“It was on TV,” I said. “I don’t think he tried to get away.”
“So what if he didn’t, what do you care,” she said. “He wasn’t your boyfriend. And you’re not even from around here anyway.”
I shrugged and looked evenly at her. Without a word, I got up. As I walked, the rough cement around the pool sanded the soles of my feet. At the edge of the water, I threw myself forward, hoping that when the water caught me, it would not be hard, it would not be icy cold, it would be enveloping like Jell-O. I broke the surface for air and went under again. Without Henry, with nothing to do, I swam laps, back and forth a thousand times.
Henry and I made up. We didn’t talk about anything. He just came over to my house with new Ping-Pong paddles and said, “My mother bought me these, wanna play?” and I said, “Why not.”
Two weeks to the day after the accident, while Mrs., Henry, and I were eating lunch—reheated tuna noodle casserole, with fresh chips crumbled on top, and green Gatorade—someone rang the doorbell and, without waiting for an answer, tried the knob.
Mrs. went to the kitchen door, cracked it open, and called, “Can I help you?” around the corner of the house.
“I’ve come about my son,” the woman said. She stepped into the kitchen, opened her purse, pulled out a stack of papers, and with the palm of her hand spread them out into a messy fan on the kitchen table. Henry and I moved our plates back to give her more room. We held our napkins up to our mouths to hide our expressions.
“These are his report cards. He mostly got straight As except in spelling and music; he wasn’t very good at music, couldn’t carry a tune. This is his first school picture,” she said, digging out a photo with three rows of kids, twenty-six young scrubbed faces, one kid holding a black sign with white lettering, HITHER HILLS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, KINDERGARTEN. “We didn’t buy his school picture this year. He said he didn’t like it. He thought his hair looked funny. Why didn’t I just buy it anyway?” She was talking to herself. “Maybe if I’d taken the photo this wouldn’t have happened. Why do I have these?” she asked, looking at Mrs. “What are they for? The insurance company wants me to calculate what he would have been worth if he’d had a life. I have to give them a figure. It’s like playing The Price Is Right.” She stopped for a minute, drew in a breath, and pressed the back of her hand against her eyes, blotting them. “You want to see how it feels, you want me to take one of yours?” She put her hand on Henry. “Christmas is coming,” she said, even though it was July. “What will I do?”
The dead boy’s mother stood crying in the Henrys’ kitchen and when Henry’s mother tried again to touch her, to comfort her, she wailed. Then, without a word, without a sound other than the swallowing of great gulps of air, she turned and walked out the kitchen door.
Henry’s mother scooped up all the dead boy’s report cards, prize certificates, letters from the governor for being on the honor roll, and handed them to me. “Go on, get her before she goes,” she said.
I charged out the door, got to the lady before she got into her car, and said, “You forgot these.”
“I didn’t forget them,” she said, again blotting her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Well, I’ll put them in your car,” I said. I went over to the passenger side, opened the door, and left them there on the seat.
“You’re a good boy,” she said.
I fought the urge to tell her, I’m not one of them. I’m not his son. I’m just the boy who lives next door, part-time. I’m no one, nothing. Instead I said, “I hope you feel better soon,” and walked back toward the house.
Henry came out and on the ground where the lady’s car had been, there was a photo, it must have fallen out of her purse, my hands, the car. It must have just slipped away and landed face up next to an oil stain.
“That’s him,” Henry said, picking up the photo, wiping it against his shirt, rubbing the boy’s face over his heart.
“We should give it back to her.”
“No,” Henry said. “He’s mine.”
One afternoon while Mrs., baby June, and Henry were somewhere else, I watched Mr. digging a shallow trough through the yard. He was bent over a shovel, flipping clods of grass and dirt off to the side. He pulled a wilted piece of notebook paper from the back pocket of his shorts and consulted a diagram. Then, with his fingers as rulers, his feet as yardsticks, he began measuring his work. By the time I got from my bedroom window, across the tumor-o’-land, and into the Henrys’ backyard, Mr. was sprinkling the floor of the trough with lima beans.