The Slow Moon by Elizabeth Cox Page B

the air, then at the boy who hit it.
    For the next few weeks everyone chose Bobby for their team and treated him like a treasure. Crow told him, “I knew you could hit it. I knew you could hit the ball like that.”
    On that same day, when Tom Canady mentioned his big brother, who was then in high school, Bobby bragged that he also had a big brother, but that his brother lived in Florida. “I didn’t see him in a long time,” said Bobby.
    “You mean your brother never lived with you?” Tom asked.
    Bobby hated being an only child. The world felt saddest when he woke early and knew he was the only one in the house awake. He had Dog, and sometimes Dog was enough. But he thought about having brothers and sisters around, waking each other. He imagined peeking under the eyelids of a brother, there where the waking-up started in the skull’s base and moved up like smoke in the wide trees of the brain. Whenever he imagined other children in the house he felt “on fire,” his dreams coming true in a moment, then, just as quickly, the wind blowing and blowing until all the smoke was gone and faces disappeared in the shadows.
    “He lives in Florida, I said,” Bobby told them. “He’s a lot older.”
    For much of the first year his classmates believed him, and at night Bobby sank into the ease he felt when he thought of himself with a brother. He felt lucky to have a big brother, he said, and claimed that his brother had taught him how to hit a ball. Everyone knew Bobby’s father was dead, so Bobby never mentioned him.
    Some mornings Bobby woke and vomited before school. He was popular and even had a best friend, Crow, but he felt constantly anxious that his lie about a brother might be exposed.
    The inevitable moment came the summer before the boys entered second grade. The boys were swimming at the river, and only a moment earlier Crow had swung from a rope and landed in the water. As he swam back to shore, Tom yelled at Bobby that he didn’t believe he had a brother at all. “Your father’s dead, and I heard your mama say that you were her only child.”
    Bobby managed to control his tears by standing very still. Aurelia Bailey went to stand between Bobby and Tom. “What’s the matter with you two?” she yelled. She had heard the boys arguing.
    Tom repeated his accusation.
    Aurelia looked stung. Now it was abundantly clear to her why Bobby kept a framed picture of his older cousin in his room.
    “So he doesn’t have a brother at all,” said Tom. “He can’t have one. He just told a lie. Are you a liar or what?” Then he yelled, “Liar!”
    They stood in a circle and Bobby covered his face with his hands. Aurelia leaned to touch his back, but he pulled away from her. The river shuddered under the sun as Crow emerged dripping, wiping his face with a towel.
    “I’ve seen his brother,” said Crow, and Bobby put out his tongue and tasted his tears. “I saw him one time.”
    “Yeah?” said Tom. “Where? What’s his name?”
    Crow looked at Mrs. Bailey.
    “His name’s Vincent,” Aurelia said, and Bobby’s sad white features lifted. “His name is Vincent, but we call him Vinny.”
    Crow held his towel in midair. “Yeah,” he said.
    Tom walked off. He still didn’t believe it, but couldn’t go against Mrs. Bailey.
    Crow smiled at Bobby. Both boys smelled like mice.
    “Wanna swim?” Crow said. Sun and shadow dappled the ground, and the river played havoc with midday light. The world was wild and suddenly beautiful.
    “Sure.” They ran into the water laughing and pushing each other.
    Aurelia Bailey wrapped her arms around her waist and took a breath. She wanted to laugh out loud at the shenanigans of boys, but a gnawing sensation kept her from it. She stood haunted, trying to smile, caught up now in her son’s wish for a different truth. She didn’t know how that different truth might expose itself.
                      
    In mid-January Bobby had driven out to Mr. Hollis’s house.