Softly Goes the Water

By Ryan Rayston

Softly Goes the Water is the sweeping saga of two families, the Rileys and McCaddens, who live next door to each other on the wealthy shoreline of Lake Minnetonka near Minneapolis. The story centers on Ever Riley, a lonely only child whose prodigious intellect emerges in childhood. Jules McCadden, the boy who lives next door, has uncanny “second sight” that allows him to see events before they happen. The course of their friendship, cemented on the day President Kennedy is assassinated, shapes a fantastical narrative that is the heart and soul of the book.

Through the story of Ever and Jules, we witness a sprawling drama that centers on the struggles, missteps and many faces of maladjustment of family, friends and lovers during the iconic sixties and seventies.
Fate and tragedy collide when a Shoreline Drive car accident and The Vietnam War forever change both families.

Softly Goes the Water shines a light on mental illness, anomie, social dysfunction, sex and secrets—and a secret Ever chooses to carry alone. Ultimately, it renders tangible the joy in finding where one belongs in life, even if it’s not the answer one expected.

A magical and heartwarming story of love, hope, and the power of friendship: coming-of-age and coming to believe amidst incredible odds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781546269021

Ryan Rayston

The author lives in Los Angeles.

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© 2019 ryan rayston. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/14/2019

ISBN: 978-1-5462-6903-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-6902-1 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)

Words and Music by John Phillips

Copyright © 1967 UNIVERSAL MUSIC CORP. Copyright Renewed

All Rights Reserved

Used by Permission Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

The Letter

Words and Music by Wayne Carson Thompson

Copyright © 1967 Budde Music and Lovolar MusicCopyright Renewed

All Rights Administered by Bike Music c/o The Bicycle Music Company

All Rights Reserved

Used by PermissionReprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

Rock Me on the Water

Words and Music by Jackson Browne

Copyright © 1971, 1974 SWALLOW TURN MUSIC

All Rights Reserved

Lyrics reprinted by kind permission of the artist.

O Come, All Ye Faithful

Music by John Francis Wade | Lyrics by Frederick Oakeley

Traditional (circa 1841)

Public Domain

O Holy Night

Music by Adolphe Adam | Lyrics by Placide Cappeau & John Sullivan Dwight

Traditional (1847)

Public Domain

Prayers fly on the wings of hope, to the ears of God. They soar on the promise of a dream—and those unanswered, fall back to earth.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 The Beginning

Chapter 2 1965

Chapter 3 Seeing is Believing

Chapter 4 Shadows of Summer

Chapter 5 The Bombing of the Nuclear Family

Chapter 6 Bill

Chapter 7 The Long and Winding Road

Chapter 8 The Undoing of Summer

Chapter 9 Secrets

Chapter 10 The Missing Links

Chapter 11 The Maddening Sounds of Chaos

Chapter 12 The Wheel Goes Round

Chapter 13 Love Hurts

Chapter 14 The Fortunate Son

Chapter 15 Ask and You Might Receive

Chapter 16 This is the End

Chapter 17 What Time Erases for No One

Chapter 18 1975—1976

Chapter 19 1977

Chapter 20 Mother & Child Reunion

Chapter 21 1978

Chapter 22 The Good Doctor

Chapter 23 O Holy Night

Chapter 24 The Letter

Chapter 25 Language of Nomads

Chapter 26 Thomas Wolfe Said it Best

Chapter 27 Baby I Need Your Lovin’

Chapter 28 All Good Things

Acknowledgments

My sister was everything beautiful.

Once, when she was sick and home from work, I sent her a short story. She liked it so much she asked me to continue, so I created another chapter, and another; ergo this book.

Neither of us knew how sick she was.

It depicts a time, a life—the life—my sister longed to go back to.

For my beautiful sister, Lisa,

who never stopped believing in yesterdays.

