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underside of the roof as though the silver nailpoints pushing through it were the uncurtained stars in the sky. He knows from listening to his parents that this is what they mean by peace and quiet, but to him the house, empty, just feels odd, unnatural even, uncomfortable. With so much space on the bed he finds himself afraid of rolling over and falling off the edge; and if he imagines the scene from the point of view of the nails then what he pictures reminds him of a piece of driftwood washed ashore, or the last cornflake in a bowl of milk. And so he lies on the empty bed, not to rest but to wait, for his siblings to spill back into the house like a second helping of cereal. But no noisy horde is going to pour into this room. The thin quilt does little to quell the cold, even its illusion of stars extinguished with the bedside light.
    Although a solid wall—paper and plaster over a net of lathe and studs—separates the boy from his uncle and Aunt Bessie, it’s not much thicker than the curtain that cordons off his parents’ bed at home, and he can hear them talking, their headboard pushed up against his. But unlike his parents, his uncle and Aunt Bessie don’t shout, and he has to concentrate to hear what they’re saying.
    It’s not right Wallace. Dropping off his own son like that, no warning to you or the boy. It’s not right.
    The boy can’t make out his uncle’s reply. It could be a grunt, or just the creak of wooden bed rails.
    I mean, the expense. A boy that age costs money, and this farm—Aunt Bessie’s voice disappears a moment, then resumes.And we’re not young anymore, we both raised children and aren’t exactly at an age to start over again. We’re not even—
    Another grunt, or creak.
    I mean, I made him pot roast, fixed up Edith’s bed for him. Now what am I supposed to—another fade, longer this time, and then—into town tomorrow? Just drop him off at school?
    This time the boy can make out a few of his uncle’s words.
    Tomorrow’s Sunday Bess.
    Well Monday then. Aunt Bessie’s voice gets louder, clearer. Am I supposed to take the boy to school on Monday? Am I supposed to do that every day until he graduates? How old is he anyway?
    Looks about ten, eleven, to me, his uncle says. Though he speaks quietly, there is a clarity to his voice, a fullness to the tone; the boy isn’t sure, but he thinks his uncle actually sounds amused. But ten! The boy bridles with indignation. Anyway, his uncle continues, I think it’s a week or two before the winter break ends. After that he can catch the bus right here on 38. If he stays I mean.
    If he stays. The idea is sinking in. The old man didn’t just leave him here: he sent him here. He wants him to stay, with these voices and the people they belong to. This bed, this house, those, those
cows
outside. If he stays they will become his life. His new life.
    If he goes back to Long Island there will also be two more weeks of vacation—two more weeks of dodging his mother when he’s not pulling twelve-hour days at the market, but two weeks also of blessed freedom from the boys who decided three years ago to make the one-block journey to and from school themost perilous four hundred steps of the boy’s life. Just thinking about
that
has his legs twitching under the quilt, his hands balled into fists. Fight or flight. That’s what they call it in school. The instinct to save yourself by whatever means necessary, fleeing your assailant, or beating him into the ground. At school they teach you about the animal roots of human behavior but they still can’t explain why three bullies have elected him their personal whipping boy, and beaten him up every single school day for the past three years.
    I think Ethel was going to send him to military school, his uncle says now. I think that’s why Lloyd brung him up.
    And what kind of boy
is
it that he’s left with us? A boy who would do something so heinous his own mother would send him away? Is that the kind of