I was awake when my father came home, and knew from long experience how clumsily he’d try to be quiet. With all the late nights and long cases, I’d expect him to know every loose floorboard in the house. He didn’t. I heard a creak in the hall, and a rattle of ice as he stood for long seconds outside my door. When I was younger, he’d wake me up to talk, usually on the bad days when a case went sideways or someone particularly innocent was hurt or killed. He never talked about the details, but even at twelve or thirteen, I understood that he wanted to speak of normal things, to see his own children tucked away and safe. Nights like that came more often when Robert went to war, and ended abruptly when his body returned. Now it was like this: my father in the hall, the rattle of ice.
When he left, my thoughts returned to Jason and the cliff.
No hesitation.
He didn’t even look.
Turning on a lamp, I opened a shoebox filled with pictures of Robert, some taken when he was a boy, and others he’d sent from Vietnam. I studied those the most on nights like this. He looked frightened in a few and, in others, mostly lost. Not everyone would see that, of course. They’d see the good looks, the half smile. But I’d known Robert better than most, better even than Jason. He’d taught me how to study hard and play hard, to find my place in the world. Every year, though, it was harder to remember him, so I looked more and more at the pictures. It’s what I saw of him when I closed my eyes: Robert in the jungle and looking left, or standing with other men by the edge of a burned field. Even the day he dove from Devil’s Ledge was blurring in my mind. I saw Jason instead, and felt the pull of him, too. What did he want from me? Why was he home? I knew what Robert would say, if I could ask him about tomorrow.
Live large, Gibby, but be smart.
You hear what I’m saying?
You feel me?
I stared at the darkness for a long time, then pulled on jeans, took a cigarette from my mother’s purse, and slipped outside to the porch. The stars were pale, the air cool. I lit the smoke and felt something like a war inside. Be like Robert or Jason. Be a good son. A bad one. I thought of stealing whiskey, but did not.
I’d be drinking soon enough.
And lying, too, it seemed.
It happened on the same porch—nine in the morning, my father close behind as I tried and failed to slip away unseen.
“Gibby, Gibby. Wait.”
He tried to keep the cop off his face, but it was hard for him, trusting. “Yeah, Dad?”
He was barefoot beneath jeans and a T-shirt. I’d been avoiding him. “Where are you going?”
“Just out.” A half lie.
“Back to the quarry?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Hanging with Chance?”
“Yeah, maybe. I guess.”
My father frowned, and looked at my car in the driveway. It was a Mustang convertible, kind of old. I’d bought it used. It had a few dents, the big engine.
“Listen,” he said. “I spoke to Jason last night.”
Shit …
“You did?”
“He told me about today.” I expected more of the cop eyes, but that’s not how it was. The old man looked open and understanding, and … I don’t know … younger. “Your mother doesn’t need to know about it, okay? Let’s keep it between us.”
I looked for the trap; didn’t see it.
“I’ve been thinking about it, is all. He’s the only brother you have left. Good or bad, that’ll never change.”
“But don’t tell Mom?”
“Just be smart,” he said. “You feel me?”
I nodded once, and there it was again.
The ghost of brother Robert.
Jason was hungover when I pulled to the curb. He sat with his boots crossed in the gutter and a bottle of beer pressed against his forehead.
“You’re late.”
I killed the engine, but didn’t get out. The top was down, sun beating in. Jason took a long swallow, and got to his feet. The house behind him was small and littered with trash, his clothes as dark and worn as a country road. In spite of it all, Jason looked ready for anything, the smile ironic, the rest of him long and lean and coiled. He drained the bottle, tossed the empty, and hefted a cooler into the back seat. “You had breakfast?” I shook my head, and he opened the door. “All right, then. I’m buying.” He named a place, and guided me across town to a diner that served a mix of soul food and Korean. “But the chicken and biscuits,” he said. “You have no idea.”
He was right about that. I didn’t.
“Good, huh?” He took off the dark glasses, and his eyes were surprisingly clear.
