Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant Part 18

Luke, who had once been the center of her world, now hung around the fringes. It was July and he had nothing to do. They'd only been living here-in a suburb of Petersburg, Virginia-since the end of the school year, and he didn't know any boys his own age. The children on his block were all younger, thin voiced and excitable. It annoyed him to hear their shrieking games of roll-a-bat and the sputtery ksh! kshew! ksh! kshew! of their imaginary rifles. Toddlers were packed into flowered vinyl wading pools which they spent their mornings emptying, measuring cup by measuring cup, till every yard was a sea of mud. Luke could not remember ever being that young. Floating through the icy, white and gold elegance of the rented colonial-style house, he surfaced in various gilt-framed mirrors: someone awkward and unwanted, lurching on legs grown too long to manage, his face past cuteness but not yet solidified into anything better-an oval, fragile face, a sweep of streaky blond hair, a mouthful of braces that made his lips appear irregular and vulnerable. His jeans were getting too short but he had no idea how to go about buying new ones. He was accustomed to relying on his mother for such things. In the old days, his mother had done everything for him. She had got on his nerves, as a matter of fact. of their imaginary rifles. Toddlers were packed into flowered vinyl wading pools which they spent their mornings emptying, measuring cup by measuring cup, till every yard was a sea of mud. Luke could not remember ever being that young. Floating through the icy, white and gold elegance of the rented colonial-style house, he surfaced in various gilt-framed mirrors: someone awkward and unwanted, lurching on legs grown too long to manage, his face past cuteness but not yet solidified into anything better-an oval, fragile face, a sweep of streaky blond hair, a mouthful of braces that made his lips appear irregular and vulnerable. His jeans were getting too short but he had no idea how to go about buying new ones. He was accustomed to relying on his mother for such things. In the old days, his mother had done everything for him. She had got on his nerves, as a matter of fact.

Now he made his own breakfast-Cheerios or shredded wheat-and a sandwich for lunch. His mother cooked supper, but it was something slapped together, not her usual style at all; and mostly she would let Luke eat alone in the kitchen while she and Cody shared a tray in the bedroom. Or if she stayed with Luke, her talk talk was still of Cody. She never asked Luke about himself, no; it was "your daddy" this and "your daddy" that, never a thing but "your daddy." How well he was bearing up, how he'd always borne up, always been so dependable from the earliest time she had known him. "I was not but nineteen when I met him," she said, "and he was thirty years old. I was a homely chit of a girl and he was the handsomest thing you ever saw, so fine mannered and wearing this perfect gray suit. At the time, I was all set to marry Ezra, your daddy's brother. I bet you didn't know that, did you? Oh, I got around, in those days! Then your daddy stepped in. He was brazen as you please. Didn't care how it looked, didn't have an ounce of shame, just moved right in and claimed me for his own. Well, first I thought he was teasing. He could have had anyone, any girl he liked, somebody beautiful even. Then I saw he meant it. I didn't know which way to turn, for I did love your Uncle Ezra, though he was not so...I mean, Ezra was a much plainer person, more like me, you would say. But your daddy'd walk into the room and it seemed like, I don't know, the air just came alive, somehow. He put his hands on my shoulders one day and I told him please, I was engaged to marry Ezra, and he said he knew that. He stepped up close and I said really, Ezra was a good, good man, and he said yes, he was; and we hugged each other like two people sharing some bereavement and I said, 'Why, you're near about my brother-in-law!' and he said, 'Very nearly, yes,' and he kissed me on the lips." was still of Cody. She never asked Luke about himself, no; it was "your daddy" this and "your daddy" that, never a thing but "your daddy." How well he was bearing up, how he'd always borne up, always been so dependable from the earliest time she had known him. "I was not but nineteen when I met him," she said, "and he was thirty years old. I was a homely chit of a girl and he was the handsomest thing you ever saw, so fine mannered and wearing this perfect gray suit. At the time, I was all set to marry Ezra, your daddy's brother. I bet you didn't know that, did you? Oh, I got around, in those days! Then your daddy stepped in. He was brazen as you please. Didn't care how it looked, didn't have an ounce of shame, just moved right in and claimed me for his own. Well, first I thought he was teasing. He could have had anyone, any girl he liked, somebody beautiful even. Then I saw he meant it. I didn't know which way to turn, for I did love your Uncle Ezra, though he was not so...I mean, Ezra was a much plainer person, more like me, you would say. But your daddy'd walk into the room and it seemed like, I don't know, the air just came alive, somehow. He put his hands on my shoulders one day and I told him please, I was engaged to marry Ezra, and he said he knew that. He stepped up close and I said really, Ezra was a good, good man, and he said yes, he was; and we hugged each other like two people sharing some bereavement and I said, 'Why, you're near about my brother-in-law!' and he said, 'Very nearly, yes,' and he kissed me on the lips."

