hey were flying. The weights fell off; there was nothing to bear. They laughed and held on tight, feeling the cold slap of wind and altitude, soaring, thinking It’s over, I’m gone!—they were naked, they were light and free—it was all lightness, bright and fast and buoyant, light as light, a helium buzz in the brain, a giddy bubbling in the lungs as they were taken up over the clouds and the war, beyond duty, beyond gravity and mortification and global entanglement

They endured. They kept humping. They did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall. So easy, really. Go limp and tumble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper that would roar and dip its nose and carry you off to the world.

hey carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing—these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely re-strained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of

There’s a moral here, said Mitchell Sanders.They were waiting for Lavender’s chopper, smoking the dead man’s dope.The moral’s pretty obvious, Sanders said, and winked. Stay away from drugs. No joke, they’ll ruin your day every time.Cute, said Henry Dobbins.Mind blower, get it? Talk about wiggy. Nothing left, just blood and brains.They made themselves laugh.There it is, they’d say. Over and over—there it is, my friend, there it is—as if the repetition itself were an act of poise, a balance between crazy and almost crazy, knowing without going, there it is, which meant be cool, let it ride, because Oh yeah, man, you can’t change what can’t be changed, there it is, there it absolutely and positively and fucking well is.They were tough.

They found jokes to tell.They used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness. Greased they’d say. Offed, lit up, zapped while zipping. It wasn’t cruelty, just stage presence. They were actors. When someone died, it wasn’t quite dying, because in a curious way it seemed scripted, and because they had their lines mostly memorized, irony mixed with tragedy, and because they called it by other names, as if to encyst and destroy the reality of death itself. They kicked corpses. They cut off thumbs. They talked grunt lingo. They told stories about Ted Lavender’s supply of tranquilizers, how the poor guy didn’t feel a thing, how incredibly tranquil he was.

They were afraid of dying but they were even more afraid to show it

They would touch their bodies, feeling shame, then quickly hiding it. They would force themselves to stand. As if in slow motion, frame by frame, the world would take on the old logic—absolute silence, then the wind, then sunlight, then voices. It was the burden of being alive.

Shrugging, Kiowa pulled off his boots. He wanted to say more, just to lighten up his sleep, but instead he opened his New Testament and arranged it beneath his head as a pillow.

The lieutenant’s in some deep hurt. I mean that crying jag—the way he was carrying on—it wasn’t fake or anything, it was real heavy-duty hurt.

He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a conse-quence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war.

At night, sometimes, Lieutenant Cross wondered who had taken the picture, because he knew she had boyfriends, because he loved her so much, and because he could see the shadow of the picture-taker spreading out against the brick

To carry something was to hump it, as when Lieutenant Jimmy Cross humped his love for Mar-tha up the hills and through the swamps. In its intransitive form, to hump meant to walk, or to march, but it implied burdens far beyond the intransitive.Almost everyone humped photographs. In his wallet, Lieutenant Cross carried two photo-graphs of Martha.

To carry something was to hump it, as when Lieutenant Jimmy Cross humped his love for Mar-tha up the hills and through the swamps. In its intransitive form, to hump meant to walk, or to march, but it implied burdens far beyond the intransitive.Almost everyone humped photographs.

Henry Dobbins, who was a big man, carried extra rations; he was especially fond of canned peaches in heavy syrup over pound cake. Dave Jensen, who practiced field hygiene, carried a toothbrush, dental floss, and several hotel-sized bars of soap he’d stolen on R&R in Sydney, Australia. Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head outside the village of Than Khe in mid-April.

major at Mount Sebastian, and she wrote beautifully about her professors and roommates and midterm exams, about her respect for Chaucer and her great affection for Virginia Woolf. She often quoted lines of poetry; she never mentioned the war, except to say, Jimmy, take care of yourself.

then at full dark he would return to his hole and watch the night and wonder if Martha was a virgin.

hey were signed Love, Martha, but Lieutenant Cross understood that Love was only a way of signing and did not mean what he sometimes pretended it meant. A

First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack. In the late afternoon, after a day’s march, he would dig his foxhole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with the tips of his fingers, and spend the last hour of light pretending. He would imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains in New Hampshire. He would sometimes taste the envelope flaps, knowing her tongue had been there. More than anything, he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her, but the letters were mostly chatty, elusive on the matter of love.