“You come here a lot?” I asked.
He pointed at the cook behind the counter, a wiry black man with gray in his beard. “Nathaniel Washington,” he said. “I knew his son in basic training. Darzell.”
“Did he … you know. The war?”
“What? Die?” The same ironic smile. “He drives a cab downtown. Good guy. He introduced me to this place before we shipped out. Don’t have much use for the Korean food, but the rest of it…”
He gestured, as if to take in the smell of chicken and collards, fatback and ham hocks. Spread out in the booth, he seemed relaxed. The quiet gaze. The easy smile. We finished breakfast and ordered sandwiches for the road. “Tell me about the girls,” I said.
“Girls?”
“Yeah, you said—”
“Ah, the girls. Well, women, really. You been laid yet?”
I looked away, embarrassed. Girls were a mystery wrapped in sweetness and cruelty. They generally terrified me.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “These girls are nice. You’ll like them.”
After that, he watched the city beyond the glass. Shadows deepened in alleyways across the street, and bright light etched the pedestrians, the homeless, the big cars with chrome fenders. I was drawn by his lazy confidence, his stillness, the way he held his cigarette.
“What?”
He caught me watching, but I had no easy answer. People said we looked alike, but he was exotic to me. “How many people did you kill?”
It was not a fair question so early in the morning. He gave me a long look, neither upset nor giving.
“Not today, little brother.”
My disappointment was hard to hide. Sex. Death. Experience. These were the things that made him a man and me something less.
“Listen,” he said. “I get it. People talk. We’re family…”
“I heard twenty-nine, just in your first year.”
He shook his head, stubbed out the cigarette. Did that mean more than twenty-nine? Less?
“I need a drink.” He rose as the old proprietor delivered a bag of food to the table. “Thanks, Nathaniel.” Jason passed across a wad of bills without really counting them, then shouldered the door and led me into the heat. “You ready for a beer?”
“I’m driving.”
“Nah, I got it.” He circled the hood and slid behind the wheel. I waited a moment, then got in, too. “Bottle opener is in the cooler.”
I looked around. No cops. No one seemed to care. Rooting through the ice, I found bottles of Michelob, and pulled out two, opening them and handing one over. Jason drained a third of it in a single pull, then eased onto the four-lane and turned east. I kept the bottle between my legs, sipping nervously when we hit gaps in traffic.
“Nice car,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Robert and I had to walk.”
I looked for resentment, but didn’t see it. I could have told him how I’d paid for it mowing lawns and fueling boats, but I didn’t want to break the mood. His fingers filled the grooves on the wheel, and he whistled at the easy acceleration. In seconds, we were doing sixty in a forty-five, and he was smiling like a man fresh out of prison. He took us farther east and then north, bending around the city until we reached an expensive area filled with bright glass and trees and off-street parking.
“About these girls…” He pulled to the curb. “Don’t let them scare you.”
“I don’t. What…?”
“Ladies!”
Jason swung out of the car as two young women appeared from a nearby condo. I saw a blur of terry cloth and thin shirts and bare, smooth skin. They giggled down a flight of steps and met Jason on the sidewalk, each one rising on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. The shorter one leaned in as if whispering. “Is this him? He’s cuter than you said. See, Sara. I told you.”
Both were staring, both braless and tan. The blonde wore a headband with a turquoise stone in the center of her forehead. The shorter one with dark hair wore it feathered.
“All right,” Jason said. “Ladies in the back. Little brother rides with me.”
“Aww…”
“I’ll share later. Now, come on. Load up.”
He gestured at the car, and the young women piled in, the tall blonde speaking first, her voice soft and calm. “I’m Sara,” she said. “This is Tyra.” I responded as best I could, but was lost in a cloud of perfume and legs and the quick glimpse of a pale, curving breast.
“Oh my God, he’s blushing. That is adorable.” Tyra leaned over the seat, and I felt her breath on my neck. “What’s your name?”
“Gibby.”
“How old are you, Gibby?”