Luke lowered his lashes. He wished she wouldn't talk about such things.

"And if we've had our ups and downs," she said, "well, I just want you to know that it wasn't his his fault, Luke. Look at me! I'm nothing but a little backwoods Garrett County farm girl, hardly educated. And I'm not so easy to get along with, either. I'm not so easygoing. You mustn't blame him. Why, once-oh, you were in nursery school, I bet you don't remember this-I packed you up and left him. I told him he didn't love me and never had, only married me to spite his brother, Ezra, that he'd always been so jealous of. I accused him of terrible things, just terrible, and then while he was at work I carried you off to the railroad station and...this is funny now when I tell it, but it wasn't then: while we were waiting on the bench a Marine threw up in my pocketbook. Came time to board the train and I just couldn't make myself put my fingers in and get out the tickets, a.s.suming they were still usable; and couldn't bear to reach in for the money to buy more tickets, either. So I called your daddy on the telephone, begged a dime from a nun and said, 'Cody, come and get me; this isn't really what I want to be doing. Oh, Cody,' I said, 'we've got so interwoven; even if you didn't love me at all, now we're so entwined. It's you I have to stay with.' And he left off work and drove down to collect me, all steady and sure in his fine gray suit, nothing like the rest of the world. Don't you remember that? You've forgotten all about it," she said. "It's just as well, I reckon. Luke, when you almost lose a person, everything comes so clear! You see how much he matters, how there's no one the least bit like him; he's irreplaceable. How he always puts us first; I mean, has never, in all his days, left you and me behind when he's off on business, but carts us to every new town he's called to because he won't do like his father, he says: travel about forgetting his own relations. It's not true that he brings us along because he doesn't trust me. He really cares for our welfare. When I think now," she said, "about your daddy kissing me that first time-'Very nearly, yes,' he said. 'Yes, very nearly your brother-in-law,' and kissed me so quiet but definite, insisting, like he wouldn't take no for an answer-why, I see now that's when my fault, Luke. Look at me! I'm nothing but a little backwoods Garrett County farm girl, hardly educated. And I'm not so easy to get along with, either. I'm not so easygoing. You mustn't blame him. Why, once-oh, you were in nursery school, I bet you don't remember this-I packed you up and left him. I told him he didn't love me and never had, only married me to spite his brother, Ezra, that he'd always been so jealous of. I accused him of terrible things, just terrible, and then while he was at work I carried you off to the railroad station and...this is funny now when I tell it, but it wasn't then: while we were waiting on the bench a Marine threw up in my pocketbook. Came time to board the train and I just couldn't make myself put my fingers in and get out the tickets, a.s.suming they were still usable; and couldn't bear to reach in for the money to buy more tickets, either. So I called your daddy on the telephone, begged a dime from a nun and said, 'Cody, come and get me; this isn't really what I want to be doing. Oh, Cody,' I said, 'we've got so interwoven; even if you didn't love me at all, now we're so entwined. It's you I have to stay with.' And he left off work and drove down to collect me, all steady and sure in his fine gray suit, nothing like the rest of the world. Don't you remember that? You've forgotten all about it," she said. "It's just as well, I reckon. Luke, when you almost lose a person, everything comes so clear! You see how much he matters, how there's no one the least bit like him; he's irreplaceable. How he always puts us first; I mean, has never, in all his days, left you and me behind when he's off on business, but carts us to every new town he's called to because he won't do like his father, he says: travel about forgetting his own relations. It's not true that he brings us along because he doesn't trust me. He really cares for our welfare. When I think now," she said, "about your daddy kissing me that first time-'Very nearly, yes,' he said. 'Yes, very nearly your brother-in-law,' and kissed me so quiet but definite, insisting, like he wouldn't take no for an answer-why, I see now that's when my life life began! But at the time I had no notion, didn't grasp the importance. I didn't know back then that one person can have such effect on another." began! But at the time I had no notion, didn't grasp the importance. I didn't know back then that one person can have such effect on another."

