My station wagon, behind me.
Slowly, I left the trees, I walked out all the way. I stood in the afternoon, and the figures in the river, they stopped. I’ll always remember their arms; they were tired but hardened with life.
They looked up, and Clay said, “Matthew?”
And nothing could ever prepare me, as I made my way down toward them. I was nothing but a shell of what I needed to be, for I wasn’t expecting this—such buoyancy and life in the tilt of his face—or such a wondrous bridge.
And it was me, not him, who fell down first, my knees in the earth of the riverbed.
“It’s Carey,” I said. “She’s dead.”
What if they hadn’t kept the place?
The house at 11 Archer Street.
If only they hadn’t come back.
Why didn’t they just sell it and move on, instead of prudence, collecting the rent?
But no—I can’t go thinking like that.
Once again, I can only tell it.
She arrived at nearly sixteen—to a street of boys and animals, who now included a mule.
* * *
—
In the beginning, it was the night of the day in March, when Clay had run and won State.
It was back at E. S. Marks.
I’d lovingly taped his feet.
The closest kid was a farm boy from Bega.
It took a while to convince Clay to stay.
He didn’t want the dais, or the medal; he only wanted Achilles.
* * *
—
He’d broken the state record by just over a second, which they said, at that level, was ludicrous. Officials had shaken his hand. Clay was thinking of Epsom Road.
As we pulled out of the car park, and joined the late-afternoon traffic, he watched me in the rearview, and I looked, briefly, at him. Fair’s fair, he seemed to be intimating, the gold medal round Goddamn Rosy. She was panting in Tommy’s lap. I glanced back and silently said it:
You’re lucky you’re refusing to wear it—I’d use it to wring your neck.
Back home we dropped Rory and Henry off.
We also dropped off the dog.
As Tommy got out of the car, Clay put a hand on his arm.
“Tommy, you’re coming with us.”