“He’s eighteen,” Jason said. “His birthday was last week.”
“Oh my God. So adorable.” Tyra squeezed my shoulders, laughing, but my eyes found Sara’s. They were blue, shot with green, and they watched me from a calm, still place. “It’s very nice to meet you, Gibby. Is this your car?” I stammered something, and she leaned forward, showing a second glimpse of the same pale skin. “It suits you, I think. The lines of it.”
She leaned back after that, and looked away. I felt a flutter, an emptiness. Jason’s knowing smile returned.
“All right, boys and girls.” He fired the big engine. “Who’s ready to party?”
The party started in the car and moved, over an hour’s drive, to a gravel road that twisted through undeveloped forest at the southern shoreline of the state’s largest lake. Sunlight slanted in, and water glinted beyond the trees. Pale dust rose behind the car as Jason took us farther from the neighborhoods and boat ramps and parks. The girls were on a second bottle of wine, talking a lot and asking questions that Jason apparently wanted me to answer. He rarely replied to any of them, choosing instead to smile or tip back a beer or say something like, You know who has a funny story like that?
Thing was, I did have funny stories. Whenever he said that and looked my way, I knew exactly what to say and how to say it. Maybe it was the beer, or maybe his confidence was contagious. Whatever the case, the girls responded. Tyra liked to laugh in a full-throated way, her lips as pink as the inside of a shell, her teeth as glistening and damp. Sara’s responses were subdued but more gratifying. She’d touch my shoulder and lean close, her smile softer and intimate and small. As a spell, I wished it to remain unbroken. The streaming hair. The heat of her hand.
“Where are you taking us, anyway?”
Tyra raised her voice to ask the question, but Jason didn’t respond. He turned right when the road forked, and bounced us down a weed-filled track that ended at a meadow filled with wildflowers. Beyond it, the lake stretched for miles, a spill of glass fringed by forest and hills and high, empty sky. When the car stopped, Tyra stood, pulling off her sunglasses. “Oh my God.”
We got out of the car, the stillness remarkable in its perfection. “How’d you find this place?” I asked.
“It wasn’t me. It was Robert.”
I took a few steps into the meadow. Flowers carpeted the earth, a thousand colors, a thousand shades. Wind made jewels of light at the water’s edge. “Why didn’t you ever bring me here?” I asked.
Jason moved beside me and pressed a fresh bottle into my hand. “I didn’t know about it.”
“How is that possible?”
“Robert didn’t bring me, either. Not until he left for the war.”
“What do you mean?”
“He came home right before he shipped out. Remember?”
“Of course.”
“He brought me here before that last dinner, just the two of us. The sun was setting. It was cold. He said he found this place when he was sixteen, and wanted me to know about it, just in case. Beyond that, he didn’t say much. We had a beer and watched the sun go down. He was scared, I think.”
“Why did he keep it a secret?”
“We were twins, right. That meant we shared most everything, whether we wanted to or not. Birthdays. Clothes. Even girlfriends got us confused. I think he liked having this place for himself, alone. Do you blame him?”
It was a fair question, given the beauty and the stillness. I wondered who owned it, but only for a moment. My thoughts turned to Robert. It was easy to see him here all those years ago, alone or with a special girl. It hurt that he’d brought Jason and not me, but they had been twins. I forgot that sometimes.
I’d forgotten the girls, too.
“Who wants to go for a swim?” Suddenly Tyra was beside us, one hand on Jason’s arm. “How about you, big boy?”
She shrugged off her top, laughing. The shorts followed, and she was naked, running through the flowers. I’d never seen tan lines on a naked girl, never seen a naked girl at all.
“Hold this.”
Jason pushed a beer at me, and sauntered into the field. He took his time, and Tyra enjoyed it. She turned and feigned shyness, then splashed waist-deep into the water, covering her breasts as Jason disrobed with a slow dignity I could only imagine in myself. He was marked by war and prison-pale, but muscular and confident and steady. I didn’t think I could be jealous of Jason, but suddenly was.