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER ONE

The Beginning

VOICES WERE HEARD OFF LAKE MINNETONKA since the beginning of time. Some say they travelled with the wind. Indians understood their language as water drummed softly against the shores.

Darla Riley heard them too, even when the lake told her to kill herself.

She connected with the voices; they understood her without explanation.

Today was her kind of day, a bruised, dark sky ripped by crackling lightning. As she stepped out of the shallows, a pebble cut her sole. Warm, overripe rain rolled down her face. She could have stayed outside in that storm, stayed with her lake, but Bill was yelling from the deck, newspaper tented over his head, a drink in both hands. And she liked her vodka fast and neat.

Bill motioned her in, watched the rain fall in sheets, handed her a towel and her vodka. I would say we witnessed End of Marriage 101, with a bit more knowledge about our neighbors. He cleared his throat in that irritating way, like gargling with phlegm, making her gag.

Yes, now, they were so much more informed after hearing what a rotten bunch of kids the McCaddens were, how Mildred was getting fat, how no one gave a shit and that Mildred had had it up to HERE, and how Fred was just sick of the whole damn bunch. It was like auditing a class, getting information for free. It had Darla and Bill momentarily putting a trophy next to their sagging relationship.

But now, too, the McCaddens knew Darla Riley found Bill to be a complete and utter emotional failure. He was boring, really boring. And the baby was his idea.

And when both families thought they had kept their voices on their properties, the wind had carried them. It was like that with secrets.

When they saw one another they smiled and waved, as if taking an eraser to a chalkboard and striking everything written on the day’s page.

Like all little towns with big money, its residents had their secrets, and the Rileys and McCaddens were no exception.

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Darla and Bill teetered awkwardly above the crib. The baby didn’t like her—she knew it.

Bill’s hand lay like a spider on her shoulder and that feeling bit into her again. She held her breath to buoy herself from being pulled under.

Something was wrong. Nothing felt the same since, well, she really couldn’t remember. The bark of a neighbor’s dog made her jump, and for a moment, she forgot where she was. Sweat ran from her underarm to her bra. The bad thoughts came more frequently. Some days, it felt as if the thoughts might break her. And some days she welcomed it.

The child, though, distracted her.

Sometimes.

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Bill Riley questioned his decisions. Unable to sleep, he crept downstairs, switched on the kitchen light and caught his unsteady reflection. He collected his silver matte toolbox from the pantry, sat at the kitchen table and did something that relaxed him—he tinkered. Bill, an architect by trade, was also an inventor. His new invention, a two-way radio devised to alert new parents of their baby’s crying in any room of the house (he called it the Baby Monitor) would later be sold to Fisher-Price.

Bill was secretive, slender, different. He possessed that somethingness that you can’t put your finger on, and that nothingness that made it impossible to pick him out in a line-up.

Darla was, quite simply, astonishingly beautiful. People stared at her; she was that beautiful. Her thick raven hair dangled beyond her shoulders. Maybe it was her dewy skin or her enchanting smile, but she looked younger than her early twenties.

Up in her room, she finished another vodka, selected strands of red embroidery thread, and looked through the darkness at her lake. Her eyes held longing, not unlike those of a frontline soldier glancing at a family picture—the take-me-back-to-the-times-when kind of pain that makes you sick if you let it. A thought came to her. Yes, put that in the diary. And Darla wrote like a POW writing to his family, chronicling an existence before it was gone.

Her diary page filled with the rhythm of a seismograph.

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Darla looked at Ever in her playpen, two years old, bald and mute, Happy Birthday, Ever! The child smiled, igniting a warmth in Darla, then uttered, I want a book!

This request provoked near hysteria when Darla announced she had waited two years to hear MOMMY! Darla felt completely fuckitall cheated. She gazed at the child as if observing a science experiment.

Say Mommy. Say it, dammit. Mom-me. DAMMIT! Her face turned a deep, maddening red, scaring the baby a bit.

Ever’s lips quivered, she wobbled and spat, Book, dammit!

