We were young, and the dumb and restless.
Even me, the future responsible one, I turned when he came toward us. “I don’t know, Dad. Maybe she just has to.”
“Maybe nothing—”
But she cut him off.
A hollow, septic arm.
Her hand held out, like a bird paw.
“Michael,” she said. “Please. One drink’s not going to kill us.”
And Mikey Dunbar eased.
He ran a hand through his wavy hairline.
Like a boy, he kissed her cheek.
“Okay,” he said.
“Good,” she said.
“Okay,” he said again.
“You said that already,” and she hugged him; she whispered, “I love you, did I ever tell you that?”
And he dived right down inside of her.
The small black sea of her lips.
* * *
—
When he brought her toward the car, his clothes looked damp and dark on him, and again, she wouldn’t recede.
“No,” she said, “we’re walking,” and the thought of it struck him cleanly. This woman’s Goddamn dying—and making sure she takes me with her. “Tonight we’ll walk together.”
* * *
—
A crowd of five boys and a mother then, we crossed the expanse of road; I remember our shorts and T-shirts. I remember her girlish legs. There was darkness, then the streetlights, and the still-warm autumn air. The picture slowly forms for me now, but soon it comes to an end:
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Our father stayed back on the lawn.
A part of him was foundering there, and the rest of us turned to watch. He looked so damn alone.
“Dad?”
“Come on, Dad!”
But our father had sat down, head in hands, and of course it could only be Clay:
He returned to our lawn on Archer Street, and approached that shadow-of-dad. Soon he stood beside him, then slowly, he dropped and crouched—and just when I thought he would stay with him, he was up again, he was behind him. He was placing his hands in that area, in what every man on earth has: