Harvey’s teacher said, “Really? Really?” when she thought you were lying. “So you already did your work,” she would say. “Really? You really want me to believe that?” And they did want her to believe that, because she is the youngest teacher at the school and has a convertible and a boyfriend who makes beer. Somebody asked did her boyfriend know she always eats lunch with Mr. Stone, the man who teaches second grade and runs the summer camp Harvey’s mom is making him go to. The same kid asked why didn’t she dump her boyfriend and go with Mr. Stone. She already has everything anybody wants, a car and a dog—a pit bull mix named Suzy—but Mr. Stone can dance and wears cool shoes.

Harvey kisses Peggy and smells inside her big soft ear. He keeps his eyes closed and pulls Peggy tight when he hears the back door open and close. He knew it would. Peggy doesn’t wake up and Harvey’s mom doesn’t wake up. Just Harvey knows someone’s in the house and in the hall, and whoever it is stops and stands in the door, just like last time. He wants to look but is scared to, because there is some ghosts that’ll blind you for looking and cut out your tongue too, so he just breathes real quiet into Peggy’s soft ear and waits.

Lil

November 28, 1969
Newton, Massachusetts

It’s snowing, and we’re supposed to have over a foot by morning. Frank and the kids are watching something on television, one of those old monster movies I hate, but I like hearing their screams and laughter. I’m on the back porch, wrapped in a blanket and counting the minutes. Twelve short minutes, but how unbearably long they must have been to those trapped. Inside my cigarette case is a note from the children: These will kill you. “Yes,” I say, and light one in anticipation of the 12-minute wait. “So many things will.”

That night in November, my mother was going to teach a dance class, something she did more and more often at Arthur Murray, where she began by just filling in for a friend. She knew all the dances of the time, and when she couldn’t convince my father to practice with her, she would let me; sometimes I saw her practicing there in the living room, right hand extended, as if to an invisible partner. She loved to dance, and she loved getting paid to do it, telling my father and me that whatever she brought home was “mad money” to go to the movies or on a vacation.