But if she was changed (if even Luke was changed-fading into someone transparent, he imagined), Cody was absolutely the same. After all, Cody hadn't suffered the strain of that coma; he'd been absent from it. He hadn't worried he would die, once he came to, because it wouldn't occur to him that he was the type type to die. He'd sailed through the whole experience with his usual combination of nonchalance and belligerence, and now he lay thrashing on his bed wondering when he could get up again. "What I mainly am is mad," he told Luke. "This whole d.a.m.n business has left me mad as h.e.l.l. I felt that girder hit, you know that? I really felt it hit, and it hurt, and all the time I was flying through the air I wanted to hit it back, punch somebody; and now it seems I'm still waiting for the chance. When do I get to get even? And don't talk to me about lawsuits, compensation. The only thing I want to do is. .h.i.t that girder back." to die. He'd sailed through the whole experience with his usual combination of nonchalance and belligerence, and now he lay thrashing on his bed wondering when he could get up again. "What I mainly am is mad," he told Luke. "This whole d.a.m.n business has left me mad as h.e.l.l. I felt that girder hit, you know that? I really felt it hit, and it hurt, and all the time I was flying through the air I wanted to hit it back, punch somebody; and now it seems I'm still waiting for the chance. When do I get to get even? And don't talk to me about lawsuits, compensation. The only thing I want to do is. .h.i.t that girder back."

"Mom says would you like some soup," said Luke, wiping his palms nervously down his thighs.

"No, I wouldn't like soup. What's she always trying to feed me for? Listen, Luke. If your grandma calls again today, I want you to tell her I've gone back to work."

"To work?"

"I can't stand to hear her fret on the phone any more."

"But all along," Luke said, "you've been telling her you were too sick for company. Yesterday you were too sick and today you've gone back to work? work? What'll she think?" What'll she think?"

"It's nothing to me what she thinks," said Cody. He never sounded very fond of Grandma Tull, who had called from Baltimore every day since the accident. Luke enjoyed her, the little he knew of her, but Cody said looks were deceiving. "She puts on a good front," he told Luke. "You don't know what she's like. You don't know what it was like growing up with her."

Luke felt he did know (hadn't he heard it all a million times?) but his father had got started now and wouldn't be stopped. "Let me give you an example," he said. "Listen, now. This really happened." That was the way he always introduced his childhood. "This really happened," he would say, as if it were unthinkable, beyond belief, but then what followed never seemed so terrible to Luke. "I swear it: your grandma had this friend named Emmaline that she hadn't seen in years. Only friend she ever mentioned. And Emmaline lived in...I forget. Anyhow, someplace far away. So one Christmas I saved up the money to buy a Greyhound bus ticket to wherever this Emmaline lived. I slaved and borrowed and stole stole the money, and presented my mother with the ticket on Christmas morning. I was seventeen at the time, old enough to take care of the others, and I said, 'You leave tomorrow, stay a week, and I'll watch over things till you get back.' And you know what she said? Listen; you won't believe this. 'But Cody, honey,' she said. 'Day after tomorrow is your brother's birthday.'" the money, and presented my mother with the ticket on Christmas morning. I was seventeen at the time, old enough to take care of the others, and I said, 'You leave tomorrow, stay a week, and I'll watch over things till you get back.' And you know what she said? Listen; you won't believe this. 'But Cody, honey,' she said. 'Day after tomorrow is your brother's birthday.'"