My conscience told rne ro run, bursome irrational and powerful force was resistine like a weighr pr-rshingme toward the war. What it came down to, srupidly, was a sense ofsharne. Hot, scupicl sharne. I did nor wanr people ro rhink badly of me.Not rny parents, not my brother and sister, not even rhe folks .lown arthe Gobbler Cafe.I was ashamed to be rhere at ttre Tip Top Lodge. Iwas asharned of my conscience, as[amed ro be doing the righr thing

I remcrn-ber, Elroy put down his maul and looked at rne for a long rime, his lipsdrawn as if framing a difficult question, br-rt rhen he shook his headand wenc back to work. Thc rnans sel{-control was antazing. He neverpried. He never put me in a position that required lies or denials. Toan extent, I suppose, his rericence was rypical of thar part of Minne-soca, where privacy sdll held value, and even if I cl bee n walking aroundwith some horrible defbrmity - four arms and three heac{s - l'11 s111sthe old man would've talked about everything except those exrra armsand heads. Simple politeness was parr c-rf it. Bur even rrrore rhan that, Ithink, the man understood that words wefe insufficien

.1 all I wanted was to live the life I was borr-r ro - a main-stream lfe- I loved baseball and harnburgcrs and cherry Cokes - andnow I was offon the margins of exile,leaving my counrry forever,and itseemed so impossible and terrible and sad.

After supper one evening I vomited and went back to mycabin and lay down for a few moments and then vomited again; anothertime, in the middle of the afternoon,I began sweating and couldn'r shutit ofl. I went through whole days feeling dizzy with sorrow. I couldn'tsleep; I couldn'r lie srill. At night I d ross around in bed, half awake,half dreaming, imagining how Id sneak down ro the beach and quietlypush one of the old man's boats our into the river and starr paddling myway toward Canada. There were times when I thoughr Id gone offthepsychic edge

he man was sharp - he didn't miss much. Those razor eyes. Nowand then hecl catch me staring out at the river, at the far shore, and Icould almosr hear rhe tumblers clicking in his head. Maybe I'm wrong,but I doubt i

The man who opened the door rhar day is che hero of my life. Howdo I say rhis withour sounding sappyi Blurr ir our - rhe man saved,me. He ollered exactly what I needed, wirhour questions, withour anywords at all. He took me in. He was there ar rhe crirical cime - a silent,watchful Presence. Six days larer, when ir ended, I was r-rnable ro find aproper way ro rhank hirn, and I never have, and so, if norhing else, tfiisstory represents a small gesrure of gracicude twenty years overdu

exhausted, and scared sick, and around noon I pulled inro an old fish-ing resort called the Tip Top Lodge. Actually it was nor a lodge ar all,just eight or nine tir-ry yellow cabins ch-rsrered on a peninsula thar-juttednorthward into the Rainy River. The place was in sorry shape. Therewas a dangerous wooden dock, an old minnow rank, a flimsy tar paperboarhouse along the shore. The main building, wl-rich srood in a clus-ter of pir-res on high ground, seemed ro lean l'teavily ro one side, like acripple, rhe roof sagging roward Canada. Briefly, I rhoughr abour rurn-ing around, jusr giving up, buc rhen I gor our oi rhe car and walked upto the fronr porch.

Down in my chestthere was srill rhat leaking sensarion, somerh ingvery warln and preciousspilling out, and I was .ou.r"d wirh blood ;rnd hog-stink, ",ld for along while I just concentrated on holding myself rogetl-rer. I rernernbertaking a hor shower. I remernber packing a suitcase and carrying ir ourto the kitchen, standing very srill for a few rninures, looking carefullyat the familiar objects all around rne. The old chrome roasrer, rhe tele-phone, the pink and whire Forrnica on rhe kitchen counrers. The roomwas full of brighr sunshine. Everything sparkled. My hor_rse, I thoughr.My life. I'm nor sure how long I srood rhere, bur later I scribbled our ashort note to my paren

t was a kind of schizophrenia. A moral split. I couldn't make upmy mind. Ifeared the war, yes, but I also feared exile. I was afraid ofwalking away from my own Iife, my friends and my family, my wholehistory, everything chat matcered to me. I feared losing the respecr ofmy parents. I feared the law. I feared ridicule and censur

America was divided on these and a thousand orher issues, andthe debate had spilled out across the floor of the United Srares Senateand into the streers, and smarr men in pinsrripes could not agree oneven the rnosr fundamental rnacters of public policy. The only cerraincythat summer was moral confusion