“They’ve been together a few times.” Sara appeared beside me, her eyes on Jason, but on Tyra, too. They met in deeper water, kissed once and long, then stroked out from shore, splashing each other, laughing. “We don’t have to swim,” she said. “Come on. I found a shady spot.”
I didn’t know if I was relieved or disappointed. She took my hand in an almost careless way and led me to a bald spot beneath a weeping willow where someone had long ago placed Adirondack chairs, the wood of them silvered and smooth. Sara sat me down, then put a hand on each leg, leaned in, and kissed me lightly.
“I thought we’d just get that out of the way.” When she drew back, her lips were slightly parted, the smile in her eyes alone. She took the chair beside me, but left fingertips on my leg, a proprietary touch that delighted me. “Tell me about Gibby French.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Have you ever been with a girl?”
I answered honestly, but the day was like that. “No. Not really.”
“But you’ve had girlfriends?”
“Nothing serious.”
“That’s good. I like that.” She sipped wine, and her profile was flawless.
“How about you?” I asked.
“Men, yes. Relationships, no.” She showed the blue-green eyes. “Does that shock you?”
I shook my head—a lie—and tried to match her frankness with my own. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“What do you do for fun?”
“This is a good start.”
Her hand moved on my leg, but absently. Her eyes had drifted shut, and a half smile played on her lips. I stole a glance at the length of her legs, the thin shirt, and the small, perfect breasts. It lasted a second or two before I looked away, ashamed of myself. I didn’t know what to do or say, and Sara knew as much.
“Just breathe, Gibby French. It’s a lovely, lovely day.”
It was a lovely day. We spoke of things large and small. We drank and laughed, and once, midsentence, she kissed me again. It was longer that time, and certain and real. Afterward, we watched Jason and Tyra swim, looking away only as they emerged from the lake to make a secret place deep in the flowers. For a moment, then, it was awkward, but Sara didn’t care for awkwardness. She stood with the grace I’d come to expect, then settled onto my lap, her palms warm on my face as she kissed me. It was a woman’s kiss, and different from the ones I’d known from girls at school. There was no fumbling or self-consciousness or doubt. She made a shadowed place of her hair—a private world—and in that world she made the rules, too. She pressed hard and drew back, a giver and a tease. She put my hand inside her shirt and squeezed, her fingers over mine as time, for me at least, folded and stretched.
“I see that you two are getting along.”
It was my brother, and he was close. Sara pulled away, but slowly. She squeezed my hand with hers, and then withdrew. “He’s nice,” she said. “I like him.”
“I thought you might.”
She turned in my lap, settling a shoulder against my chest, and resting there. At the water’s edge, Tyra was getting dressed. She saw us looking, and waved. “Nice swim?” I asked.
Jason called over his shoulder. “Tyra, baby? Nice swim?”
“The best!”
She came through the flowers, grinning. Jason pulled her tight, and lifted an eyebrow. “Anybody hungry?”
Hours later, we were back in the car, yellow light in the trees, the sky above impossibly blue. Jason took us back to hard pavement and the world beyond the trees, driving in a pattern that made little sense to me: north and then east and then north again. I’d never seen this part of the state before, the miles of forest and farmland, the worn pavement and small towns, like beads on a string. I rode in the back with Sara, who watched the world much as I did, silently and content, her eyes hidden behind round glasses with rose-colored lenses. She had a hand at her throat, another on my leg. In front, Tyra was the talker.
“Where are you taking us?”
Jason lifted his wide shoulders. “Just driving.”
“Can you go faster?”
Jason accelerated, blowing dust off the blacktop and litter off the verge. “Fast enough?”
“Only if you kiss me, too.”
He kissed her well, one eye on the road. When the kiss broke, Tyra laughed wildly and pushed her arms above the windshield, into the rush of hot air. “Faster!” Jason nudged the gas, and the car leaped forward again. Eighty-five. Ninety-five. “Yes! Yes!” The speed energized her. She bounced twice on the leather seat, finished the wine, and slipstreamed the bottle. It shattered on the road behind us—a starburst—and when I looked at Sara, she raised her own narrow shoulder.