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After quiet aperitifs (Darla had four) and a tense dinner, Darla and Bill settled into the living room, where, to her annoyance, they fought about JFK and Richard Nixon yet again. Bill had become a Democrat.

She closed her eyes. Her mind frayed beautifully. Everything about her life irritated her. Everything. Why couldn’t she explain it?

The baby’s cry—a tireless alarm—traveled through the house. She leaned into the chair. Swallow me whole. Take care of her, Bill. She wants a BOOK, DAMMIT. Darla couldn’t let go of the child’s affront. I can’t do this!

And she couldn’t. Something within her foundation collapsed. Something inside of her ceased—some inner mechanism, similar to what makes a clock tick, just. stopped. ticking. Turmoil spilled over her like hot fudge.

Bill took the stairs, two at a time. A swell of commotion geysered from next door, and ordinarily he would have looked over, but tonight he was too damn drained.

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The huge windows of the McCadden house, a sprawling horseshoe-shaped one-level steel and glass structure, faced the lake.

Fred McCadden, president of the successful Midwest Construction Company, made money by day and drank at night. Mildred McCadden, a devout Catholic with Irish DNA coursing through her body, had been miserable since her third year of marriage and hadn’t let a day go by without letting Fred know it. Fred, a once handsome, muscular man, now had a temper and a taste for liquor and trouble. Some nights when he drank, especially late, he’d eye Mildred with a cold stare, alerting her that wifely duties were soon to be performed. She tolerated him like a nasty cold. And like many good Catholics with a nasty cold, she took the occasional 10MG Valium and a Benadryl. Her body became soft then. Mildred became adept at covering bruises with Maybelline concealer. She even thought about talking to their priest, but too ashamed, swallowed her disgust with another pill. Shame sat in her stomach like cement. And yet through all of this, three boys were born.

Harold, the oldest, was strong, intense and unlike his fair-skinned Irish Catholic brothers, his brooding Mediterranean handsomeness made him look strangely out of place. After school, he’d change into combat fatigues and strut around the grounds with a bayonet (Mildred’s missing steak knife duct taped to a BB gun). He experimented with fireworks and M-80s, blowing up milk carton fleets and unsuspecting fish. One Fourth of July he made explosives out of Sweet ’n Low, fertilizer, and nail polish remover. He was grounded for two weeks.

At twelve, he drew from the well of his manhood, believing the words and will of Ben Hur, having seen the movie a dozen times. Books and stories that embraced his heroes moved him; he rooted for their deeds and wept at their defeats.

The middle child, Steven, fair and reed thin, was bundled in curiosity. When the boys found girls willing to strip down at the fort, usually with help from Fred’s liquor cabinet, they got a bona fide look at the others’ private parts. Yet for Steven, the penis had a function. Breasts had a function. Harold had turned him on to a discarded Playboy, and Steven seemed not as much aroused as intrigued by the form. The balloon-like breasts hoisted on a small form didn’t look proportionally correct, but he could never tell that to his brother, who locked himself in the bathroom with them.

Steven rescued downed birds, squirrels, rabbits, deer, and just about anything in need of medical care. He had a healing gift, but his skills were limited, Ever would one day find out.

And then there was the wild child, the baby, the gifted one, Jules.

The way he was regarded by both parents likely stemmed from the night he was conceived.

It happened Christmas Eve, seven years and nine months ago. As usual, Fred was rip-roaring drunk – an entire bottle of Johnny Walker Red, to be precise. It was a damn shame, he thought, that he couldn’t afford Blue Label every day. Mildred, already in bed, had heard his heavy foot on the stairs, rolled over and pretended to sleep. His stench entered the room first. He removed his pants, revived his drowsy penis, pulled his unwilling wife to the center of the bed and flipped her over like a pancake. His body pressed atop a horrified, curler-coifed Mildred. Her eyes bulged and teared over the thick layer of Ponds Cold Cream as his hand slipped and then smothered her to a hush. She strained against his weight, attempted to knee him in the balls. Fred rewarded her with a righteous slap and boa-constricted her neck until she stopped resisting. Her body sank into the coffin of a mattress while he hammered into her.