He looked over at Luke. Luke waited for him to go on.

"See," Cody said, "December twenty-seventh was Ezra's birthday."

"So?" Luke asked.

"So she wouldn't leave her precious boy on his birthday! Not even to visit her oldest, dearest, only friend, that her other boy had given her a ticket for."

"I wouldn't like for Mom to leave me on my birthday, either," Luke said.

"No, no, you're missing the point. She wouldn't leave Ezra, her favorite. Me or my sister, she would surely leave."

"How do you know that?" Luke asked him. "Did you ever try giving her a ticket on your your birthday? I bet she'd have said the same thing." birthday? I bet she'd have said the same thing."

"My birthday is in February," Cody said. "Nowhere near any occasion for gift giving. Oh, I don't know why I bother talking to you. You're an only child, that's your trouble. You haven't the faintest idea what I'm trying to get across." And he turned his pillow over and settled back with a sigh.

Luke went out in the yard and threw his baseball against the garage. It thudded and bounced back, shimmering in the sunlight. In the old days, his mother had practiced throwing with him. She had taught him to bat and pitch overhand, too. She was good at sports. He saw glimpses in her, sometimes, of the scatty little tomboy she must once have been. But it had always seemed, when they played ball together, that this was only a preparation for the real real game, with his father. It was like cramming for an exam. Then on weekends Cody came home and pitched the ball to him and said, "Not bad. Not bad at all," when Luke hit it out of the yard. At these moments Luke was conscious of adding a certain swagger to his walk, a certain swing to his shoulders. He imagined he was growing to be more like his father. Sauntering into the house after practice, he'd pa.s.s Cody's parked car and ask, "She still getting pretty good mileage?" He would stand in front of the open refrigerator and swig iced tea directly from the pitcher-something his mother detested. Oh, it was time to put his mother behind him now-all those years of following her through the house, enmeshed in her routine, dragging his toy broom after her big one or leaning both elbows on her dressing table to watch, entranced, as she dusted powder on her freckled nose. The dailiness of women's lives! He knew all he cared to know about it. He was exhausted by the trivia of measuring out the soap flakes, waiting for the plumber. High time to move to his father's side. But his father lay on his back in the bedroom, cursing steadily. "What the h.e.l.l is the matter with this TV? Why bother buying a Sony if there's no one who will fix it?" game, with his father. It was like cramming for an exam. Then on weekends Cody came home and pitched the ball to him and said, "Not bad. Not bad at all," when Luke hit it out of the yard. At these moments Luke was conscious of adding a certain swagger to his walk, a certain swing to his shoulders. He imagined he was growing to be more like his father. Sauntering into the house after practice, he'd pa.s.s Cody's parked car and ask, "She still getting pretty good mileage?" He would stand in front of the open refrigerator and swig iced tea directly from the pitcher-something his mother detested. Oh, it was time to put his mother behind him now-all those years of following her through the house, enmeshed in her routine, dragging his toy broom after her big one or leaning both elbows on her dressing table to watch, entranced, as she dusted powder on her freckled nose. The dailiness of women's lives! He knew all he cared to know about it. He was exhausted by the trivia of measuring out the soap flakes, waiting for the plumber. High time to move to his father's side. But his father lay on his back in the bedroom, cursing steadily. "What the h.e.l.l is the matter with this TV? Why bother buying a Sony if there's no one who will fix it?"

"I'll find us a repairman today," Ruth's new, soft voice floated out.