Was ir a civil war?A war of national liberarior-r or simple aggressioni Who started it, andwhen, and whyi What realLy happened ro rhe llSS Maddox onthat darknight in the Gulf of Tonkini Was Ho Chi Minh a Communisr stooge,or a nationalist savior, or both, or neitheri What abour the GenevaAccordsi What about SEATO and rhe Cold Wari

Courage, I seemed to think, comes to us in6nite quantities, like an inheritance, and by being frugal and stashing itaway and letting it earn interest, we steadily increase our moral capitalin p''rsp2l"xtion for that day when the account must be drawn down

For morethan twenty years I've had to live wirh ir, feeling rhe shame, rrying ropuslr ft away, and so by this act of remembrance, by putting the factsdown on paper, I'm hoping to relieve at least some of the pressure on mydreams

"Yo' ole black hide don't look lak nothin' tuh me, but uh passle uh wrinkled up rubber, wid yo'big ole yeahs flappin' on each side lak uh paih uh buzzard wings. Don't think Ah'm gointuh be run 'way fum mah house neither. Ah'm goin' tuh de white folks bout you, mah young man, de very nex' time you lay yo' han's on me. Mah cup is done run ovah." Delia said this with no signsof fear and Sykes departed from the house, threatening her, but made not the slightest move to carry out any of them.

Sykes almost let the huge wad of corn bread and collard greens he was chewing fall out of his mouth in amazement. He had a hard time whipping himself up to the proper fury to try to answer Delia. "Well, Ah'm glad you does hate me. Ah'm sho' tiahed uh you hangin' ontuh me. Ah don't want yuh. Look at yuh stringey ole neck! Yo' rawbony laigs an' arms is enough tuh cut uh man tuh death. You looks jes' lak de devvul's doll-baby tuh me. You cain't hate me no worse dan Ah hates you. Ah been hatin' you fuh years."

Delia pushed back her plate and got up from the table. "Ah hates you, Sykes," she said calmly. "Ah hates you tuh de same degree dat Ah useter love yuh. Ah done took an' took till mah belly is full up tuh mah neck. Dat's de reason Ah got mah letter fum de church an' moved mah membership tuh Woodbridge--so Ah don't haf tuh take no sacrament wid yuh. Ah don't wantuh see yuh 'roun' me atall. Lay 'roun' wid dat 'oman all yuh wants tuh, but gwan 'way fum me an' mah house. Ah hates yuh lak uh suck-egg dog.

Syke! Syke, mah Gawd! You take dat rattlesnake 'way from heah! You gottuh. Oh, Jesus, have mussy!" "Ah aint gut tuh do nuthin' uh de kin'--fact is Ah aint got tuh do nothin' but die. Taint no use uh you puttin' on airs makin' out lak you skeered uh dat snake--he's gointer stay right heah tell he die. He wouldn't bite me cause Ah knows how tuh handle 'im. Nohow he wouldn't risk breakin' out his fangs 'gin yo' skinny laigs."

He made no room for her. She noticed a soap boxbeside the steps, but paid no particular attention to it, knowing that he must have brought it there. As she was stooping to pass under his outstretched arm, he suddenly pushed her backward, laughingly.

Delia and Sykes fought all the time now with no peaceful interludes. They slept and ate in silence. Two or three times Delia had attempted a timid friendliness, but she was repulsed each time. It was plain that the breaches must remain agape

With all this they left the store, with Sykes reminding Bertha that this was his town and she could have it if she wanted it.

Clarke spoke for the first time. "Taint no law on earth dat kin make a man be decent if it aint in 'im. There's plenty men dat takes a wife lak dey do a joint uh sugar-cane. It's round, juicy an' sweet when dey gits it. But dey squeeze an' grind, squeeze an' grind an' wring tell dey wring every drop uh pleasure dat's in 'em out. When dey's satisfied dat dey is wrung dry, dey treats 'em jes lak dey do a cane-chew. Dey throws em away. Dey knows whut dey is doin' while dey is at it, an' hates theirselves fuh it but they keeps on hangin' after huh tell she's empty. Den dey hates huh fuh bein' a cane-chew an' in de way."

Anything like flowers had long ago been drowned in the salty stream that had been pressed from her heart

She seized the iron skillet from the stove and struck a defensive pose, which act surprised him greatly, coming from her. It cowed him and he did not strike her as he usually did.

"What's it got to do with you, Sykes? Mah tub of suds is filled yo' belly with vittles more times than yo' hands is filled it. Mah sweat is done paid for this house and Ah reckon Ah kin keep on sweatin' in it."

