Free Keeper'n Me by Richard Wagamese

walking again without comment.
    â€œWhat’re you thinkin’, little brother?” Jane asked finally.
    â€œThinking? Lots at the same time, I guess.”
    â€œMe too,” Stanley said, stooping to pick up a flat rock. He skimmed it over the lake. “We used to do this.”
    â€œWhat?” I asked.
    â€œThis.” He picked up another rock. “The four of us. You, me, Jackie’n Jane.”
    He cupped the rock in his hand and with a spinning sidearm motion hurled it in a high, wide arc over thewater. The wild spinning of the rock continued right through its climb and down into its entry into the water. It hit with a dull plop instead of a splash. The sound made me laugh.
    They were both grinning at me.
    â€œYou always did that,” Jane said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œEvery time those rocks landed in the water you always giggled just like that. I remember. You always got a big kick out of that sound.”
    â€œWhen was this?”
    â€œYou were only about three,” Stanley said, sending another rock spinning into the air. “We’d go for walks in the bush and wind up at this little creek had a big beaver pond in it. The four of us. You’d sit on a log and watch as we chucked rocks into that beaver pond. Jackie was the one who first made that sound and when you heard it you laughed just like you did just now. Cracked us all up. We rolled around on the shore of that beaver pond and laughed till our guts were sore. So we got into this kinda contest makin’ them sounds to find out who could make you laugh the most.”
    â€œYeah. And Jackie’n Stanley even worked up a scorin’ system. Had somethin’ to do with height, I think. The higher you could make that rock go spinning up and still get that ploppin’ sound, the more points you got. I think I won.”
    â€œYou never won,” Stanley said. “Was me! Losin’ your mem’ry in your old age?” He ducked Jane’s playful slap.
    â€œAnyway, little bro’, you just kinda sat there’n laughed all the time. Useta make us all real happy. Funny how you laugh the same way after all this time,” Jane said.
    â€œYou guys remember all this like it was yesterday or something,” I said quietly.
    â€œHey-yuh,” said Stanley.
    â€œYes,” Jane said, quietly too.
    â€œWish I could. I don’t remember anything. It’s weird. I believe you and everything, but there’s this part of me that thinks there’s some kind of scam going on here and I’m the patsy.”
    â€œThere’s no scam, Garnet,” Stanley said. “Nobody here wants anythin’ from you. We all want lots
for
you but nothin’
from
you.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œWell,” Jane said, “we all kinda want for you to wanna come home. To be with us again. We all kinda want for you to be happy. And we all kinda want for you to want all that for yourself.”
    â€œI don’t know what I want, really.”
    â€œYou wanna be here?” Jane asked.
    â€œI don’t know. I’m not sure why I even came here.”
    â€œMaybe you’re s’posed to stick around and find that out,” Stanley said.
    â€œMaybe. Maybe I am.” I thought for a bit. “You know how sometimes when you get to the end of a jigsaw puzzle and you think you got it licked. Then you find out that someone lost a couple pieces on you. Pisses you off, eh?”
    â€œYeah, it does,” Stanley agreed, looking at me a little more intensely.
    â€œWell, that’s kinda how I felt all my life. Pissed off because someone lost a few pieces of my puzzle—my life. Tried to make other pieces fit but they never did. Pissed me off more. Now I’m here with two pieces of that puzzle right in front of me and I don’t even know if I wanna use ’em. Does that make any kind of sense at all?”
    â€œAll kinds,” Jane said, putting an arm around my