Ruth wore dresses all the time now because Cody said he was tired of her pantsuits. "Everlasting polyester pantsuits," he said, and it was true she didn't look as stylish as most other women, though Luke wasn't so sure that the pantsuits were to blame. Even after she changed to dresses, something seemed to be wrong. They were too big, or too hard-surfaced, or too shiny; they looked less like clothes than...housing, Luke thought. "Is this better?" she asked his father, and she stood hopefully in the doorway, flat on her penny loafers because in Garrett County, she said, they had never learned her to walk in high heels. By then, Cody had recovered from his mood. He said, "Sure, honey. Sure. It's fine." He wasn't always always evil tempered. It was the strain of lying immobile. It was the constant discomfort. He did make an effort. But then, not two hours later: "Ruth, will you explain why I have to live in a place that looks like a candy dish? Is it necessary to rent a house where everything is white and gold and curlicued? You think of that as cla.s.s?" evil tempered. It was the strain of lying immobile. It was the constant discomfort. He did make an effort. But then, not two hours later: "Ruth, will you explain why I have to live in a place that looks like a candy dish? Is it necessary to rent a house where everything is white and gold and curlicued? You think of that as cla.s.s?"

It was the nature of Cody's job that he worked alone. As soon as he finished streamlining whatever factory had called him in, he moved on. His partner, a man named Sloan, lived in New York City and invented the devices that Cody determined a need for-sorting racks, folding aids, single hand tools combining the tasks of several. Consequently, there were no fellow workers to pay Cody visits, unless you counted that one edgy call by the owner of the factory where he'd had his accident. And they didn't know any of the neighbors. They were on their own, just the three of them. They might have been castaways. No wonder Cody acted so irritable. The only time Luke and his mother got out was once a week, when they went for groceries. Backing her white Mercedes from the garage, Ruth sat erect and alert, not looking behind her, already anxious about Cody. "Maybe I should've made you stay. If he needs to go to the bathroom-"

"He can good and wait, wait," Luke said through his teeth.

"Why, Luke!"

"Let him pee in the bed."

"Luke Tull!"

Luke stared out the window.

"It's been hard on you," his mother said. "We've got to find you some friends."

"I don't need friends."

"Everybody needs friends. We don't have a one, in this town. I feel like I'm drying up. Sometimes I wonder," she said, "if this life is really..." But she didn't say any more.

When they returned, Cody was pleasant and cheerful, as if he'd made some resolutions in their absence. Or maybe he'd been refreshed by the solitude. "Talked to Sloan," he told Ruth. "He called from New York. I said to him, soon as I get this cast off I'm going to finish up at the factory and clear on out. I can't take much more of this place."

"Oh, good, Cody, honey."

"Bring me my briefcase, will you? I want to jot down some ideas. There's lots I could be doing in bed."

"I picked out some of those pears you like."

"No, no, just my briefcase, and that pen on the desk in my study. I'm going to see if my fingers are up to writing yet."

He told Luke, "Work is what I need. I've been starved starved for work. It's made me a little snappish." for work. It's made me a little snappish."

Luke scratched his rib cage. He said, "That's all right."

"You make sure you get a job you enjoy, once you're grown. You've got to enjoy what you're doing. That's important."

"I know."

"Me, I deal with time," said Cody. He accepted a ball-point pen from Ruth. "Time is my favorite thing of all."

Luke loved it when his father talked about time.

"Time is my obsession: not to waste it, not to lose it. It's like...I don't know, an object, to me; something you can almost take hold of. If I could just collect enough of it in one clump, I always think. If I could pa.s.s it back and forth and sideways, you know? If only Einstein were right and time were a kind of river you could choose to step into at any place along the sh.o.r.e."

He clicked his pen point in and out, frowning into s.p.a.ce. "If they had a time machine, I'd go on it," he said. "It wouldn't much matter to me where. Past or future: just out of my time. Just someplace else."

Luke felt a pang. "But then you wouldn't know me, me," he said.

"Hmm?"

"Sure he would," Ruth said briskly. She was opening the latches of Cody's briefcase. "He'd take you with him. Only mind," she told Cody, "if Luke goes too you've got to bring penicillin, and his hay fever pills, and his fluoride toothpaste, you hear?"

Cody laughed, but he didn't say one way or another about taking Luke along.

