“Now you’re going to start hating your brother, Sister? That’s the ticket now? You’re going to believe what these sapsuckers tell you about your brother? I’ll tell you one goddamn thing. He’s got more spunk and guts than this whole goddamn place and all its teachers put together. He’s down there in Knoxville playing with the varsity team at night and taking care of his family and running one of the mines for me on the weekends.”

“He lost his scholarship.”

“We don’t need any goddamn scholarships, Sister. He wouldn’t tell on his fraternity brothers. Just like I’ve tried to teach you all your life. You don’t tell on your friends, Sister. But you’re a tattletale anyway. Always have been. I guess you’d have just gone on and told their names.”

“He let people copy off of him in tests. He cheated, Daddy.”

“Sister, finish up that cake and let’s get out of here. I’ve got to drive three hundred miles tonight and I’m tired. You make a fellow very tired, Sweet Sister.” He stood up and put a tip on the table and picked up the check. He took three one-hundred-dollar bills out of his billfold and laid them on the table and said, “That’s for clearing up everything down here before you leave. You’ve got the map I gave you, haven’t you? Your mother will be waiting for you. Dudley and Annie will be in their new house by the time you get there. It’s right around the corner. Little Ariane’s the cutest little girl you ever saw in your life. Well, come on, let’s get out of here.”

I stood up beside him. He was so beautiful, so perfect, so powerful and impossible and brave. Nothing I would ever do would make him love me.

“I won the five-hundred-yard freestyle and the hundred-yard breaststroke. Did Momma tell you?”

“Good for you, Sister. What happened in the butterfly? You let them take you to the cleaners there, didn’t you?”

“I swam the five hundred in six forty-two point three in practice. I couldn’t believe I did it.”

“Did you read about that new Channel swimmer in England? She broke the men’s record last week. Well, hurry up, Sweetie, I’ve got to get on the road.”

* * *