Boys Life

than several occasions. But eventually it creaked under my weight, and my hands didn’t seem to fit on the grips anymore. It was consigned to the basement, under a blue tarp. I imagined it went to sleep like a bird. One weekend I returned from college to find that Mom had had a garage sale, which included the contents of the basement. And here’s your money a fella paid for your old bike! she’d said as she handed me a twenty-dollar bill. He bought it for his own boy, isn’t that grand, Cory? Cory? Isn’t that grand?
    It’s grand, I’d told my mother. And that night I put my head on my dad’s shoulder and cried as if I were twelve again instead of twenty.
    My heart stutters.
    There it is. Right there.
    “My house,” I tell Sandy and Skye.
    It has aged, under sun and rain. It needs paint and care. It needs love, but it is empty now. I stop the car at the curb, and I stare at the porch and see my father suddenly emerge smiling from the front door. He looks strong and fit, like he always does when I remember him.
    “Hey, Cory!” he says. “How ya gettin’ along?”
    Just fine, sir, I answer.
    “I knew you would be. I did all right, didn’t I?”
    Yes sir, you did, I say.
    “Sure do have a pretty wife and a good daughter, Cory. And those books of yours! I knew you were gonna do well, all the time I knew it.”
    Dad? Do you want me to come in and stay awhile?
    “Come in here?” He leans against the porch column. “Why would you want to do that, Cory?”
    Aren’t you lonely? I mean… it’s so quiet here.
    “Quiet?” He laughs heartily. “Sometimes I wish it was quiet! It’s not a bit of quiet here!”
    But… it’s empty. Isn’t it?
    “It’s full to the brim,” my father says. He looks up at the sun, over the hills of spring. “You don’t have to come here to see them, Cory. Or to see me, either. You really don’t. You don’t have to leave what is, to visit what was. You’ve got a good life, Cory. Better than I dreamed. How’s your mom doin’?”
    She’s happy. I mean, she misses you, but…
    “But life is for the livin’,” he tells me in his fatherly voice. “Now go on and get on with it instead of wantin’ to come in an old house with a saggy floor.”
    Yes sir, I say, but I can’t leave yet.
    He starts to go in, but he pauses, too. “Cory?” he says.
    Yes sir?
    “I’ll always love you. Always. And I’ll always love your mother, and I am so very happy for the both of you. Do you understand?”
    I nod.
    “You’ll always be my boy,” Dad says, and then he returns to the house and the porch is empty.
    “Cory? Cory?”
    I turn my face and look at Sandy.
    “What do you see?” she asks me.
    “A shadow,” I say.
    I want to go one more place before I turn the car around and drive away. I head us up the winding path of Temple Street, toward the Thaxter mansion at its summit.
    Here things have really changed.
    Some of the big houses have actually been torn down. Where they were is rolling grass. And here is another surprise: the Thaxter mansion has grown, sprouting additions on either side. The property around it is huge. My God! I realize. Vernon must still live there! I drive through a gate and past a big swimming pool. A treehouse has been constructed in the arms of a massive oak. The mansion itself is immaculate, the grounds beautiful, and smaller buildings have been constructed in its style.
    I stop the car in front. “I can’t believe this!” I tell Sandy. “I’ve gotta find out if Vernon’s still here!”
    I get out and start for the front door, my insides quaking with excitement.
    But before I reach it, I hear a bell ring. Ding… ding… ding… ding.
    I hear what sounds like a tidal wave, gaining speed and force.
    And my breath is well and truly swept away.
    Because here they come.
    Swarming out of the front door, like wasps from the nest in the church’s ceiling on Easter Sunday. Here they come, laughing and hollering and jostling each other. Here they come, in a wonderful riot of noise.
    The boys. Dozens of them, dozens. Some white, some black. Their numbers surge around me, as if I am an island in the river. Some of them run for the treehouse, others scamper across the rolling green yard. I am at the center of a young universe, and then I see the brass plaque on the wall next to the door.
    It says THE ZEPHYR HOME FOR BOYS.
    Vernon’s mansion has become an orphanage.
    And still they stream out around me, furious in their freedom on this glorious