“It’s just Tyra.”
The day soured a little after that. I didn’t care about Tyra one way or another, but Sara’s easy attitude cheapened her a little.
“We need more booze!”
Tyra shouted over the roar of wind, and Jason high-fived her open hand. Twenty minutes later, we stopped on the main block of a narrow downtown street, angling in where piebald tarmac met the façade of a run-down ABC store Jason claimed to have shopped in once.
“Won’t take a minute.”
“What town is this?” I asked.
It was a dusty place made of two-lane roads and blinking lights and low buildings. I saw kids on bikes, old men, a tractor at a feedstore.
“Does it matter?” Jason asked.
It didn’t matter to the girls. They spoke across the seat as Jason disappeared inside, and I watched him through the glass. At the feedstore, the tractor started up, pulled onto a side street, and disappeared. I smelled pollen, pine resin, and hot pavement. Sara tucked a strand of hair behind an ear, and I saw the pulse at her throat, the flush of her cheek.
“Gibby, hey. I’m talking to you.”
My eyes shifted up from Sara’s skin. Tyra was leaning over the seat, a cigarette between two fingers. Lipstick made a rim on the filter. Virginia Slims. Menthol. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
She rose up on her knees and leaned farther over the seat. “Is it true what they say about your brother?”
“Tyra, this is uncool…”
“Zip it, Sara. I’m talking to Gibby.” Sara tried again to turn the conversation, but a strange, hungry glint had kindled in Tyra’s eyes. She leaned even closer, the seat back in her ribs. “They say he killed a lot of people.”
“Do they?” I asked.
“In the war, they say. Maybe even in prison.”
“I don’t really know about that.”
“But you’re brothers, right?”
“Tyra…”
“It’s hot, Sara. Okay. The scars. The stories. I know you see it.”
“I don’t think it’s hot at all. If it’s true, it’s sad. If it’s not true, then you’re being really stupid.”
“Oh, like you wouldn’t screw him.”
Sara took off the glasses and showed me her eyes. “I’m sorry, Gibby. She gets stubborn when she’s drunk.” She looked back to Tyra. “Stubborn and ridiculous.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Drop it, Tyra.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
Tyra spun around and slumped in the seat, reaching for the radio and moving it up the dial, passing John Denver and the Hollies before settling on Eric Clapton and turning it up. I wasn’t surprised by her feelings for my brother. I’d seen similar things in one form or another. Fascination. Loathing. Jason understood the effect, but paid little attention. He kept the dark glasses on, kept the silence.
Back at the car, he picked up on the tension. “What?”
He slid into the driver’s seat, and Tyra shook her head, arms crossed. Sara tried to smooth it over. “Party slows down without you. That’s all.”
“Well, I’m back.” He rustled around in a paper bag. “No wine, but I got these.” He handed a pint of vodka to Sara and another to Tyra, who twisted off the top and took a pull.
Sara touched her friend on the shoulder. “We all good now?”
Tyra drank again, and spoke to Jason. “Let’s drive, all right?”
Jason did as he was asked, backing away from the curb and making a slow roll through the little town. The kids watched us pass, and so did the old men. In the empty lanes beyond, the day was just as clear and bright, but the mood had shifted. Tyra sulked and drank. She put her hand in Jason’s lap, and looked at Sara as if offering a challenge no one understood or cared about.
“Here.” Sara passed the bottle, but I had little use for straight vodka. “You sure?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
She took the bottle back, drank small sips, and trailed a hand in the hot, hard air. After that, no one really spoke. The radio played. The sun beat down. I watched the countryside, liking how large certain trees grew when they stood alone in empty fields. Around four o’clock, we came to a crossroads and a right turn that took us deeper into the countryside. Jason took his first pull on the bottle, gesturing at pine forest, shimmer, and sandy verge. “This is the edge of the sandhills. Another hour or so, then we turn back west. Everybody happy?”
