have the door open anyways. "I love you;' she said, and kissed me on the forehead, and tucked me in tight like a burrito but instead of cheese and came, sheets and Shelly. We spent a lot of time down by the creek that summer, catch– ing frogs and you skipping rocks and me trying. You were really good at skipping, your record was seventeen plus all those fast little skips near the end that we couldn't ever count, "Sixteen, Seventeen, EightnNinetnTwenTwentyontwentwotwenthreefourfive" and then laughlaughlaugh because my tongue turned to knots when I couldn't count that fast and you were so good at skipping rocks. My record was two, one time I came close to three. I was okay just watching, watching the water ripple when your pebbles hit it, watching tadpoles swim away so they wouldn't get hit by those huge bombs, watching that funny look on your face, one eye squinty and one tongue sticking out the side, when you swung your arm back to fling. Some odd years later both of us just turned sixteen and you only heard from your dad two times since the Dalmatian Day. Once he visited while I was there and I had to go home because he wanted to play baseball with you. An hour and a half later you showed up at my doorstep laughing because you were so much better at throwing than he was and crying because he'd gone back away without even trying to get close to you. The other time was your sixteenth birthday when he called and said "Happy birthday, Alex, check your mailbox today." We camped out in the attic until we heard the mailman come and then I followed you running down all three sets of stairs across the lawn to the mail truck and he gave you a letter with your name all scrawly. You tore it open sideways across the short part and there were three things. A check for one thousand dollars that you were close to ripping, sixteen one-dollar bills, and a note that you wouldn't let me read. So I told you happy birthday again and left again but first I gave you my lucky rock so you could get your driver's license the first try. My dad let you borrow his Buick so you didn't have to drive your mom's pick-up, and you did pass. He let you keep borrowing the 40
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