I’m told it was a Tuesday.		It was. This is true.
I’m told it was June and it was hot and there’d been no rain for weeks, no respite from the heat that pressed down on Brookdale.		Sticky hot and oppressive. Unrelenting. Heat like a heavy breath in your face. Not a whisper of breeze.
	(bored bored bored)
I’m told Mom was in the backyard, hanging laundry on the line, that my father was in the garage.	Mommy says don’t go outside too hot but Mommy is outside not fair I want to be outside.	He was cleaning the gun on the workbench just inside the door that led from the garage into the house. And the doorbell rang and he left the gun sitting out as he went to answer it.
	(bored bored bored)
	Daddy says go away I’m busy not for little boys adult stuff.
	(bored bored bored)
	Doorbell and I go see Daddy again but Daddy is not there but grown-up toy! Grown-up toy!
	Grown-up toy! I have a grown-up toy!
	It’s heavy and smells funny like change in Mommy’s pockabook.
I’m told I leveled my father’s .38 Magnum at her as she sat in the little bouncy chair with the stuffed birds hanging overhead.	Go play with grown-up toy. Go to my room. I hear Lola in her room. She makes a song-noise. “So cute” Mommy says and I say it too when I hear it.	She liked to sing along with the bouncy chair’s recorded music, cooing off-beat. Over her head, stuffed birds rotated slowly on their axes, captivating her.
	So cute!
I’m told she would only nap in the bouncy chair, that she loved the stuffed birds and the birdsong that the chair played for her.	Go into Lola’s room. She’s in bouncy bouncy chair, go bouncy bouncy. Singsongy noises.	She would stare at the birds and babble her version of the birdsong for endless precious minutes.
	Lola sees me. Eyes wide. Smiles and says “hah-dah!”	But then she saw me.
	“Hah-dah! Hah-dah!”	She couldn’t speak, but she could exclaim. She could erupt with syllables without warning, sometimes blurting out a single sound, then falling silent, other times repeating them in a staccato verbal tattoo over and over.
	Swings her arms and giggles. Bouncy chair jiggles. I laugh too. So cute. So funny.
	She sees me she smiles her big open toothless smile she smiles with her whole face with every part of her.	That day, she said, “Hah-dah!”
	Lola is my sister love my sister she’s so cute and she loves her big brother Mommy says she loves her big brother.	God, I remember it.
	Loves when I play with her when I clap for her.
	She swings her arms again, “Hah-dah! Hah-dah!” Claps her hands.	I remember it so well. “Hah-dah!”
	I swing my arms, clap for her.
I’m told it was point-blank range and that I shot her one time.	There’s a BIGSOUND and I fall back.	It was one shot. I don’t remember pulling the trigger. Or aiming. I think it was genuinely an accident.
Which, really, is all it takes.	BIGSOUND. So big! My ears hurt. Ears hurt so much!
She was four months old. I’m told.	My ears hurt! Everything hurts! Why am I hurt? I’m shaking. My head hurts, my legs hurt, my arms hurt. I peed in my pants and Mommy will be mad.
I’m told Mom got there first, the back door being close to the nursery. My father arrived a few seconds later and I was on the floor, blacked out from the kick of the pistol, which knocked me across the room.	Mommy here now. Mommy! Mommy! I hurt! I hurt! Up, Mommy! Up! Up!	I didn’t black out. Not for an instant. The kick of the Magnum knocked me off my feet, threw me back against the wall. It’s a miracle the recoil didn’t break my shoulder.
	Mommy not looking at me. Mommy crying and then Daddy screaming and Mommy crying Daddy mad.
I’m told Mom screamed and screamed, clawing at her own face at the sight before her.	What happened? What happened?
	Pee in my pants.
	Where’s Lola? Why is there red?
Local legend has it that my father, fearing she would gouge her own eyes out or tear her face to ribbons, deliberately punched her out cold.	Mommy gone. Want Mommy! Everything hurts! Everything hurts all over! WANT MOMMY!	My father did not punch my mother. He shoved her out of the room. I watched. He shoved her out of the room and cast about, as though looking for something, anything, that was not the tableau before him. Arms outstretched, reaching, grasping, his hands desperate for purchase, to grab hold of reality and warp it, bend it to his will, coming up only with air.
		He dropped to his knees near me, keening.
I have no reason not to believe any of the things I’ve been told.	Why is there so much red? What happened? What happened?	Except that so many of them are not true. But the ones that matter are.
		I could only lay there, dumb and howling in pain and confusion.
I’m told so many things.	Where’s Lola?	Wondering.
I was a child. It was an accident. It wasn’t my fault.	Why is there so much red?	Not understanding. But I understand now.
I’m told.	Where’s Lola????	But I’ve never told.
I was four years old.	WHY IS THERE SO MUCH RED?
	WHY IS THERE SO MUCH RED?