each time she was in a car with her mother. Pretty isolated out here. Of course, she was away for so long in that place upstate.... Everybody kinda goes his own way, you know what I mean. Sometimes I feel bad I never just drove over and knocked on the door after she got back, but I never knew what I'd say really."
"Yes," says Andrew.
"She was one fantastic-looking girl. You remember?"
"I remember."
"A real knockout. She wasâwhat, fourteen?"
"About."
"A mess, if you ask me."
T.J. squares his shoulders and looks down the drive toward the cornfields on the other side of the road. "I always figured he buried the gun in the cornfields somewhere, but I don't know," he says. "You'd think it woulda been plowed up by now."
"You would think so," says Andrew.
The sun glints sharply off a silver Mazda that speeds along the road, intercepting their view of the fields. Above the fields, a flock of crows makes a half-moon arc.
And as they had done for weeks after the shooting, silently, not wanting anyone to know of their preoccupation, Andrew realizes that once again they are drawing diagrams in their heads of how the unthinkable could have taken place: The father walking into the house, hearing the muffled sounds upstairs, opening the door to his daughter's room, the horror of what he sees there, the frenzied shouts. A hand, reaching for a gun. Eden with a sheet clutched to her breast, moving toward her father....The mother's footsteps on the stairs.
He remembers the terrible sound of the crying.
"You ever see Sean's parents?" asks Andrew.
T.J. makes a movement with his shoulders, as if to shake himself loose from his speculation. "His father's still got the TV repair shop in town, but he's usually pretty far gone by afternoon. The mother died a few years back. Cancer. Bad news, that story. About Sean, I mean."
"Yeah," says Andrew.
"So," says T.J. He grabs Andrew's hand. "So listen, take it easy," he says, moving away and sideways along the driveway, toward his car, reaching in his pocket for his keys.
Andrew watches him from the stoop. With the same economy of movement that made him the most fluid skater in the county, T.J. slips his long body into the Prelude. Andrew is about to wave, when T.J. sticks his head out of the window.
"And for Christ's sake, Andy-boy," he says, turning the key in the ignition, "go buy yourself a decent pair of jeans."
Andrew smiles and shrugs. He wonders how certain qualities in a boy can turn out so strangely in a man. And yet who is he to criticize? Has he not himself, in business, made the same dismal moves?
The beer on an empty stomach has left him light-headed. He goes back up the stairs into the kitchen.
As he opens the screen door, he has an image of Eden naked under a flower-print sheetâand the image startles him.
Why think of that now? He wonders if T.J. knows about this fact. Did he, years ago, tell that detail to his friend?
Â
A FTER J IM had held the baby, there was no thought of ever letting her go. She was his before he even arrived at the farmhouse. Andy's mother was in the Closes' kitchen, waiting, with her neighbor, when Jim flung open the door and let his sample case fall from his hands. She watched the way he bent to the childâhis eagerness for the child seeming to be a natural extension of his largesseâand how he held her
aloft as gracefully as a baby nurse, as if he'd been practicing in his dreams for years.
And she saw, even in the confusion, the face of Edith Close, who put herself forward to be kissed before giving over the child, but who was not kissed or touched until much later in the night and who sat watching numbly at the kitchen table as her husband danced with his warm bundle over the worn linoleum floor. And Andy's mother saw, too, her struggle to compose her face, to realign her features to match her husband's new expression, to feign a joy she knew she must display so as not to fall behind.
She knew at once not to protest, nor
"Yes," says Andrew.
"She was one fantastic-looking girl. You remember?"
"I remember."
"A real knockout. She wasâwhat, fourteen?"
"About."
"A mess, if you ask me."
T.J. squares his shoulders and looks down the drive toward the cornfields on the other side of the road. "I always figured he buried the gun in the cornfields somewhere, but I don't know," he says. "You'd think it woulda been plowed up by now."
"You would think so," says Andrew.
The sun glints sharply off a silver Mazda that speeds along the road, intercepting their view of the fields. Above the fields, a flock of crows makes a half-moon arc.
And as they had done for weeks after the shooting, silently, not wanting anyone to know of their preoccupation, Andrew realizes that once again they are drawing diagrams in their heads of how the unthinkable could have taken place: The father walking into the house, hearing the muffled sounds upstairs, opening the door to his daughter's room, the horror of what he sees there, the frenzied shouts. A hand, reaching for a gun. Eden with a sheet clutched to her breast, moving toward her father....The mother's footsteps on the stairs.
He remembers the terrible sound of the crying.
"You ever see Sean's parents?" asks Andrew.
T.J. makes a movement with his shoulders, as if to shake himself loose from his speculation. "His father's still got the TV repair shop in town, but he's usually pretty far gone by afternoon. The mother died a few years back. Cancer. Bad news, that story. About Sean, I mean."
"Yeah," says Andrew.
"So," says T.J. He grabs Andrew's hand. "So listen, take it easy," he says, moving away and sideways along the driveway, toward his car, reaching in his pocket for his keys.
Andrew watches him from the stoop. With the same economy of movement that made him the most fluid skater in the county, T.J. slips his long body into the Prelude. Andrew is about to wave, when T.J. sticks his head out of the window.
"And for Christ's sake, Andy-boy," he says, turning the key in the ignition, "go buy yourself a decent pair of jeans."
Andrew smiles and shrugs. He wonders how certain qualities in a boy can turn out so strangely in a man. And yet who is he to criticize? Has he not himself, in business, made the same dismal moves?
The beer on an empty stomach has left him light-headed. He goes back up the stairs into the kitchen.
As he opens the screen door, he has an image of Eden naked under a flower-print sheetâand the image startles him.
Why think of that now? He wonders if T.J. knows about this fact. Did he, years ago, tell that detail to his friend?
Â
A FTER J IM had held the baby, there was no thought of ever letting her go. She was his before he even arrived at the farmhouse. Andy's mother was in the Closes' kitchen, waiting, with her neighbor, when Jim flung open the door and let his sample case fall from his hands. She watched the way he bent to the childâhis eagerness for the child seeming to be a natural extension of his largesseâand how he held her
aloft as gracefully as a baby nurse, as if he'd been practicing in his dreams for years.
And she saw, even in the confusion, the face of Edith Close, who put herself forward to be kissed before giving over the child, but who was not kissed or touched until much later in the night and who sat watching numbly at the kitchen table as her husband danced with his warm bundle over the worn linoleum floor. And Andy's mother saw, too, her struggle to compose her face, to realign her features to match her husband's new expression, to feign a joy she knew she must display so as not to fall behind.
She knew at once not to protest, nor
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