Strangely, I was, and it was only in part because of Sara. Her hand was back on my leg, yes, but Jason was being very cool, and Tyra had settled into the kind of quiet resentment that was easy to ignore. I thought the day had found its second breath, that everyone was good.
I was wrong about that.
The first sign came when Tyra took another giant pull on the bottle, and Jason said, “You might want to slow down.”
She took another swallow instead, turning the radio louder.
“Do you mind?” I asked. “They’re new speakers.”
She turned them even louder. Jason studied her from the corner of his eye, then said to me, “I’ll buy you new ones if she blows them.”
“Damn right.” Tyra said it loudly, and turned her face to the wind.
After that, Jason took us south. At first, we had the road to ourselves, but we passed a pickup, an old sedan. They fell away, far behind, and the car was steady at seventy miles an hour when we crested a small hill and saw the bus a mile or two ahead. We dropped off the slope, and heat devils shimmered far out on the blacktop. Beyond the distortion, the bus seemed half-real and half-mirage, a white shape that floated above the road and solidified as Jason took us up to seventy-five and then eighty, the road perfectly straight as it cut through a world of wind and sunlight and scrub. The bus swelled as we raced up behind it, and I could feel the speed building.
“Shit.”
Jason’s foot came off the gas as we closed the gap. The car fell back, fifty yards behind the bus, then a hundred. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “Reflex.”
I looked from my brother to the bus, and understood, at least a little. Tall, black letters stretched across the back of the bus.
LANESWORTH PRISON
INMATE TRANSFER
I saw the windows next: the wire mesh in steel frames. I saw the prisoners, too.
“You good?” I asked.
“Yeah, man. No problem.”
It was the first time I’d known anything about prison to affect my brother. At trial, he’d been calm and cool, even as the verdict came down, guilty. He’d looked at me for a slow moment, then held out his hands for the bailiffs and their cuffs. I’d visited prison once, and he’d been sanguine then, too. You’re too young for this, he’d said. I’ll see you in a couple years. It was a rule of childhood that Jason was unlike the rest of us, and it was strange, now, to see him so human.
“What’s the problem, pretty boy? Let’s go.”
Tyra was impatient and drunk and speed-addicted. She moved to the music, half-dancing. Jason frowned, but accelerated until the gap closed and I could see the bus better. It was half-full, maybe fifteen inmates, their clothing as black and white as the bus. We hung on their tail for a full minute, and no one but me noticed that Jason was sweating. Tyra was lost in the music, and then suddenly not.
“Whoa, hey! Convicts!”
She sounded callous and cruel, the kind of voyeur that would watch a good friend fail, and smile on the inside. Maybe that was unfair, but it bothered me to see such ugliness in such a beautiful woman.
From the rear of the bus, two men stared at us through dirty glass. Tyra clapped and grinned, bouncing where she sat. “Pull up beside them! Pull up!” Jason moved on automatic, his right hand tight on the wheel. “Yeah, like that. Right alongside them.” He eased into the left lane, and Tyra turned in her seat to watch the bus slide up beside us. We were alone on the road—us, the bus, and a second lake of shimmer, far out in the flatness. “Not too fast,” Tyra said. “Right there.”
“This is not cool.”
Jason spoke quietly, and Tyra ignored him. Men were watching now, their fingers curled in the mesh. Tyra rose to her knees, her left hand on the top edge of the windshield as she waved and mocked them, pushing out her breasts and blowing kisses.
“Tyra…”
Jason spoke in that same lost tone. His eyes were locked on the road ahead, as if no part of him could bear to look right. He was paler now than when I’d seen him yesterday.
“Jason, just go around.” I leaned forward.
Tyra’s hand found his shoulder. “Don’t you fucking move.”