That was the evening that Cody first got his strange notion. It came about so suddenly: they were playing Monopoly on Cody's bed, the three of them, and Cody was winning as usual and offering Luke a loan to keep going. "Oh, well, no, I guess I've lost," said Luke.

There was the briefest pause-a skipped beat. Cody looked over at Ruth, who was counting her deed cards. "He sounds just like Ezra," he told her.

She frowned at Baltic Avenue.

"Didn't you hear what he said? He said it just like Ezra."

"Really?"

"Ezra would do that," Cody told Luke. "Your Uncle Ezra. It was no fun beating him at all. He'd never take a loan and he wouldn't mortgage the least little thing, not even a railroad or the waterworks. He'd just cave right in and give up." would do that," Cody told Luke. "Your Uncle Ezra. It was no fun beating him at all. He'd never take a loan and he wouldn't mortgage the least little thing, not even a railroad or the waterworks. He'd just cave right in and give up."

"Well, it's only that...you can see that I've lost," Luke said. "It's only a matter of time."

"Sometimes it's more like you're Ezra's child, not mine."

"Cody Tull! What a thought," said Ruth.

But it was too late. The words hung in the air. Luke felt miserable; he had all he could do to finish the game. (He knew his father had never thought much of Ezra.) And Cody, though he dropped the subject, remained dissatisfied in some way. "Sit up straighter," he kept telling Luke. "Don't hunch hunch. Sit straight. G.o.d. You look like a rabbit."

As soon as he could, Luke said good night and went off to bed.

The following morning, everything was fine again. Cody did some more work on his papers and had another talk with Sloan. Ruth cooked a chicken for a nice cold summer supper. Anytime Luke wandered by, Cody said something cheerful to him. "Why so long in the face?" he'd ask, or, "Feeling bored, son?" It sounded funny, calling Luke "son." Cody didn't usually do that.

They all had lunch in the bedroom-sandwiches and potato salad, like a picnic. The telephone, buried among the sheets, started ringing halfway through the meal, and Cody said not to answer it. It was bound to be his mother, he said. They kept perfectly silent, as if the caller could somehow hear them. After the ringing stopped, though, Ruth said, "That poor, poor woman."

"Poor!" Cody snorted.

"Aren't we awful?"

"You wouldn't call her poor if you knew her better."

Luke went back to his room and sorted through his old model airplanes. His parents' voices drifted after him. "Listen," Cody was telling Ruth. "This really happened. For my mother's birthday I saved up all my money, fourteen dollars. And Ezra didn't have a penny, see..."

Luke scrabbled through his wooden footlocker, the one piece of furniture that really belonged to him. It had accompanied all their moves since before he could remember. He was hunting the missing wing of a jet. He didn't find the wing but he did find a leather bag of marbles-the kind he used to like, with spritzy bubbles like ginger ale inside them. And a slingshot made from a strip of inner tube. And a tonette-a dusty black plastic whistle on which, for Mother's Day back in first grade, he'd played "White Coral Bells" along with his cla.s.smates. He tried it now: White coral bells, upon a slender stalk White coral bells, upon a slender stalk...It returned to him, note by note. He rose and went to his parents' room to play it through to the end. Lilies of the valley deck my- Lilies of the valley deck my- His father said, "I can't stand it."

Luke lowered the tonette.

"Are you doing this on purpose?" Cody asked. "Are you determined to torment me?"

"Huh?"

"Cody, honey..." Ruth said.

"You're haunting me, isn't that it? I can't get away from him! I spend half my life with meek-and-mild Ezra and his blasted wooden whistle; I make my escape at last, and now look: here we go again. It's like a conspiracy! Like some kind of plot where someone decided, long before I was born, I would live out my days surrounded by people who were...nicer than I am, just naturally nicer without even having to try, people that other people preferred; and everywhere I go there's something, just that G.o.dd.a.m.n forgiving smile or some demented folk song floating out a window-"

"Cody, Luke will be thinking you have lost your senses," Ruth said.