Delia's habitual meekness seemed to slip from her shoulders like a blown scarf. She was on her feet; her poor little body, her bare knuckly hands bravely defying the strapping hulk before her.

roughly upon the whitest pile of things, kicking them helter-skelter as he crossed the room. His wife gave a little scream of dismay, and quickly gathered them together again

is gone to work on them clothes. You ain't nothing but a hypocrite. One of them amen-corner Christians--sing, whoop, and shout, then come home and wash white folks clothes on the Sabbath."

e picked up the whip and glared down at her. Delia went on with her work. She went out into the yard and returned with a galvanized tub and set it on the washbench. She saw that Sykes had kicked all of the clothes together again, and now stood in her way truculently, his whole manner hoping, praying, for an argument. But she walked calmly around him and commenced to re-sort the things.

ou sho is one aggravatin' nigger woman!" he declared and stepped into the room. She resumed her work and did not answer him at once. "Ah done tole you time and again to keep them white folks' clothes outa dis house."

Some day Ah'm goin' tuh drop dead from some of yo' foolishness.

he lifted her eyes to the door and saw him standing there bent over with laughter at her fright. She screamed at him

It softened her knees and dried her mouth so that it was a full minute before she could cry out or move.

great pile of clothes, sorting them into small heaps according to color,

a wash-woman

To be one of those finalists on that dance floor is like . . . like being in a dream about a world in which accidents don't happen

Maximum of ten points each for individual style, deportment, rhythm and general appearance

He can't hear us from there. But for [goodness] sake, Mom, what happened? I told you to be firm with him . . . then you and the nurses should have held him down, taken his crutches away . . . I know only too well he's my father! . . . I'm not being disrespectful, but I'm sick and tired of emptying stinking chamberpots full of phlegm and [urine] . . . Yes, I do! When you're not there, he asks me to do it . . . If you really want to know the truth, that's why I've got no appetite for my food . . . Yes! There's a lot of things you don't know about. For your information, I still haven't got that science textbook I need. And you know why? He borrowed the money you gave me for it. . . . Because I didn't want to start another fight between you two . . . He says that every time . . . all right, Mom! [Viciously.] Then just remember to start hiding your bag away again, because he'll be at your purse before long for money for booze. And when he's well enough to come down here, you better keep an eye on the till as well, because that is also going to develop a leak . . . then don't complain to me when he starts his old tricks . . . Yes, you do. I get it from you on one side and from him on the other, and it makes life hell for me. I'm not going to be the peacemaker anymore. I'm warning you now; when the two of you start fighting again, I'm leaving home . . . Mom, if you start crying, I'm going to put down the receiver . . . Okay . . . [Lowering his voice to a vicious whisper.] Okay, Mom. I heard you. [Desperate.] No . . . Because I don't want to. I'll see him when I get home! Mom! . . . [Pause. When he speaks again, his tone changes completely. It is not simply pretense. We sense a genuine emotional conflict.] Welcome home, chum! . . . What's that? . . . Don't be silly, Dad.

Of course it is. That's what I've been trying to say to you all afternoon. And it's beautiful because that is what we want life to be like. But instead, like you said, Hally, we're bumping into each other all the time. Look at the three of us this afternoon: I've bumped into Willie, the two of us have bumped into you, you've bumped into your mother, she bumping into your Dad . . . None of us knows the steps and there's no music playing. And it doesn't stop with us. The whole world is doing it all the time. Open a newspaper and what do you read? America has bumped into Russia. England is bumping into India, rich man bumps into poor man. Those are big collisions, Hally. They make for a lot of bruises. People get hurt in all that bumping, and we're sick and tired of it now. It's been going on for too long. Are we never going to get it right? . . . learn to dance life like champions instead of always being just a bunch of beginners at it?

I've got my reasons.

didn't say it was easy. I said it was simple - like in simple-minded, meaning mentally retarded. You can't exactly say it challenges the intellect

No, it isn't your imagination hasn't helped you at all. There's a lot more to it than that. We're getting ready for the championships, Hally, not just another dance. There's going to be a lot of people, all right, and they're going to have a good time, but they'll only be spectators, sitting around and watching. It's just the competitors our there on the dance floor. Party decorations and fancy lights all around the hall! The ladies in beautiful evening dresses!

an old-style jukebox

few sad ferns

I don't like Mohammed. I never have. I was merely being hypothetical. As far as I'm concerned, the Koran is as bad as the Bible. No. Religion is out! I'm not going to waste my time again arguing with you about the existence of God. You know perfectly well I'm an atheist . . . and I've got homework to do.

