Jill sleeps late. At quarter of ten Rabbit is rinsing his cereal bowl and coffee cup and Nelson is at the kitchen screen door, red-faced from pumping his bicycle. “Hey, Dad!”

“Shh.”

“Why?”

“Your noise hurts my head.”

“Did you get drunk last night?”

“What sort of talk is that? I never get drunk.”

“Mrs. Fosnacht cried after you left.”

“Probably because you and Billy are such brats.”

“She said you were going to meet somebody in Brewer.”

She shouldn’t be telling kids things like that. These divorced women, turn their sons into little husbands: cry, shit, and change Tampax right in front of them. “Some guy I work with at Verity. We listened to some colored woman play the piano and then I came home.”

“We stayed up past twelve o’clock watching a wicked neat movie about guys landing somewhere in boats that open up in front, some place like Norway—”

“Normandy.”

“That’s right. Were you there?”

“No, I was your age when it happened.”

“You could see the machine gun bullets making the water splash up all in a row, it was a blast.”

“Hey, try to keep your voice down.”

“Why, Dad? Is Mommy back? Is she?”

“No. Have you had any breakfast?”

“Yeah, she gave us bacon and French toast. I learned how to make it, it’s easy, you just smash some eggs and take bread and fry it, I’ll make you some sometime.”

“Thanks. My mother used to make it.”

“I hate her cooking. Everything tastes greasy. Didn’t you used to hate her cooking, Dad?”

“I liked it. It was the only cooking I knew.”

“Billy Fosnacht says she’s dying, is she?”

“She has a disease. But it’s very slow. You’ve seen how she is. She may get better. They have new things for it all the time.”

“I hope she does die, Dad.”

“No you don’t. Don’t say that.”

“Mrs. Fosnacht tells Billy you should say everything you feel.”

“I’m sure she tells him a lot of crap.”

“Why do you say crap? I think she’s nice, once you get used to her eyes. Don’t you like her, Dad? She thinks you don’t.”

“Peggy’s O.K. What’s on your schedule? When was the last time you went to Sunday school?”

The boy circles around to place himself in his father’s view. “There’s a reason I rushed home. Mr. Fosnacht is going to take Billy fishing on the river in a boat some guy he knows owns and Billy asked if I could come along and I said I’d have to ask you. O.K., Dad? I had to come home anyway to get a bathing suit and clean pants, that fucking mini-bike got these all greasy.”

All around him, Rabbit hears language collapsing. He says weakly, “I didn’t know there was fishing in the river.”

“They’ve cleaned it up, Ollie says. At least above Brewer. He says they stock it with trout up around Eifert’s Island.”

Ollie, is it? “That’s hours from here. You’ve never fished. Remember how bored you were with the ball game we took you to.”