"And you!" Cody told her. "Look at you! Ah, Lord," he said. "Some people fit together forever, don't they? And you haven't a hope in heaven of prying them apart. Married or not, you've always loved Ezra better than me."

"Cody, what are you talking talking about?" about?"

"Admit it," Cody said. "Isn't Ezra the real, true father of Luke?"

There was a silence.

"You didn't say that. You couldn't have," Ruth told him.

"Admit it!"

"You know you don't seriously believe such a thing."

"Isn't it the truth? Tell me! I won't get angry, I promise."

Luke went back to his room and closed the door.

All that afternoon he lay on his bed, rereading an old horse book from his childhood because he didn't have anything else to do. The story struck him as foolish now, although once he'd loved it. When his mother called him for supper, he walked very firmly into the kitchen. He was going to refuse, absolutely, to eat in the bedroom with Cody any more. But his mother had already set two places at the kitchen table. She sat across from him while he ate, not eating much herself. Luke shoveled in various cold foods and refused to meet her eyes. The fact was that she was stupid. He didn't know when he'd seen such a weak and stupid woman.

After supper he went back to his room and listened to a radio show where people called up a tired-sounding host and offered their opinions. They discussed drunken drivers and battered wives. It grew dark, but Luke didn't turn on the light. His mother tapped hesitantly on his door, paused, and left.

Then he must have fallen asleep. When he woke it was darker than ever, and his neck was stiff, and a woman on the radio was saying, "Now, I'm not denying I signed the papers but that was only his fast talk, only him talking me into it. 'Just put your John Doe right here,' he tells me..."

"I a.s.sume you mean John Hanc.o.c.k," the host said wearily.

"Whatever," said the woman.

Then beneath these voices, murmuring through the wall, came Cody's grumble and Ruth's pale answers. Luke covered his head with his pillow.

He tried to recall his Uncle Ezra. It was several years since they'd met. And even that was such a brief visit, his father taking them away in a huff before they'd got well settled. Finding Ezra was something like hunting through that footlocker; he had to burrow past a dozen other memories, and more came trailing up along with what he was after. He smelled the burned toast in his grandma's kitchen and remembered Ezra's bedroom, which had once been Ezra's and Cody's together, where boyhood treasures (a football-shaped bookend, a peeling hockey stick) had sat in their places so long that to Ezra, they were invisible. Anything that caught Luke's attention, Ezra had seemed surprised to see. "Oh! Would you like to have that?" he would ask, and when Luke politely declined, not wanting to seem greedy, Ezra said, "Please. I can't think what it's still doing here." His room had been large-a sort of dormitory arrangement, occupying the whole third floor-but its stuffy smell of used sheets and twice-worn clothes had made it seem smaller. There was a lock inside the bathroom door downstairs, Luke recalled, that looked exactly like a little silver cashew; and the bathroom itself was tall and echoing, ancient, cold floored, with a porcelain k.n.o.b in the tub reading WASTE WASTE.

He tried to picture his cousins-Aunt Jenny's children-but only came up with another room: his cousin Becky's ruffled bedroom, with its throng of shabby stuffed animals densely encircling her bed. How could she sleep? he had wondered. But she told him she had no trouble sleeping at all; and whenever she went away to spend the night, she said, she took the whole menagerie in a giant canvas suitcase and set it out first thing around the new bed, even before unpacking her pajamas; and most of her friends did the same. It was Luke's first inkling that girls were different. He was mystified and charmed, and he treated her protectively for the rest of that short visit-though she was a year older than he and half a head taller.

If Ezra were really his father, Luke thought, then Luke could live in Baltimore where houses were dark and deep and secretive. Relatives would surround him-a loving grandma, funny Aunt Jenny, those rafts of cousins. Ezra would let him help out in his restaurant. He would talk about food and how people need to be fed with care; Luke could hear his ambling way of speaking. Yes, now he had it: the memory homed in. Ezra wore a flannel shirt of soft blue plaid, washed into oblivion. His hair was yellow...why! It was Luke's kind of yellow, all streaky and layered. And his eyes were Luke's kind of gray, a full shade lighter than Cody's, and his skin had that same golden cast that caused it to blend into his hair almost without demarcation.

