Soon I’ve worked it so I’m pulling in a paycheck for a sixty-hour week, but only working till noon. I start a savings fund for Thea, and I’m still paying for the train ride only one way—irks me a little, the mystery of having to pay on the way back—and the health insurance is free, and the neighbor lady’s stopped asking me for favors, and all my favorite charities are writing me letters—thank you for helping Ronald McDonald, Buddy Dog Humane Society, Safe Haven, Camp Sunshine—even though I haven’t given a thing.
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Our return to the house seemed longer than the stroll down, sun setting fire to our backs, our feet dredging up three months worth of dust. Between us two we’d finished the Cokes, and Brian insisted on carrying the cooler with nothing but the sunfish and melting ice sloshing around. I let him. It was his catch, his badge of honor. We didn’t talk. Even Brian sensed breaking the quiet would shake what we’d so far built. I wondered how much longer before he lost his exuberant, flat-out welcome embrace of the world’s every minute. I knew I had the power to squash him.
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