The memory isn’t complete. He doesn’t have a picture of the lake in his mind like a postcard, the slow tilt of water and pale blue sky, the drone of insects. He doesn’t remember the rush of his swing, the feeling of perfect timing, letting go of the rope at the very apex of his swing. He doesn’t recall the feel of the road sand, like sugar, between his toes, the coarse fiber of the old rope.

Instead, he remembers Lester choking back his tears, how he tried to match his steps with Simon’s. How Lester wanted to hold his hand on the trail but not on the road. Simon threw the towel over his shoulder and held Lester’s hand, smudged and sticky from crying. The path was wide enough for them both. He remembers looking at their feet, getting harder and harder throughout the summer, from the sun and sand, and constant walking without shoes. He remembers Lester’s little feet next to his, padding along, content now that Simon was safe, content with his hand nestled in Simon’s. He remembers that the trees bent over them, and the brush held back and kept from slapping their bare legs.

They turned onto the dirt road and Lester dropped his hand, and though Simon was only eleven years old, he knew that Lester had pride. He didn’t say anything as his younger brother let go of his hand, but walked close to him, his arm brushing Simon’s leg, his knee hitting his calf, as if he were blind, and the casual touches kept him on the road. He said nothing as Lester dropped his hand. This is what he remembers, not the swim, nor the trees so much. Not going back home. Just Lester’s hand, his studied love. His hidden admiration. His little, little hands.

21

The truck hums and whines and the fire walls have rusted through around the welds so that every ripple in the beaten dirt road cause them to rattle and jitter. The interior lights are dim and the brights are off as the road unspools through the trees. The radio is silent and the windows half down to clear the smoke of four cigarettes that drop ash, only to be cupped and borne up by the wind. Road dust sweeps in the windows and puffs through the rust-weakened floor, an offering that sticks in their hair and coats their throats.

It is April and quiet as the pickup bumps along in the dark. A human quiet. As if the recent thaw that pushes the river higher on its banks and draws the fish from the lake bottoms into the swift gravel flats chokes out human sound, voices and whispers, sounds that are far shorter and mean less than the long cough of the river and the truck.