His hesitation lasted a few seconds, but that’s all it took. Tyra lifted her top, exposing herself and laughing. Her breasts were large and pale, but I watched the convicts instead. If she’d meant to give pleasure, she’d failed. The faces I saw were angry or bitter or sad. Only one man smiled, and it was the kind of smile I hoped to never see again.
“Tyra, that’s enough.” I turned to Sara for help, but she was looking away, her head shaking in small movements. In the bus, men began to stand, seven or eight crossing from the other side, their fingers, too, in the mesh.
Tyra said, “Watch this.”
She touched herself below the waist, grinding her hips, her breasts still exposed. A prisoner beat on the mesh; another did the same. Behind them, a guard was moving down the aisle, pushing, shouting. Men began to yell, most of them on their feet. The guard pulled a prisoner from the window, then another. A third prisoner pushed back, and the bus swerved across the dotted line, forcing Jason onto the road’s edge, tires in the gravel as the car shimmied, straightened. I said, “Jesus, Tyra!” But she was excited, oblivious. Another guard appeared, his baton rising and falling. It was a riot, a beatdown. Blood flecked the glass. “Jason, let’s go!”
My voice seemed to penetrate at last. Jason made no sudden move, but took his foot from the gas and let the car coast. The bus pulled away, and I saw movement in the back—a convict, the smiling one. He stared at Tyra, then licked the glass. She didn’t see it happen. She dropped into the seat, adjusting her top. “That was hilarious.” The car slowed further, wind noise dropping. No one responded to the comment, and she looked around, surprised. “What? Come on. Did you see those guys?”
Jason steered the car onto the verge and stopped. “That was stupid, Tyra.”
“Oh, stop it.”
“Stupid and fucked up and cruel.”
“Jesus. Why are you being such a baby?”
“I need a minute.”
Getting out, Jason walked along the road for thirty feet or so, then stood with his hands in his pockets, staring at the horizon and the last far, faint twinkle of sunlight on glass.
“You guys wait here.”
I said it with rare authority, and followed the dusty road to where it met my brother’s boots. He turned at the sound of my steps, then closed his eyes and tilted his face toward the sun. “Sorry about that,” he said.
“You okay?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
It was not the answer I expected—too honest and, again, too human. “That was bullshit, man. Tyra knows you did time.”
“Maybe she forgot,” he said.
“Maybe she doesn’t care.”
Jason lifted his shoulders, noncommittal. Far away, the bus glinted once more, then disappeared. It was quiet on the road. He was still paler than usual.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s like a slow bleed, is all.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant. Prison, I supposed. The memories. He put a hand on my shoulder; faked a smile. “Did you have fun today?”
“Until Tyra. You know.”
“Tyra. Yeah.” He looked at the car, and we saw the same things: Tyra impatient and flushed, Sara in the back. “I might have to do something about that.”
“You want me to drive?”
“Nah.”
“Home, then?”
“Sure, yeah. Why not? But you ride up front with me.”
Tyra didn’t like it. No one cared. She collapsed into the back seat like an angry child, drank herself into a sullen stupor, and slapped Jason’s hand when he tried to get her out of the car. “Sara?” he said.
“Tyra. We’re home. Let’s go.”
She blinked at the condos, the trees, the setting sun on clean glass. “I can do it myself.”
She made it to the door without looking back, then stumbled inside. For an instant, I was alone with Sara, but the mood was gone for her, too. She kissed my cheek, said, “Bye for now,” and walked up the same stairs.
That night in bed, I tried to hold on to the good parts: the meadow, the taste of Sara’s mouth. I played the day like a tape, but the tape kept breaking. I saw the beatdown on the bus, the batons that rose and fell and slung blood like red paint. That was the loop, over and over: Tyra half-naked and teasing, Jason strangely frozen. I saw all those men—the lust and rage—but in my dreams, the loop tightened and drew smaller. I saw one face, a single man. He stood at the back of the bus, damp-eyed and staring; and that’s what I remembered when I woke.
His tongue on filthy glass.
That terrible, awful smile.