Luke let himself believe in some unimaginable moment between Ruth and Ezra, fourteen years ago. He skipped across it quickly to the time when Ezra would arrive to claim him. "You're old enough to be told now, son..."

Knitting this scene in the dark, doubling back to correct a false note or racing forward to a good part, Luke forgot himself and took the pillow off his head. Instantly, he heard Cody's voice behind the wall. "Everything I've ever wanted, Ezra got it. Anything in life I wanted. Even things I thought I had won, Ezra won in the end. And he didn't even seem to be trying; that's the h.e.l.l of it."

"You won the d.a.m.n Monopoly Monopoly games, didn't you?" Luke shouted. games, didn't you?" Luke shouted.

Cody said nothing.

The next morning, Cody seemed unusually quiet. Ruth took him into the doctor's to get his walking cast-a moment they'd been waiting for, but Cody didn't act interested now. Luke had to go along to serve as a crutch. He flinched when Cody first laid his heavy arm cast across his shoulders; he felt there was some danger hovering. But Cody was a dead weight, grunting as he walked, evidently thinking about other matters. He heaved himself into the car and stared bleakly ahead of him. In the doctor's waiting room, while Luke and his mother read magazines, Cody just sat empty faced. And after he got his walking cast, he hobbled back to the car una.s.sisted, ignoring Luke's offer of help. He fell into bed as soon as they reached home and lay gazing at the ceiling. "Cody, honey? Remember the doctor said to give that leg some exercise," Ruth told him.

He didn't answer.

Luke went out to the yard and kicked at the gra.s.s a while as if he were hunting for something. Next door, a cl.u.s.ter of toddlers in their wading pool stared at him. He wanted to shout, "Turn away! Stop looking at me; you have no business." But instead it was he who turned, wandering out of the yard and down the street. More wading pools; more round-eyed, judging stares. A Welsh corgi, squat and dignified, bustled down the sidewalk, followed by a lady in a flowing caftan. "Toulouse! Toulouse!" she called. The heat was throbbing; it almost breathed. Luke's face became filmed with sweat and his T-shirt stuck to his back. He kept wiping his upper lip. He pa.s.sed rows of colonial houses similar to his, each with some object featured like a museum piece in the living-room window: a bulbous lamp, a china horse, a vase of stiff-necked marigolds. (And what did his own window have? He couldn't recall. He wanted to say a weeping fig tree, but that was from an apartment they'd rented, three or four towns back.) Sprinklers spun lazily. It was a satisfaction to stop, from time to time, and watch a lawn soak up the spangled water drops.

Now here came some busy lady with her baby in a stroller, small children all around her. He crossed the street to avoid them, took a right turn, and arrived on Willow Bough Avenue with its whizzing traffic, discount drugstores, real estate offices and billboards and service stations. He waited at an intersection, pondering where to go next. One of the things about moving so often was, he never really knew where he was. He believed his sense of direction had been blunted. He couldn't understand how some people seemed to carry a kind of detailed, internal map of the town they lived in.

A Trailways bus zipped past him reading BALTIMORE. Imagine hailing it. (Could you hail a Trailways bus?) Imagine boarding it-a.s.suming he had the money, which he didn't-and riding off to Baltimore, arriving at Ezra's restaurant and strolling in. "Here I am." "There you are," Ezra would say. Oh, if only he'd brought his money! Another bus pa.s.sed, but that was a local. Then a gigantic truck drew up, braking for an amber light. Luke, as if obeying orders, stuck out a thumb. The driver leaned across the seat and opened the door on the pa.s.senger side. "Hop on in," he told Luke. you are," Ezra would say. Oh, if only he'd brought his money! Another bus pa.s.sed, but that was a local. Then a gigantic truck drew up, braking for an amber light. Luke, as if obeying orders, stuck out a thumb. The driver leaned across the seat and opened the door on the pa.s.senger side. "Hop on in," he told Luke.