Part 7 (1/2)

”I'm saying he didn't mean it,” Dad says.

”Of course he didn't.”

Dad watches her and Sheila, like something is still not settled.

”I just saw it coming,” Peggy says.

Sheila parades her skinned knee with its bandage and orange stain for the Belson girls, who are close to her age. Peggy lays our pie in the oven, and Dad puts on his goofy chef's hat as soon as the coals are hot enough for grilling. He and Neil Belson each sip a Beck's and argue over whether the Cubs will make it to the World Series.

I lean against Dad's arm. He has big, solid arms that make you safe when he hugs you, like you're inside a house with its front and back doors locked. ”Well, look at you, miss,” he says, pressing a spatula down on the spitting meat. ”This one's got my heart,” he tells Neil Belson, raising his Beck's. ”Forever and always.”

They both laugh. ”Who could blame you?” Mr. Belson says. I pretend to rub smoke from my eyes, embarra.s.sed.

Sometimes I feel like the simplest things I do-chew gum, cartwheel across the lawn, even bite my nails, which I'm trying to quitfill Dad up with happiness. His eyes get soft, and I know no matter what I ask, he'll say yes in a minute.

”Do me a favor, baby?” he says. ”Use your magic to cheer up your big brother?”

I try to. I offer Bradley my pickle and bites of my burger, even though he already has one. I tell him a few dead baby jokes, which are the only kind I can remember. But he bites his lips and stares at his hands like he's trying to figure something out.

”Is Bradley feeling okay?” Celia Belson asks Peggy during lunch. Peggy leans over and whispers to her. They give each other a look that surprises me, like they both know something they don't need to talk about.

”How about a game of softball?” Dad says, wrapping his arms around me from behind and speaking to the group. He has a good, warm smell of beer and bread. Dad likes games: football, soccer, Parcheesi. Tic-tac-toe if there's nothing else. Our mom did, too, and when she was alive they'd play gin rummy late into the night.

Brad says he'll sit out.

”C'mon, Brad,” Dad coaxes. ”We need your power hitting.” He wants to make up but doesn't know how. His hands hang at his sides.

”No thanks,” Bradley says. ”Really.”

I catch another fast look between Peggy and Celia. Brad sees it, too.

I sit out with him. I watch the rest of them play, and Bradley tears blades of gra.s.s in two and piles the pieces at his feet. Everything is wrong: Dad's shoulders droop as he stands at first base. Peggy scowls while waiting her turn to bat. Celia Belson keeps glancing over at us. I stare at each one of them the way I stare at Brad when he's doing a stunt. But nothing improves.

Sometimes I have these thoughts. I imagine walking onto a battlefield where men are shooting at each other, and making them stop. Just by walking out there, just by looking at them a certain way and holding my arms up. I imagine how quiet it would be, like a scene from a movie where something happens to hundreds of people at once. In my scene the soldiers drop their guns and slap each other on the back the way men do when they're glad about something. They look at me in awe.

”I'll get the pie,” I tell Bradley.

I run back to the house and open the oven. The pie looks delicious, sugar bubbling along its edges. The dish is hot. I hold it with the oven mitts and sniff the steam coming out of the top. It's just what we need, I think.

I hurry back up the lawn. Sun s.h.i.+nes in my eyes, and I blink a few times because it looks like Brad is at bat. I keep walking, holding the pie without noticing where I'm headed. He looks mad as h.e.l.l. His jaw moves as he grinds his teeth, and I wonder what they said to make him play.

Dad is pitching, his back to me. Only after he throws the ball do I realize where I'm standing. Everyone sees it at once. It happens both slow and fast, slow because there's enough time after Dad pitches for parents and children to shout, ”Bradley, wait!” and there's enough time for Brad to get the most awful look on his face, like he's seeing the worst thing on earth and he can't avoid it. Like he's the one about to get hit.

I just stand there, holding the pie. I know what will happen, like I've already seen it.

Then Bradley is shaking me hard, so my head b.u.mps the gra.s.s. ”Stand up,” he hollers. ”You're getting everyone scared.”

I'm dizzy. I smell baked apples and sugar glaze. I hear people shouting, ”Leave her alone for G.o.d's sake!” But Bradley keeps shaking my arm so it tugs in the socket.

I stand up and push the hair out of my face. Bradley puts his arm around me. ”See? She's fine,” he declares in a thin voice. ”F-I-N-E. Fine.”

The group stands in a quiet circle around us.

Brad takes my hand and pulls me. ”C'mon,” he says. ”You need some water.”

I try walking, but something doesn't work right. My feet aren't attached to my body.

”Come on!” Bradley urges, pulling my arm. I look at his face and see how his lips shake, how wide and scared his eyes are, and I try my best to follow. But the next time he pulls I fall onto the gra.s.s and then I hear more shouting, Dad's voice louder than the rest. ”You get the h.e.l.l away from her!” he bellows, and that's the last thing I hear.

I have a minor concussion, which is mainly just a greenish bruise near my temple and a bad headache. I stay in bed for a week, and every day Bradley comes to the doorway and stands there looking at me.

”I'm fine,” I say the second I see him. ”Completely fine.” He nods and looks at me like there's something he wants to say but can't figure out how.

One day he comes in. He sits on the edge of my bed and stares at my face. ”How well do you remember Mom?” he says.

It's the first time he's ever asked me that. I tell him about the shadow bending over, the singing. I want to tell him how I hurt her with my tricycle wheel, but for some reason I don't.

”She was beautiful,” he says. ”Like an angel.” Then he leans back on his elbows, looking tired. ”Know something?”

”What?”

”Dad's probably told you. Probably a hundred times. But I never did.”

”Told me what?”

”You look the same. Like she did.”

He's staring at me. There is a bluish color around his mouth, and his eyes have that spooked look you get when you stare in a mirror late at night. I watch the sheets. ”No,” I say. ”Dad never told me that.”

I think of pictures I've seen of our mother and try to compare us. But I can't remember what I look like.

”You're the same,” he says. ”No joke.”

I twist the edge of my sheet, shaping it into the head of a rabbit.

Brad clears his throat. ”Dad says I should stay away from you,” he says. ”He ordered me. Grabbed my s.h.i.+rt in front of everyone. Like this.” He leans forward and grips the top of my nightgown, pulling me toward him. I must look shocked, because he lets go instantly. ”s.h.i.+t!” he cries, shaking his hand like he doesn't know who it belongs to. ”Christ Almighty!”

”It's okay,” I tell him, leaning back against the pillows. But my heart is beating fast.

Brad pulls a miniature rowboat out of his pocket and bounces it in his palm. He takes a small, crinkled tube of glue and dabs some on two plastic oars. ”Look, Holly,” he says. ”I'm sorry for that.”

He carefully glues the oars onto the boat. I wish he would go away.

After a while Bradley looks up at me. ”You were there,” he says.

”Where?”

He's staring at me in a desperate way. And then I know where he means: in that car, six years ago.

”What happened?” he says. ”I want you to tell me.”