She prayed he would go away, disappear forever, and soon—yes soon he faded from view. Only the saints remained. They huddled around her bed, cheered her into their arms. All good Catholics come to heaven, Mildred. She surrendered slowly, as death crept on her like a thief.

Fred wasn’t always a drunk. Something happened the night he was assaulted in Minneapolis. Something he never spoke of—something that stayed long after cuts, bruises, and broken ribs healed and that something drove him to liquor. But on this night, he fucked her so violently she lay somewhat lifeless beneath him. Drunk as he was, he rolled over and passed out.

Later, Harold, with a pounding headache, crept in to wake his mother. She didn’t move. When her limp arm fell towards the floor, he let loose a rabid scream.

Dazed and panicked, Fred heaved Harold out and locked the door. He shook Mildred, but she lay unresponsive. Alcohol boiled off his skin.

Scared, he lamented, praying out loud to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph that Mildred might live. God, let her live. Morphing into a sober Olympian, sprinting across the room in top speed, he opened the window, allowing minus 20-degree winds to whip through the bedroom. Holding Mildred to his chest, smoothing back her hair, he prayed aloud. God dammit, help me! He pled to the ceiling, a place he believed God inhabited that very moment.

Miraculously, Mildred gasped and revived.

The next morning, a black cowl neck sweater covered the imprint of Fred McCadden’s fingers as Mildred lay in bed sipping warm Lipton’s tea and honey—from a straw. She had conceived that night as her husband raped her, as her breath and sight disappeared—and this son would be different.

Jules McCadden had his first seeing experience at the age of three. He woke suddenly at 10 PM, climbed from his crib, and shuffled into the kitchen where Mildred dried dishes.

Jules! she exclaimed, what’re you doing up?

Grandpa, the little boy repeated. He’s dead, Mom.

You’ve had a bad dream, dear. Let’s put you back… The telephone rang. Jules eyed his Mother with a stare that passed through her. She cautiously picked up the phone, nodded, spoke softly, her eyes never leaving his as she wondered if Jules had had a small seizure or religious experience. She placed the phone back on its cradle.

Stunned, her words escaped like vapor: Tell me how you knew.

Jules hopped in her lap. I see things, he said with a conviction that outran childhood.

What kind of things?

Jus’ things.

And you saw Grandpa?

Yes, and he was naked, but he talked to Jesus.

He did? What’d he say?

He said, ‘Jesus Christ, I’m coming now.’ Which, indeed, were Al McCadden’s last words in Room 201 at the Motel Six as he had the orgasm of his life with the buxom sixty-four-year-old hairdresser he had met at Bingo.

Jules slid off Mildred’s lap and scurried to his room.

It was too much to think about. It had to be a coincidence.

At three, Jules couldn’t explain his vision, and later, he kept it to himself.

With age, his gift evolved and that power afforded him great confidence. It wasn’t just knowing certain things in the future; he became so reliable at gauging weather that the McCaddens were flooded with calls. Summer boaters on Lake Minnetonka sailed by their pier at day’s end to ask Jules the following day’s weather. He outdid the weatherman, always. His predictions were so accurate that, at age five, he was featured on the local news—and again in the Minneapolis Star. Then, at six, as quickly as it had come, his gift for predicting the weather vanished. Unsure of what had happened, unable to fill the space that defined him, Jules did the only thing he could—he guessed. He told the boating population of Lake Minnetonka that unlike the severe thunderstorm warnings for the next day, it would be smooth sailing. With smiles on their faces they waved a cordial goodbye and braved the next day’s lousy weather, certain it would clear up.

