Free The Dream Life of Astronauts by Patrick Ryan Page B

house.
    “Come on,” I said, and started walking.
    We crossed the yard. I hopped the fence and watched Ike climb up one side of it and down the other. Then we made our way out into the field. He walked with his hands in his pockets, taking extra steps to keep up with me. What would it be like, I wondered, to have friends who weren’t half-pints, or half-wits, or old people? What would it be like, at seventeen, to know other girls—just
one
other girl—who would want to spend time together without having to talk about every stupid thing under the sun? I had to remind myself sometimes that I’d once lived in a town a whole county away, in an apartment down the street from a school my mom would send me off to and tell me to behave at, and I had friends in that town, and we made dollhouses out of Saltine boxes and stole Cokes from the drugstore and changed the secret password every week for the club we’d formed that we didn’t want anyone else to join (not that anyone else even knew about it, since the club was secret). I had to remind myself sometimes that I’d had that life. That I’d had almost seven years of schooling, in a real school. That if my dad hadn’t taken off and my mom hadn’t gotten sick, I wouldn’t be here at all.
    When we got to the pond, Ike climbed right up on the lightning-struck tree that was sunk down into the water. He said, “You catch fish in here?”
    I leaned against the trunk. “There aren’t any fish. Mosquitoes, but no fish.”
    He was peering down at the water like he was trying to spot fish, never mind what I’d told him, and he had his fingers on some kind of pendant hanging from his neck. I asked what it was.
    “My mom gave it to me.”
    I asked if I could see it.
    Without hesitating, he pulled the chain over his head and reached down to hand it to me.
    The pendant had one round edge and one jagged edge and was stamped with words.
The Lord between thee we are one another.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I said.
    “Her half’s got the other words,” he said. “It’s a prayer.”
    I let the necklace pool in my hand and bounced it up and down a little. I knew that with a toss I could have it out in the middle of the pond. With a toss, I could ruin his day.
    I handed it back to him and started walking. “That’s the pond,” I said.
    He followed me, and by the time I reached the garden he was already starting up the porch steps, calling for Gary.
    —
    M r. Merrick took his time sending the feed sacks over. I carried buckets of water out to the troughs for the cows, and worked in the garden, and watched Gary and Ike playing in the yard. They’d hide from each other and find each other. They’d sit in Mr. Beal’s Nova and steer and make noises. I pulled every weed I could find, but the garden still looked ragged.
    At dinner, Mrs. Beal would ask us how our day had been, and Gary would tell her everything he and Ike had done together. Then she’d ask what I’d done and I’d say I’d worked and waited for the feed. On the fourth night, while Mrs. Beal was in the kitchen cutting up dessert, Mr. Beal mentioned how he’d met Ike’s father once and how he was a respectable man. “He had an eye for chickens,” he said. “He could always pick the winners at a 4-H fair.”
    I half-suspected he was making this up and had, in fact, never met Ike’s dad. “That’s not so hard,” I said. “A fat chicken looks like a fat chicken.”
    For a moment, the only sound was what was coming through the windows: field crickets and frogs.
    Ike looked at me with half his face scrunched up. “Where’s
your
dad?”
    “Somewhere else. Like your mom.”
    “Hannah.” Mr. Beal shifted in his chair. “Why don’t you go see if Mother needs any help?”
    In the kitchen, Mrs. Beal was sinking a big knife into a pound cake, making slices for the plates she’d laid out. I leaned against the wall by the back door. The kitchen was painted yellow and it made the one lightbulb seem