y swerved a smile. “It’s not a game, it’s just training!”
She put a hand on her hip, and you know what she asked next, the lacy-limp girl, and Henry would do his best. “Go on, Clay, enlighten us. What the hell are you training for?”
But Clay had turned from her shoulder this time. He felt his pulse in the graze on his cheekbone—courtesy of Starkey’s whiskers. With his good hand, he searched his pocket, very deliberately, then crouched.
It bears mentioning now that exactly what our brother was training for was as much a mystery to him. He only knew that he was working and waiting for the day he’d find out—and that day, as it was, was today. It was waiting at home in the kitchen.
* * *
—
Carbine Street and Empire Lane, and then the stretch of Poseidon.
Clay always liked this ride home.
He liked the moths gathering tall and tight-knit at their various streetlight postings. He wondered if the night excited or soothed and settled them; if nothing else, it gave them purpose. These moths knew what to do.
Soon they came to Archer Street.
Henry: driving, one-handed, smiling.
Rory: feet up on the dash.
Tommy: half asleep against the quick-panting Rosy.
Clay: unknowing this was it.
Eventually, Rory couldn’t take it any longer—the calmness.
“Shit, Tommy, does that dog have to pant so bloody loud?”
Three of them laughed, short and stout.
Clay looked out the window.
Maybe it would have been fitting for Henry to drive the car ramshackle, to rampage onto the driveway, but it wasn’t like that at all.
The blinker on at Mrs. Chilman’s, next door.
A tranquil turn at our place—as clean as his car could be.
Headlights off.
Doors opened.
The only thing betraying total peace was the closing of the car. With four quick shots, the doors were fired at the house, and all went straight for the kitchen.
Together, they crossed the lawn.
“Any of you bastards know what’s for dinner?”
“Leftovers.”
“That’d be right.”
Their feet all plowed the porch.
* * *