But it didn’t. The storm came on quickly. A flash tornado sank three boats. Sixteen rescues were made. Jules McCadden would not be believed for a long time. He couldn’t explain why his sight left him, or why things which made him whole suddenly didn’t, or how unsure he felt about his world in general. For now he retreated—and kept his mouth shut.

Two years passed without a portal to the future. He worried constantly: why has my gift been taken away? In fact, he prayed for God to give it back. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, Father Esposito explained. Well, Jules added, maybe God is an Indian giver.

Then, at 11:50 PM on a school night, while his family slept, the seven-year old woke in a pool of sweat, tore out of bed, screaming, Get up! We gotta get outside! He ran to his mother, eyes ablaze. Midnight! It’ll happen at midnight!

Mildred, knowing that look all too well, ushered everyone out at warp speed handing out gloves and blankets. They shivered in their driveway with nine freezing minutes ticking down. She zipped up her parka and looked at her Cartier watch. They waited in the cold, their white breath bursting and sputtering—all except Fred, who paced like a prizefighter. I’m telling you, Mildred. I need sleep like any other human being. Who do you think pays the bills here? Look at us? What the hell would an alien think looking down? Certainly not an intelligent lifeform, right? You take him to a shrink, ya hear? I’m fed up with this crap. The kid’s a nutcase.

But Fred.

Oh, don’t ‘but’ me. Look at us, buying the crazy farm. He swiped his frustration from his brow and started up the driveway at 11:59 PM, his arms flying up in disgust.

What’s wrong with you people?

Jules gathered all his courage, he only needed a few moments. Too scared to wait?

Excuse me? The vein on Fred’s neck throbbed for maybe three seconds and then the heater exploded, tearing a hole in the west side of the McCadden home, shaking the earth like a 5.0 quake.

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Ever After Riley heard the voice of Fred McCadden yelling at his son on weekends. You’re worthless!

It became a sound she recognized.

This late October afternoon, clogged by the smoke of burning leaves, would solder an olfactory sensation into Ever’s memory. At two, she had watched this ceremony with interest, especially after her mother had given her an eighty-piece crayon set and demanded she put her book down. She saw the cloud of white smoke bloat and twirl like a small tornado above Fred McCadden’s fire. She picked out a brown crayon for the leaves, gray for the sky, white for the smoke, yellow for the fire, and then ate them all.

She had heard the words naughty and Jules so often that her parents, Middle-American Wasps, were aghast with her second sentence, I want to see Jews. Just Jews.

Jesus, Bill! Darla started to laugh, "She didn’t learn it from me. But she’s saying Jews! As odd as the child was, she was funny. It was as if the girl had been deposited at her doorstep by an alien. You have to admit, Bill, there’s something fundamentally strange about her!"

Now, honey… Bill said in his appeasing tone.

At least her hair grew in. And it had, like a Brillo pad.

Ever would remember that conversation. She remembered them all.

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At three, she talked up a storm and also at three, she read aloud. Much of her time was spent in her room with Mrs. Dimitri, the kindly Greek housekeeper who had been with her since her third day home. Gloria Dimitri loved Ever and knew she was different from others she had cared for—in fact, from any others she had known.

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It was rare for Darla and Bill to be overly affectionate, yet at four years old, Ever wanted the family from Father Knows Best and longed for a Jane Wyman to her Lauren Chapin, and in the hopeful impressions of a young child, she imagined the McCadden clan to be more like that show. She could feel it.

In 1963, Ever was four, Jules, seven, Steven, twelve, and Harold, thirteen. This day would change many people.

Ever sat in front of the TV. Outside, Jules’ laughter parachuted from the sky, landing in her yard. She moved to the sliding glass door, studying his moves. The sun reflected off his blond hair like a daylight star.

