And that was something he didn’t understand. That was something that had his chest getting all tight and achy.

“I know about that,” she repeated. “A boy your age doesn’t get a lot of say, a lot of choices. They’ll come, but at this stage you just don’t have them. You can make the best out of what you’ve got, or be miserable.”

“I just want to go home.” He hadn’t meant to say it, only to think it. But the words came right out, pushing out of that tight, achy chest.

She shifted her gaze back to his. “Honey, I know. I know you do. I wish I could do that for you. You may not believe me, you don’t know me very well so you may not, but I really want to give you what you want.”

It wasn’t a matter of belief, it was that she talked to him. Actually talked as if he mattered. So the words, and the misery with them, just bubbled out of him.

“They just sent me away, and I didn’t do anything wrong.” Tears rose into his voice. “They didn’t want me to go with them. They didn’t want me.”

“We do. I know that’s not much comfort to you right now. But you know that, you believe that. Maybe sometime later in your life, you’ll need a place. You know you’ll always have one here.”

He spoke the worst. The worst that hid inside him. “They’re going to get a divorce.”

“Yes, I expect you’re right about that.”

He blinked and stared, because he’d expected her to say that wasn’t true, he’d expected her to pretend everything would be fine. “Then what’ll happen to me?”

“You’ll get through it.”

“They don’t love me.”

“We do. We do,” she said, firmly, when he lowered his head again and shook it. “First because you’re blood. You’re kin. And second, just because.”

When two tears plopped on his plate, Lucy kept talking. “I can’t speak for what they feel, what they think. But I can say something about what they do. I’m so mad at them. I’m so mad at them for hurting you. People will say it’s just one summer, it’s not the end of the world. But people who say that don’t remember what it’s like to be eleven. I can’t make you happy to be here, Cooper, but I’m going to ask you for something. For just one thing, and maybe it’s a hard thing for you. I’m going to ask you to try.”

“Everything’s different here.”

“It sure is. But you might find something in the different you like. And the backside of August won’t seem so far away if you do. You do that, Cooper, you give it a real good try, and I’ll talk your grandpa into getting us a new television set. One that doesn’t need those rabbit ears.”

He sniffled. “What if I try and I still don’t like anything?”

“Trying’s enough, if you mean it.”

“How long do I have to try before the new TV?”

She laughed, full and hard, and for some reason the sound of it made his lips curve and his chest loosen up. “That’s a boy. Good for you. Two weeks, we’ll say. Two weeks of brooding, now two weeks of trying. You make a real effort, and you’ll have that new TV set in the parlor, you betcha. Is that a deal?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“All right. Why don’t you go out now, find your grandpa. He’s got some project going out there, and he might need a hand.”

“Okay.” He got to his feet. Later, he wouldn’t know why it spewed out. “They yell a lot, and they don’t even know I’m there when they do. He’s having sex with somebody else. I think he does that a lot.”

Lucy blew out a long breath. “Are you listening at keyholes, boy?”

“Sometimes. But sometimes they’re yelling about it, and I don’t have to try to hear. They never listen to me when I talk. They pretend to sometimes, and sometimes they don’t even pretend. They don’t care if I like anything, as long as I’m quiet and out of their way.”

“That’s different here, too.”

“I guess. Maybe.”

He didn’t know what to think as he walked outside. No adult had ever talked to him that way, or listened to him that way. He’d never heard anybody criticize his parents-well, except each other.

She’d said they wanted him. No one had ever said that to him before. She said it even when she knew he didn’t want them, and it didn’t feel like she’d said it to make him feel bad. It felt like she’d said it because it was true.

He stopped, looked around. He could try, sure, but what could he find to like around here? A bunch of horses and pigs and chickens. A bunch of fields and hills and nothing.

He liked her flapjacks, but he didn’t think that’s what she meant.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and headed around to the far side of the house where he heard banging. Now he was going to have to hang around with his strange, mostly silent grandfather. How was he supposed to like that?

He cut around, and saw Sam over by the big barn with the white silo. And what Sam was hammering into the ground with some kind of metal stakes had Coop speechless.

A batting cage.

He wanted to run, just fly across the dirt yard. But made himself walk. Maybe it just looked like a batting cage. It could be something for the animals.

Sam glanced up, took another whack at the stake. “Late on your chores.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fed the stock, but you’re going to need to get the eggs right soon.”

“Grandma said you needed help with a project.”

“Nope. ’Bout done.” With the little sledgehammer in hand, Sam straightened up, stepped back. He studied the fence cage in silence.

“Eggs aren’t going to jump in the pail on their own,” he said at length.

“No, sir.”

“Might be,” he drawled as Coop turned to go, “I could pitch you a few after chores are done.” Sam walked over, picked up a bat he’d leaned against the side of the barn. “You can use this. Just finished it last night.”

Baffled, Cooper took the bat, ran his hands along the smooth wood. “You made it?”

“Don’t see no reason for store-bought.”

“It… it has my name on it.” Reverently, Coop traced his fingers over the name etched in the wood.

“That’s how you know it’s yours. You plan on getting those eggs sometime today?”

“Yes, sir.” He handed the bat back to Sam. “Thank you.”

“You ever get tired of being so damn polite, boy?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sam’s lips twitched. “Go on.”

Coop started to run toward the chicken house, stopped, turned back. “Grandpa? Will you teach me how to ride a horse?”

“Get your chores done. We’ll see.”

THERE WERE some things he liked, at least a little. He liked hitting the ball after supper, and the way his grandpa would surprise him every few pitches with crazy, exaggerated windups. He liked riding Dottie, the little mare, around the corral-at least once he’d gotten over being worried about being kicked or bitten.

Horses didn’t really smell after you got to like them a little, or ride them without being scared shitless.

He liked watching the lightning storm that came one night like an ambush and slashed and burned the sky. He even liked, sometimes, a little, sitting at his bedroom window and looking out. He still missed New York, and his friends, his life, but it was interesting to see so many stars, and to hear the house hum in the quiet.

He didn’t like the chickens, the way they smelled or sounded, or the evil glint in their eyes when he went in to gather eggs. But he liked the eggs just fine, whether they were cooked up for breakfast or stirred into batter and dough for cakes and cookies.

There were always cookies in his grandmother’s big glass jar.

He didn’t like when people came to visit, or he rode into town with his grandparents, the way they’d size him up and say things like, So, this is Missy’s boy! (his mother, christened Michelle, went by Chelle in New York). And they’d say how he was the spitting image of his grandfather. Who was old.

He liked seeing the Chance truck ramble toward the farmhouse, even if Lil was a girl.

She played ball, and didn’t spend all her time giggling like a lot of the girls he knew. She didn’t listen to New Kids on the Block all the time and make girly eyes over them. That was a plus.