“It’s okay,” Preston said, gulping down his final bite. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. I guess Mary must have forgotten the vanilla or something,” Mr. Hawthorne speculated. “Oh well, they’re not good for my figure anyway,” he commented, politely chipper. “But hopefully the milk is all right.”
The milk, Preston had forgotten the milk. He wanted to go, he was sure by now Eva and Peyton had gone to his house looking for him, and his mother would start to worry. Once he got home she’d be in the front yard with a frown on her face as she lectured him on how anxious she’d been. He could just picture it as he swallowed the milk, wanting to take every last drop in one final swig. The milk was cold in his mouth, yet felt as if it was burning his teeth, but he dutifully gulped until it was finished. “There,” Preston announced.
“You were thirsty, do you want some more?”
“No, that’s all right, I really have to go,” Preston replied, getting up. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, any time,” Mr. Hawthorne offered. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay? I have a game system upstairs, we could play something. Four Corners Seven just came out, I have an advanced copy. I know a guy who owns a video game shop. We could play that? Or Fantasy Basketball, I have that as well. Or just old fashioned Monopoly?” He looked so desperate for Preston to want to play just one game. But video games took forever to play, they were the game that never ended, and so Preston shook his head no, deciding to consider the time of day it was, and his mother, and that dinner would probably be on the table soon.
“That’s all right, my friends don’t know where I am, my Mom’ll be worried,” Preston explained. Mr. Hawthorne had been nice to him, it might not even be wrong to say he liked him, but at that moment Preston really wanted to be out of his house. He didn’t know why but his stomach was starting to hurt and he just needed get back to his own yard, his own room, where things didn’t feel so off and unfamiliar.
“Well, if your Mom will be looking for you, please, you can go out the back, take the path near the stream, it’ll get you home more quickly,” Mr. Hawthorne explained and Preston wondered how this man knew exactly where he lived.
“All right, thank you. I like your garden,” he offered as an olive branch.
“Next time you come over we’ll look at the garden again, maybe check out that new Four Corners,” Mr. Hawthorne suggested and Preston shook his head yes, the waning sun in his eyes as he walked through the back screen door and across the yard full of grass and flowers, by a pristine, empty white bird bath and a couple of trees. It felt like the grown up world out here, wholly different from the video games and posters of sports stars in the bulk of the house. Preston felt bad for going, for leaving Mr. Hawthorne to sit alone all night, but his stomach was really bothering him and had to be home for dinner.
“Bye,” Preston called as he walked away.
Mr. Hawthorne remained in his house, one foot on the concrete stoop and another in his kitchen as he watched Preston cross his lawn. Preston started to feel sleepy and a more sick as he walked away. Something churned inside his stomach, something purple and red like a bruise. He felt sick, but not sick as he had ever been before, not the flu or a cold, not even the 104-degree fever he’d had last year that sent his mother racing with him to the doctor. He gulped hard to try and keep himself from throwing up, tasting the sour bile at the four corners of his mouth. He looked back at Mr. Hawthorne, who was still watching him as he marched past another flower garden and toward the stream. He knew the way across it, he knew that if he crossed the water and took the path he’d be nearer to Eva’s and once he was there he could make his way through the trees toward Peyton’s house and then his own.
His stomach was burning as he hit the trees that separated the cul-de-sac from the rest of the neighborhood and Preston stopped, doubling over as he tried to breathe deeply. “Owww,” he said, clutching his insides. He sat down, leaning against the side of a tree, right in the dirt. “If I can just walk a few more feet,” he thought, but it felt like a few feet could only be measured in miles. He knew his house was close by, but the trees blocked everything. His father had said that this was what made the neighborhood so nice, the illusion of privacy without actually being in the middle of nowhere. But now he wished someone could see him through these trees as he sat in the dirt, a twig digging into the thin skin of his palm. “Ow, ow, ow,” he cried as if his stomach were on fire.
Preston lay down for a second. It felt better when he lay down. He closed his eyes; he was tired now and the pain, it wasn’t just uncomfortable anymore, it was a bright, stabbing pain and even when he cried no one could hear him. He hadn’t ever felt this sleepy before, it wasn’t a going-to-bed kind of sleepy, this kind of tired settled in his bones, he sensed it under his skin as he lay down on the cold, damp ground. He could feel the dirt pulsing under him, as if he could hear bugs moving beneath the earth, the way the trees’ roots grew, flowers sunning themselves. Peyton and Eva called out a few feet away, Preston could see them playing in his mind, the sun on their faces. He pictured his mother looking for him, one hand on the front door as she called his name. It was all there, just a few feet away; he’d be there in a second, he thought, just a second and he’d get up. A bird cawed, it got darker and Preston closed his eyes.
CLaIRe
There was something about the silence in the house at nine o’clock, something heavy and final. It wasn’t like most days, when nine o’clock was a time to wind down, letting the house rest as if it too were about to head off to bed after the dishes had been put away, the final clutter shuffled into closets or onto shelves, the sturdy pockets of the house. Preston went to bed at eight fifteen, and Matthew, home from work a couple of hours earlier, would already have eaten dinner—on a weekday something simple, maybe a slice of glazed chicken, spiced rice and green beans—and gone to the study to get some work done. The dishes would have been washed and dried, or Claire might have had her hands in the sink, just finishing up. Nine o’clock was an hour before ten, when she would sit down with a recorded sitcom she hadn’t had time to watch during the day, a cup of tea resting on the coffee table, maybe a low-calorie cookie wedged in the saucer. She’d rest her head against the cushions of the couch as she unwound herself from the knots she’d been tied up in all day.
But tonight wasn’t that kind of quiet; tonight’s quiet raged in Claire’s head like her ears were stuffed up and she could see the mouths moving though they did not make a sound. Matthew had been in and out of the house since returning from work. He’d canvassed the neighborhood and come back with his shoulders hunched as he shook his head “no,” barely meeting Claire’s eyes. That had been at seven and again at eight, after Claire had managed, because her mother on the phone from Chicago had insisted that she eat something, to choke down two slices of flimsy Wonderbread. She’d felt the food in her mouth, squashed between her teeth and never before had it felt so naked, so bare, as if the truth about food had finally come out and it really was only fuel so that she might pace the kitchen for another hour, so she could place phone calls and rush to a ringing receiver or check out the windows to see if anything had moved in the wooded lot they called a yard.
The house was dark; Claire had only remembered to keep a lamp on in the living room and the cooking light above the stove lit as she paced between the rooms. Everything was strange, as if nine o’clock had come at the wrong time, as if this wasn’t the real world, this house with blue curtains and lacey throw pillows, this house that smelled of thin, country dish soap and juniper hand lotion, where all the knickknacks came from antique stores, consignment shops and specialty outlets in West Stockbridge.
She’d just started to allow Preston to play unsupervised around the neighborhood with his friends. It hadn’t been her idea. Cara List had started it with her son Peyton. When Preston had come up to her last March, tugging at her sleeve as she was putting the groceries away, and asked her if he could ride his bike over to Townsend Street, she’d wanted to say no, she might have said no, if he hadn’t have added, “Mrs. List lets Peyton