He spun like a top, arms helicoptered, aiming for the Riley house. He noticed Ever watching him. What did she want? He lumbered to the window, their eyes locked. He smashed his mug flat against the sliding glass door, mouth open, drool dripping, snot running in an embryonic mess. His intent was to scare her shitless—a word used with regularity now—but instead, the kid laughed at him. She thought he was funny. Jules pulled back, checked her out and flipped her the finger and innocently, she flipped it back. Then an undercurrent of TV sounds pulled her like the particles on her Etch-a-Sketch drawn to the magic pen.

The day, November 22.

Jules knocked but something made him step inside. Look, I didn’t mean to scare you and I don’t want you tellin’ your dad, who’ll tell my dad, and I’ll get whooped.

The president was shot. The TV images stilled them.

It was as if, in that moment, they had fallen from their time to another.

Everything felt different. Our president.

Jules knew his mother would be crying, that he’d better get home to check on her, but he couldn’t move. The news announcer wiped his tears.

Stillness swallowed them.

Ever’s small hands opened and closed on his.

They watched, bookmarked in time.

Neither knew it, but that encounter began a friendship which would be cemented by spit, blood, death, tears, and something larger than their understanding of life.

That night prayers rose from the Riley and McCadden houses, floating above the lake and hopefully delivered to the ears of God.

Aside from the universal supplications for the Kennedys, there were other, more personal requests: Mildred McCadden prayed that her three children would be normal God-fearing Catholic boys, that her husband would die in his sleep, and that she could go to a spa for a weekend.

Darla Riley prayed she could pick up with the clothes on her back and go—somewhere, anywhere—and calm her spirit, claim her voice.

Bill prayed for Darla to love their daughter, for the market to go up, and for God to forgive him…to really forgive him.

And Fred prayed that the damn Minnetonka Liquor Store would open on Sunday.

Perhaps God listened.

Maybe He answered through the water, because the lake itself—Lake Minnetonka, on a glorious day made the Rileys and McCaddens forget the worst of their lives and believe, briefly, that life was beautiful.

CHAPTER TWO

1965

"DADDY AM I GOING TO die tonight?"

Bill sputtered, Of course not!

Conversations like these landed Ever on the couch of Dr. Gerald Booth, psychiatrist. His large trout-like lips puckered her name, Ever? He leaned against his cluttered desk backed by framed diplomas, Tell me why you feel you’re going to die.

In my dreams, I am. It’s dark, I can’t breathe, it’s cold and…I’m scared.

And these dreams come often?

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After several sessions (one testing her IQ) he met Darla and Bill alone.

Well, she’s gifted, Dr. Booth emphasized, But indulged. She could easily become more than base neurotic. To be honest, my findings show that she’ll have a tendency to be manic, have a major depressive disorder, or drug and alcohol dependency.

She’s six and a half! Bill countered.

The signs are there, Bill. May I call you Bill? These things are evidenced early.

Exactly, Darla interrupted, The obsessive side of her.

Booth’s smile fused with Darla.

They battled over whether she should skip a grade or two. She needs it academically, but it may ruin her personal development. It’s your call.

What about her fear of death? Bill asserted. It’s unusual.

Actually, Gerald Booth corrected, it’s quite normal for a child to wonder how life begins and ends. Let’s make another appointment, but if you notice a growing preoccupation with death, then, we can discuss more extensive treatment.

Bill Riley didn’t like Dr. Booth, nor did he like the words extensive treatment. But Darla appreciated his advice—and his attention.

Minnetonka Elementary School accepted Ever as a gifted child, where she attended third grade for a half day. The rest of the day she sat in the library, drawing little bubbles in picture books encasing a dialogue she’d written. The Rileys would later pay restitution for the destroyed books. Bill wanted to keep them—as they told a story—Ever’s story—but Darla ranted—and you want to reward that, Bill?—and as always, Darla won out.

Ever was mainstreamed back to first grade, after being tormented with name-calling like low life loner and brain queer. The mammoth divide between her fellow students stranded her on an island of self-doubt.

She would skip and go back, skip and go back. Ping and pong.

