condition Apollo was in when he found him, tapping his own cheek as he speaks. His attention stays on the injured man before him: the exchange begins with Apollo’s altered face, but turns toward the earlier moment when Fabian encountered him in grave danger.

Finding Apollo and Brian

Fabian enters the apartment after the man in number forty-seven calls him because of a smell. He describes it as unlike anything he had encountered before. He initially thinks he will need his keys, but finds the door unlocked. The apartment is very hot; he calls out before going all the way inside, while also carrying a bad feeling. These details give his discovery a sequence of cautious actions rather than making his presence seem accidental: a neighbor alerts him, the smell prompts concern, and he calls into the apartment before proceeding.

He finds Apollo first. Fabian tells him that he thought Apollo was dead, and gestures toward his own cheek to convey the state of Apollo’s hanging eye. He then goes farther into the apartment and finds the baby. Apollo wants to ask what Fabian saw in that room, yet also does not want to hear any of it. The discovery has left Fabian with knowledge that Apollo is simultaneously drawn to and frightened of; Apollo’s shame makes even forming the question feel unbearable. Fabian does not supply further details. Instead, he says that he prayed right there when he saw Brian, and that he says a prayer for him every week at church.

Apollo thanks him. That brief response acknowledges a care Fabian has continued beyond the emergency itself. Fabian also says that he prays for Apollo. The building superintendent’s intervention thus extends from entering the apartment to remembering the people he found there. The recurring weekly prayer is especially concrete: Brian is not only part of a terrible past for Fabian, but someone he continues to hold in mind.

Connection to Lillian and Apollo’s Return

Fabian’s assistance also matters during Apollo’s imprisonment. Lillian Kagwa says that she called the police once a week until they finally told her it was all right to enter Apollo’s place. Fabian let her use his keys. The police searched the apartment, including its closets and dresser drawers, and Lillian did not want Apollo to return to find the place in disorder on top of everything else. Her access through Fabian’s keys therefore helped her prepare the apartment for his return, even though the police had already gone through it.

When Apollo asks how she came to be there, Lillian says she called an Uber and wants to leave it at that. The surrounding scene reveals the care she has put into his return: the food in the refrigerator is not rotten, and Apollo realizes that she must have brought it recently. Fabian’s earlier assistance is part of this practical network of care. He does not take center stage in Lillian’s account, but his keys enable her to enter, check the apartment, and make it more welcoming for her son.

Narrative Significance

Fabian links the building’s routine systems—its doors, keys, neighbors, and superintendent—to moments of emergency and aftermath. A report about an unfamiliar smell takes him from ordinary maintenance into an apartment where he believes he may find a dead man; later, the same trusted access helps a mother care for a son returning from prison. The contrast is not between a detached worker and a heroic rescuer. Fabian is shown doing concrete things within the responsibilities and relationships of his everyday life.

His encounter with Apollo also gives the aftermath a form of human recognition that does not depend on a full account of what happened. Apollo is physically marked by the injury and privately tormented by what Fabian may have seen, while Fabian answers him with memories of finding him, a prayer for Brian, and a prayer for Apollo. The scene leaves the horror largely unspoken, but establishes that someone was present at its immediate edge and has not forgotten either of them. Fabian’s limited but enduring acts—entering the apartment, finding the baby, praying, and lending Lillian his keys—make him a quiet figure of practical and continuing care.