Shame

began to vibrate. Caleb could see the train’s light as it drew nearer. People who’d had near-death experiences often talked about the great white light they had seen. Caleb could almost imagine that was what he was looking at. All he had to do was focus on the light. It wouldn’t even be necessary for him to step onto the tracks. He could just lean forward, his eyes on the light, and let himself drop.
    But killing himself would be taken as an admission of guilt. And his children would be left with the same horrible legacy his father had passed on to him.
    The train came to a stop. Caleb stepped up, entering a compartment with only two occupants, businessmen commuting back from a hard day of it in Orange County or Los Angeles. Each gave Caleb the barest glance, then returned to his pursuit, one to his iPhone, the other a laptop. Before the train even picked up speed the conductor entered the compartment, offered the one-word conversation of “Ticket,” then collected the ticket Caleb had bought from a machine at the station.
    Caleb was traveling light, carrying only the bag that Elizabeth had given him. Passing lights illuminated his window in brief flashes. There was more darkness than not. He listened to the rails rattle and tried not to associate the sounds with a death rattle. As a boy, he and Jimmy Doolittle had put coins down on the railroad tracks. He had proudly exhibited the results to his mother, but she hadn’t been impressed with the flattened coins.
    “Waste of money,” she had said.
    But he and Jimmy hadn’t thought so. Caleb had kept the coins for years. He supposed they reminded him of better times. When he’d had friends. When he hadn’t been the town’s outcast.
    “Cain’t come out and play.”
    The words were offered behind the refuge of a screen door. The two boys looked at one another. Neither understood the necessity of the restriction. Three times in the last week Gray had sought out the company of his best friend, Jimmy Doolittle, and three times he had been rebuffed.
    “Why not?”
    “Mama says I cain’t play with you no more.”
    Mamas were the law, but Gray knew the law was known to change. “When’s she gonna let you play with me?”
    A large body appeared behind Jimmy’s. Mrs. Doolittle had her hands placed on top of her ample hips. She was scowling.
    “You’re not welcome around here, Gray Parker. Go on home.”
    Mrs. Doolittle had been nice to him up until the time his father had been arrested. Since then she had made it her business to keep him and Jimmy apart.
    “And don’t you come back,” she said, shutting the door on him.
    Gray turned around. “And don’t you come back,” he repeated. Her voice wasn’t easy to mimic. He started down the walkway. “And don’t you come back,” he said again, but knew he still didn’t have it quite right. Mrs. Doolittle always sounded as if she was winded, as if just getting the words out was stretching her air supply. That’s ’cause she’s fat, he thought.
    “You’re fat!” Gray yelled in the direction of the house.
    Out on the street he started kicking a rock. Brad Forte was Gray’s other best friend, but Brad had told him he couldn’t play with him anymore either. Gray kicked the rock even harder.
    His whole life he’d lived in Eden, Texas, but things had changed lately. Now people looked at him suspiciously, like hewas some outsider they didn’t know. They didn’t wave anymore, just stopped what they were doing and silently waited for him to pass. It was like when a marsh hawk passed over the creek, and all the little birds and animals got quiet all of a sudden.
    He kicked the rock again. Maybe he should go over to the creek. He liked listening to the birds and practicing their calls, was good at mimicking their whistles and chirps and songs and gobbles. Gray could copy any sound once he set his mind to it. He’d been born with that gift. He was working on a new one, the keen of a red-tailed hawk. Gray practiced the bird’s shriek: “Keeeeeer.” The sound broke through the humid air. Not bad, Gray thought. But next time he needed to make it a little harsher, and bring down the call as it went along. He decided to hold off practicing it, because he didn’t want to scare all the animals into hiding. It wouldn’t do to have the whole world going silent on him.
    Gray reconsidered going to the creek. He’d been there the day before and met up with a group of older boys. They had tossed dirt clods at