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Ever turned seven on a Sunday. She finished the crossword puzzle her mother had abandoned on the coffee table. Darla, speeding through the room on a cleaning tear, saw its completion and lit in to Bill. That god damned Barbie Doll and that Barbie house just sit there. I’m telling you right now, Bill, if her things aren’t soon played with, I’m shipping the whole playroom to the Salvation Army. I’m done with this psychiatric bullshit. She’s not normal! Admit it. Darla’s hands conducted an orchestra of irritation. "You know what she asked me today?—if Somerset Maugham was a homosexual! She should be reading Dr. Seuss, not Of Human Bondage!"

She has the smarts to make her mark on the world; you see that, right?

I’ll give you that, Bill, but she’s a strange child. Alien to both of us.

That comment just sat there.

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The lake comforted Ever as she walked away from the yelling.

Jules fished from the edge of the pier, his new Electro Brand transistor radio by his side. The Supremes’ Where Did our Love Go buttered the air. His toes skimming the water, rod in hand, he looked like a modern-day Huck Finn.

What’re you doing? Ever asked.

What do you think, Einstein? He said, not looking at her, Or shall I call you Dick? As in walking dick-tionary. Jules laughed at his joke. Anybody ever tell you that brainy chicks turn into sluts?

She recalled the word her Mother called her father. You’re an asth. She didn’t lisp; it just came out wrong.

Jules laughed. It’s ASS, stupid.

That’s not the only bad word I know, Ever said as if fluent in a second language. Shit, tit, damn, hell, fuck, cock.

Fuck me! You shouldn’t say fuck!

Learned it from you.

Jules winked at her. The best kind of day to catch is overcast, like this. He snapped his reel.

Ever shared her baggie of Oreos, scraping her teeth on the black biscuit and watching Jules toss back his catch. Jules? Do you ever feel like maybe you don’t belong to your parents?

That’s just plain ass stupid, said with a mouth full of cookies.

"I feel like Shirley Temple in The Little Princess, like my dad’s at war and then, BAM, I’m an orphan."

You’re not some chick named Shirley. Your dad travels, your parents are strange. Whose aren’t? Look, that’s why you’re seeing a shrink…because your problems need to be shrunk up.

No, it’s because I feel alone.

That’s the job of a parent, so they can feel, like, more needed or something. And that kind of talk will have you in the nut house for sure, right into the sanitarium, where your whole head is hooked up to wires, convulsing like Frankenstein.

I am different, though…from all of you.

You’re not that different. Life is supposed to suck for kids.

Something about him, a sense of sadness she couldn’t articulate, drew her near. Last summer when she fell in the McCadden driveway, he dried her tears with his flannel shirtsleeve and fed her his Snickers bar. Another time he offered a fluish Darla to take Ever trick-or-treating. But he didn’t. He and his brothers took her to a party, where, dressed as Casper, she sat in a corner, lifted her Casper mask and sipped the yellow-brown brew in the opaque plastic cup that someone had poured for her. On the way out, she filled her glow-light pumpkin with handfuls of M&M’s. Mrs. Dimitri swore she smelled beer on the child, but it was most likely the two bottles of Budweiser she secretly downed.

Hey, Jules asked, his mouth black with Oreos, Wanna see a dead fox?

They ditched the fishing poles and bait box on the lawn, parted the heavy brush with sticks and entered the woods next to the McCadden home.

Sunbeams lasered through the woods in bright wands, through the spaces between the branches. All quiet but for the yelping branches under foot. They crossed a gully on a decaying log. Jules plowed ahead, then stopped. His arm halted her like a crossing guard. And there it was, the fox—eyes open, flesh rotting, body stiff. She turned away. How’d it happen?

With a heavier stick, he flipped it over, Don’t know. Wasn’t shot. Poison maybe?

Death took him and he never saw it coming. She locked eyes with him.

"Death is part of living, stupid. Cells are dying off your body every