Free Dear Blue Sky by Mary Sullivan Page B

the Adamses’. They didn’t ask me inside. I stood on the doorstep, and they stood under the bright hallway light, Ben between his parents.
    â€œI’m sorry about this afternoon,” I said. I was sorry, I thought, that I didn’t pin him down harder.
    â€œBen said Jack was strangling Tigger and when he came over to save Tigger, you jumped on him,” his mother said, squeezing Ben’s shoulder. Kristen was standing at the top of the stairs. Her T-shirt was twisted into a knot, showing her belly.
    Mr. Adams shook his head and loosened his tie. His fists opened and closed. He always seemed like he was about to explode—when he was around, anyway. Most of the time he was away on business.
    â€œHe pushed Jack first and knocked him over, and Jack wasn’t strangling Tigger,” I said.
    Suddenly I could feel Sef nearby, smiling at me. “And Ben called Jack a retard. But I was the oldest one there, so I should have taken responsibility. So I’m sorry.”
    Mrs. Adams nodded and seemed satisfied with this. “All right, sweetie?” she asked Ben.
    He glared at me without saying anything.
    I smiled. “Better go do my homework. Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Adams, good night, Ben. Bye, Kristen.”
    I didn’t wait for a reply. I looked up at the black sky and sprinted across their lawn. I heard Mr. Adams’s voice, hard and low, “Ben, she’s a girl, for crissake.” I laughed and kept running fast. It was dark and the cold air smelled of smoke. I let something in my mind go and ran like I was racing Sef past the neighbors’ houses, past the trees and cornfields, into the dark. Then I saw him. His head was back, his mouth was open, and he was laughing. It was like I had been given a picture of him. I held on to it.
    I ran until I was just muscle and motion. My heart was beating so fast, and my legs and arms were pumping, and I went all the way to Turtle Pond. Sef was close—I could smell him, that cottony, sweaty smell. The stars blinked above, then I turned and jogged slowly back, letting my arms and legs shake out. My head felt like it had opened up and was part of the enormous sky, the same sky in Iraq—this blue-black yellow-gray sky. I thought about how I hadn’t cared about anything in the past weeks. Now I did. I felt part of the world, this messed-up place without Sef. I ran faster toward home.
    Finn’s Rabbit was parked on the side of the road. I stopped and ducked down so they wouldn’t see me. Van was inside, sitting almost in the driver’s seat. Finn lifted a bottle to his mouth and drank. Then he passed the bottle to Van. She held it in front of her as if she didn’t know what to do, then threw her head back and drank. When she was done, she shook her head fiercely back and forth. Her body shuddered. I couldn’t see her face.
    â€œVan,” I wanted to call. “Van, what are you doing?”
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    When I got out of the shower, I saw Van tiptoeing back into the house. She came up the stairs and stared at me in my towel.
    â€œI hate it here,” she said. Her words hit me like stones. Then she went into our room and fell asleep on top of her bed in all her clothes and makeup.
    I felt an ache inside because she seemed so far away. I unzipped her long black boots and pulled them off. I slipped them on my own feet, tucking my jeans inside like she wore them, but they looked stupid, so I took them off. I took my comforter and put it on top of Van.
    I went into Sef’s room. Jack was finally out of his camouflage outfit and asleep in Sef’s bed with a Robert Frost book upside down on his chest. His favorite poem was “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” He couldn’t read, but every night before bed he’d say the lines he’d memorized: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go