BooksBarbecue
Back At Dawn
Chapters (39)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
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  39. Copyright

I nodded. “I was thinking of my favorite birthday, which was when I turned seven. My mother organized this big party at the little park in our town, invited all my friends from school, made a big cake, bought a piñata, the whole nine yards. It was only a few months after my grandmother had died, and I think half the reason she made it so big was to keep herself occupied. Everyone came, even kids I barely knew. There were all these swings and slides and stuff, and I remember my mom bought me a baseball glove while my dad got me a silver Easton bat and a ball to go with it. And then my dad and I played catch, or tried to anyhow, but of course I wasn’t very good yet. And from out of nowhere, these huge, dark clouds moved in, but neither of us cared and we just kept throwing the ball while the adults scurried to clean. Then it started to pour, and with the rain came loud claps of thunder and lightning. Everyone else huddled beneath the pavilion, but my dad and I just kept throwing the ball. I could barely even catch the damn thing, couldn’t throw it more than twenty feet, but we kept at it until my mom finally made us come in.”

“Sounds like a fun birthday,” Carolyn said. “Why were you thinking about that one?”

“I’m not really sure.”

Carolyn rolled toward me. In the distance I could hear a train. The wind came in and padded over the bed.

“Mmmm. That breeze feels good,” she said.

“Yeah, it does.”

She started kissing my neck, ran her hand from the side of my face down to my chest.

“Well, this year we’ll make sure you have a great birthday,” she said, “even better than that one.”

I meant to respond but the train started passing, shaking everything inside. More plaster rattled from the hole above the desk and tumbled down the bowels of the wall. I closed my eyes, listening to the train and the wind and the plaster.

2

The first request came at the end of the month. I walked to the library to check my email, something I was doing several times a day then. I had seven new messages, but my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I read the subject line: “Your Query—As Far as the Eye Can See.” I began to shake with excitement. In total, I had received twenty-nine rejections and was losing heart fast. Hell, I had begun to panic. And now here it was! I opened the email.

Dear Mr. Brown,