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session distance, GPS capability, the works. Jude’s father loved data, and as far as Jude was concerned, his father did everything possible to suck the last living ounce of joy out of jogging. Mr. Fox turned something as simple as going for a run into advanced mathematics, measuring every mile, every step, a middle-aged man still chasing his PBT (Personal Best Time). Even so, Jude had to admit it: The guy was in great shape.
    “Mom inside?” Jude asked.
    “Yes, um, she’s upstairs, resting,” Mr. Fox answered. “The heat, and—”
    “No worries,” Jude answered. “I ate at work.”
    “Oh, that’s right. You worked today! How’d it go?”
    “Pretty much okay. They gave me a paper hat.”
    Jude kept the details to the bare minimum. He saw that his father was only half listening. Mr. Fox brought two fingers to his carotid artery, lips moving as he counted the pulse.
    “Have a good run,” Jude said.
    “I’m doing Bender Hill today, five times up, five times down,” Mr. Fox announced. “I should be back in roughly sixty-five minutes.”
    Yeah, roughly. Jude was halfway up the walk and gave no reply. There was never enough light in the house. It could be a beautiful day outside, like today, but you’d never know it. One reason was the overgrown bushes that crowded the front windows and a towering pine that grew too close to the foundation, keeping the home in shade and shadows, its roots causing the front walkway to buckle. When Jude asked his parents why they didn’t just cut it down, his father looked away and his mother said the shade helped keep the house cool in the summer. Besides, as she often reminded Jude when she drew the curtains, sunlight faded the carpet.
    Jude’s mother liked things cool and dark, and had long ago declared war on light itself. She continually snapped down the blinds, pulled closed the curtains, walked around in thin, white sweaters. On good days, Mrs. Fox went to the club for lunch or played tennis with the ladies, lobbing shots from baseline to baseline. But the good days seemed to come less and less. She was a nervous woman who suffered from what she called cluster headaches that forced her to retreat to a darkened bedroom where she lay for long hours at a time. She claimed that sunlight made the headaches worse. Dark and forbidding, it was a house where plants came to wither and die. Jude’s father eventually gave up buying Easter lilies or Christmas poinsettias and instead came home one holiday with a large plastic ficus tree. Even his mother’s neglect couldn’t kill it.
    Jude showered and dressed. In the hallway, he paused outside the closed door of his parents’ bedroom, tilted an ear, listening for movement.
    “Jude?” his mother called.
    “Yeah, it’s me, Mom,” he answered. “How you feeling today?”
    A long silence. “I’m sorry, I’ve got nothing for you in the kitchen,” she finally said, her voice muffled, as if groaned into a pillow.
    “That’s okay, Mom, I’m good,” Jude replied. He considered telling her about work, how some girl saved him from getting pummeled by a trio of behemoths, but it felt awkward trying to talk through a door. He placed his right hand on the door as if to push it open, and he saw his fingers as the legs of a fleshy spider perched there, tingling. Jude rested his head against the jamb, shut his eyes. He waited in the hush for something to happen, some change to occur, but nothing did.
    Nothing ever did.

 
    SIX
    Corey dropped by around seven. He lived around the corner, and Jude was probably the first friend Corey’d made after moving into the neighborhood. That was almost nine years ago, back in second grade. Corey was one of those guys who couldn’t stand sitting around at home; his parents were crazy-strict super-religious types, so he visited other houses and sat around there. Ate their food, too. Jude’s parents usually left the boys alone to do as they pleased, so it was a win-win for all