Failing a maths exam isn't the end of the world, Sam. How many times have I told you that examination results don't measure intelligence?

SAM: That's the way they do it in jail. HALLY: [Flicker of morbid interest.] Really? SAM: Ja. When the magistrate sentences you to "strikes with a light cane." HALLY: Go on. SAM: they make you lie down on a bench. One policeman pulls down your trousers and holds your ankles, another one pulls your shirt over your head and holds your arms . . .

HALLY: Tried to be clever, as usual. Said I was no Leonardo da Vinci and that bad art had to be punished. So, six of the best, and his are bloody good

HALLY: Did you hear my Mom talking on the telephone, Willie? WILLIE: No, Master Hally. I was at the back. HALLY: And she didn't say anything to you before she left? WILLIE: She said I must clean the floors. HALLY: I mean about my Dad. WILLIE: She didn't say nothing to me about him, Master Hally. HALLY: [With conviction.] No! It can't be. They said he needed at least another three weeks of treatment. Sam's definitely made a mistake. [Rummages through his school case, finds a book and settles down at the table to read.] So, Willie!

HALLY: Bravo! No question about it. First place goes to Mr. Sam Semela.

And now she's making trouble for me with the baby again. Reports me to Child Wellfed, that I'm not giving her money. She lies! Every week I am giving her money for milk. And how do I know is my baby? Only his hair looks like me. She's [messing]around all the time I turn my back. Hilda Samuels is a [bad woman]! [Pause.] Hey, Sam

WILLIE: I only got bus fare to go home. [He returns disconsolately to his work.] Love story and happy ending! [. . . .] Three nights now she doesn't come practice. I wind up gramophone, I get record ready and I sit and wait. What happens? Nothing. Ten o'clock I start dancing with my pillow. You try and practice romance by yourself, Boet Sam. Struesgod, she doesn't come tonight I take back my dress and ballroom shoes and I find me new partner

How can I enjoy myself? Not straight, too stiff and now it's also glide, give it more style, make it smooth . . . Haai! Is hard to remember all those things, Boet Sam

eaning on the solitary table, his head cupped in one hand as he pages through one of the comic books, is Sam.

I knew we’d spend hours and hours on the phone every week describing our days to each other, which is in fact what we’ve done since he left in July, in time to acclimate to his new home and to start school. And I was sure I’d be able to cope with his absence somehow, even though I didn’t quite know how, and I still don’t know. Because even though my son is right that this isn’t the end of our journey together, it is undeniably the beginning of our journey apart.

Maybe my dad is the missing piece, you know? I just want to see.”My son was truly my own: using a literary reference to help me understand the reasons behind his departure. I was moved. If he wanted to explore his relationship with his father, he ought to be allowed to. This could be his missing piece. And yet a huge sense of selfishness welled up within me. This was my son, my first real love, my baby boy, my responsibility. He was mine. Shouldn’t I get to keep him?

had become more and more of a positive and fun presence in his life. My son visited his father and his stepmom every school break. And often when my son came home from these visits, he was a little depressed for a while, and talked about how he wished he could see his dad more often.

. As a single mother, I didn’t have anyone to consult with over matters of discipline, schooling, band instruments or firm bedtimes. And there were days when I felt more like his older sister or a baby sitter than his mother: I raided our fridge late at night and waited for his real parents to show up. But except for moments like this, that had mainly passed.

I was 18 when I became pregnant with my son, after all. When I chose to keep him, people warned that my failure with house plants and my ambivalence toward pets would make me a miserable mother — and that my decision would keep me from “accomplishing my dreams.”

He’d just returned to Michigan after visiting his father in New York. Had something catastrophic happened while he was there? Had he done drugs or had sex? I hoped he’d just left his iPod on the plane.

The same hope that carried my parents over an ocean of uncertainty is now my fuel for the journey toward my future, and I go forward with the radical idea that I, too, can make it. Savoring each bite, I listen to the sound of neighbors calling out and children chasing a dog ridden with fleas, letting the cool heat cling to my skin.

Each mouthful is a reminder that my time here will not last forever, and that my success or failure will become a defining example for my sister and relatives.

the scourge of poverty and flickering prosperity that never seem to coalesce. But these are the two worlds I have inherited, and my existence in one is not possible without the other.

remembering my father’s stories of rising up early to feed the cows and my mother’s memories of the sweat on her brow from hours of picking coffee at a local plantation.

would have imagined their sacrifices for us would come with sharp pains in their backs and newfound worries, tear-soaked nights and early mornings. But, it is too much to process. Instead, I dream of them and the future I will build with the tools they have given me.

