It had already happened before. Some nights she would get small and scared, convinced that anything good in her life was about to disappear and she wouldn't be able to stop it. I called it her "night fears." She was the first to admit that they were stupid and that it was pure masochism on her part, but she couldn't help it. She said the worst part was that they'd come most often when she was either completely happy or in-the-pits sad and depressed.

While I held her, I wondered if I'd done something to bring them on this time. I went through a two-second instant replay of the night at Anna's house. Uh-oh; the cold shoulder from Anna. The lousy food. No definite answer on the biography. The casual flirting between Anna and me. What a schmuck I was. I hugged Saxony to me and kept kissing the top of her head. The rubbing and touching and guilt made me want her very much. I rolled her gently onto her back and slid her nightgown up.

6

The next morning the sun sneaked into the room and on across the bed about seven o'clock. It woke me with its heat on my face. I hate to get up early when it's not necessary, so I scrooched around and tried to find a shady spot. But Saxony had Scotch-taped herself to me during the night, so moving was hard.

To top it all off, the door creaked open, Nails trotted in, and leaped up onto the bed. I felt like the three of us were on a life raft in the middle of the ocean, because we were all three huddled up together in the middle of the bed, leaning on the nearest body. I haven't mentioned my claustrophobia before, but sealed in between two hot bodies, the sun frying my head, the sheet wrapped around my feet… I decided that it was time to get up. I patted Nails on the head and gave him a little push. He growled. I thought that it was just a little morning grouchiness, so I patted him again and pushed him again. He growled louder. We looked at each other over a thin pink wave of blanket, but bull terriers have absolutely no expression on their faces, so you never know what's what with them.

"Nice Nails. Good boy."

"Why is he growling at you? What did you do to him?" Saxony cuddled a little closer, and I could feel her warm breath on my neck.

"I didn't do anything. I just gave him a little push so that I could get up."

"Wow. Do you think that you should do it again?"

"How do I know? How do I know he won't bite me?" I looked over at her, and she blinked.

"No, Thomas, I don't think so. He likes you. Remember yesterday?" She sounded convinced.

"Oh, yeah? Well, today's today, and your arm's not in jeopardy."

"Then do you plan on staying here all morning?" She smiled and rubbed the flat of her palm across her nose. Thank God she'd snapped back from last night. "Tommy is a chick-en…"

I looked at Nails and he looked at me. A standoff. The tip of his prune-black nose poked up from behind one of his paws.

"Mrs. Fletch-er!"

"Oh, come on, Thomas, don't do that! What if she's still asleep?"

"Too had. I ain't gonna get bit. Niiiice Nailsy, good boy! Mrs. Fletch-er!"

We heard footsteps, and a second before she popped her head into the room, Nails jumped off the bed to greet her.

Saxony started laughing and pulled the pillow over her head.

"Yes? Good morning."

"Good morning. Uh, well, Nails was up on the bed and I gave him a little push because I wanted to get up, you see, and, uh, he sort of growled at me. I was afraid that he might mean it."

"Who, Nails? Naah, never. Watch this." He stood next to her but kept looking at us on the bed. She lifted a foot and gave him a little shove sideways. Without looking at her he growled. He also kept wagging his tail.

"What do you two want for breakfast? I decided to throw it in for you on your first day. I bet you haven't done any shopping, have you, Saxony?"

I sat up and pushed my hands through my hair. "You don't have to do that. It's easy for us –"

"I know I don't have to do anything. What would you like? I make good pancakes and sausages. Yeah, why don't you have my pancakes and sausages."

We decided to have pancakes and sausages. She left the room and Nails jumped back up on the bed. He climbed over my legs and settled down halfway across Saxony's stomach.

"Are you okay this morning, Sporty?" I asked.

"Yes. I just get crazy at night sometimes. I start thinking that everything is going to go wrong, or that you'll go away soon… things like that. I've been doing it all my life. I think it's just because I'm overtired now. Usually the next morning everything is okay again."

"You've got a little split personality in you, huh?" I pulled a lock of hair away from her eyes.

"Yes, completely. I know what's going on in me when it happens, but there's nothing I can do to stop it." There was a pause, and she took my hand. "Do you think I'm crazy, Thomas? Do you hate me when it happens?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Sax. You know me by now – if I hated you, I would have gotten away from you. Stop thinking that way." I squeezed her hand and stuck out my tongue at her. She pulled the pillow over her head, and Nails tried to shove his head under there with her.

I looked out the window, and the garden was all sunny and moving back and forth in the wind. Bees hovered over some of the plants, and a redbird lit on the porch railing not three feet away.

Early morning in Galen, Missouri. A few cars drove by, and I yawned. Then a little kid passed, licking an ice-cream cone and running his free hand along the top of Mrs. Fletcher's fence. Tom Sawyer with a bright green pistachio cone. I dreamily watched him and wondered how anyone could eat ice cream at eight o'clock in the morning.

Without looking either way, the boy started across the street and was instantly punched into the air by a pickup truck. The truck was moving fast, so he was thrown far beyond the view from our window. When he disappeared, he was still going up.

"Holy shit!" I snatched my pants off a chair and ran for the door. I heard Saxony call, but I didn't stop to explain. It was the second time I'd seen someone hit by a car. Once in New York, and the person landed right on his head. Going down the porch steps two at a time, I thought how unreal these goddamned things looked. One minute a person's there, talking to a friend or eating a green ice-cream cone. The next thing you know you've heard a fast thump and there's a body sailing away through the air.

The driver was out of the truck and stooped over the body. The first thing I saw when I got there was the green ice cream, half-covered with dirt and pebbles and already beginning to melt on the black pavement.

No one else was around. I came up to the man and hesitantly peered over his shoulder. He smelled of sweat and human heat. The boy was on his side on the ground, his legs splayed apart in such a way that he looked as if he'd been stop-framed, running. He was bleeding from the mouth and his eyes were wide open. No, one of his eyes was wide open; the other was half-shut and fluttering.

"Is there anything I can do? I'll call an ambulance, okay? I mean, you stay here and I'll go call the ambulance."

The man turned around, and I recognized him from the barbecue. One of the cooks at the grill. One of the big jokers.

"All this is wrong. I knew it, though. Yeah, sure, go get that ambulance. I can't tell nothin' yet." His face was pinched and frightened as hell, but the tone of his voice was what surprised me. It was half-angry, half-self-pitying. There was no fear there at all. No remorse either. It had to be shock: horrible events make people act crazy and say mad things. The poor fool was probably realizing that the rest of his life was now shadowed, no matter what happened to the boy. He'd have the guilt of having run over a child to live with for the next fifty years. God, I pitied him.