My grandmother hovers over the stove flame, fanning it as she melodically hums Kikuyu spirituals. She kneads the dough and places it on the stove, her veins throbbing with every movement: a living masterpiece painted by a life of poverty and motherhood. The air becomes thick with smoke and I am soon forced out of the walls of the mud-brick house while she laughs.

remembering my father’s stories of rising up early to feed the cows and my mother’s memories of the sweat on her brow from hours of picking coffee at a local plantation.

There are still ten feet between her and the echoing sound of her own voice, telling her she can still be anybody she wants to.

I killed someone. I loved him. I walked away. A warped version of that icebreaker game. Two truths and a lie, or two lies and a truth

It’s Angela who won’t talk to her now, and the tenth time Mrs. Hall knocks on their front door and no one answers, Claire’s father gets a restraining order. Claire tells the reporter Aaron was a friend, that she was drunk and he was tak-ing her home, but the bones of that story don’t convince anyone it wasn’t all, at best, a tragic misunderstanding; at worst, a danger she didn’t see coming. Claire tells the reporter some innocuous nice thing about Seraphin’s boyfriend, and the paper calls him one of her best friends, after which she stops trying to explai

Aaron, unnerved by the car behind him, flooring the accelerator; Seraphin’s boyfriend tailgating, flashing his brights, then the car full of boys pulling alongside them, his friends throwing a soda bottle and yelling at Aaron to stop. Aaron only goes faster, losing them for a moment, then, less than a mile from their houses, turning onto Cleveland Street at such speed that he spins out and the car flips into the trees.

“Because every time I see her I want to tell her I’m sorry your mother is alive, because it reminds me that mine is dead.”Aaron winces. He takes a nervous sip from his red cup before looking at her again.“That’s fucked up, Claire. My mom misses you too. You’re messed up right now, I get that, but at some point you’re going to have to stop making it worse.”“I’m not making it worse. I’m looking for my shoes.”

one drink for every month her mother has been dead so far. She still thinks of it that way, as in: so far, her mother is still dead, but that could change any day now, any moment her mother could walk in and demand to know what she is doing, and what she has been doing, tonight, is drinking.

“So a hundred people can send me death threats, but I can’t put a flag in my window.”

She showers for the first time this week, blow-dries and teases her hair. She wears a horrible mint green dress Puppy bought her for an engagement event that Claire refused to attend. She puts on her mother’s pearls, takes them off, puts them on again.

At the funeral, Angela holds her hand and Aaron puts an arm around her shoulder. He is a perfect gentleman, but one with a mother, and Angela is a friend with a mother, and already they are galaxies away from Claire, alone in her grief.

Claire’s mother dies in July. They bury her on a damp Tuesday when the ground is slimy from an afternoon thunderstorm. She does not hear a word the priest says, thinking of her mother down there, rotting. For weeks before the funeral she has nightmares in which she is the one being buried, alive, the sickening smell of earth always waking her

Mrs. Hall walks out of the hospital in full remission. Not a trace of the cancer left. Her hair grows back, soft and downy. She takes up running to drop the steroid weight. She is working up to marathons. Angela trains with her.

Claire fears that she will lose both her mother and her other mother, but it turns out that it is worse to lose only one,

“It’s Jupiter for me after all.”

A year later both of their mothers are sick. It starts slow, with both of them, and then quick quick quick. With Angela’s mother it is a lump, with Claire’s a vague malaise

Claire and Angela forever. By adolescence they have both lucked into beauty, but neither has really noticed yet; there is so little room for interlopers in the tight world of their friendship that they are often each other’s only mirrors

She prints out a copy of the flag and tapes it to her dorm window. She calls the reporter from the student paper back and tells him she is simply celebrating her heritage,

. Claire prints a photo of the Confederate flag and scrawls in loopy cursive on the back Welcome back! I hope you

she complains that her father’s move to Florida caught her off guard—she is used to winters that at least make an effort to be winter,

Claire, not yet entirely clear on the rules of family,

Claire is fascinated by their accents, and, yes, by the dark tint of their skin, but mostly she is anxious to be seen.

she makes a show of stripping off the shorts and shirt. In the few minutes before he takes it off and fucks her in the truck’s cab,

They try hanging out at his house once, but Claire feels shamed by his mother’s scrutiny, assumes she wants to know what’s damaged or defective about Claire that has her screw-ing a high-school boy.