Men in the Making Read Online Free PDF

the back hallway. He stood with a hand on the refrigerator door. "I'll help take care of them."
    Anne gave him a little wink. "See there," she said, "Nate will help out," as if that settled it.
    Here's a confession you don't hear too often: even parents have favorites, one child that pulls at our heart or bolsters our pride or simply reminds us the least of the things we despise in ourselves. For Anne, that child was Nate, and though she loved Matty, loved him as any mother loves a son, crippled or otherwise, it was Nate who found her eyes the heaviest and most often upon him. Perhaps because each time she saw Matty limp or pull off his prosthetic foot, it cracked her heart a little wider. Or maybe it had nothing to do with Matty. Perhaps her love for Nate was simply four years older, but I don't believe it. I never have. By the time Matty was five or six, if he had his socks and shoes off, he couldn't have limped around the room fast enough to catch up with Anne's averted eyes. Anne would protect him fiercely, from other kids, from the unkind word, even from Nate, but when it came time for the choice, I have to believe Nate would have won out. He had grown up right, and strong, and whole, the way Anne had known he would.
    That night, after our argument in the kitchen, she joined me under the quilts, put her head on my chest and let out a moan I'd come to know. "Oh, yeah?" I said. "Somebody need a little roughhousing?"
    Beneath the sheets, she cupped me and gave me a playful squeeze. "Now," she said, "you going to agree to the dogs or do I have to use force?"
    Her hands were cold, and her hold on me sent an electric chill arcing through me from tailbone to temples. "We do the dogs," I said, "we've got to get the dirt bike, too. Nate heard everything we said, you can bet on that. The dogs, the bike, the whole shebang. That kid's sly, probably stuck up for Matty just to increase his own odds."
    Anne loosened her grip a bit and turned her head, propping her chin up on my ribs while she thought it over. "Touché," she said, rolling onto me. "You've got a deal, mister."
    Â 
    Tonight at the wake, Lonnie's mother shook my hand, then stared me dead while I offered my condolences. She didn't say a word, and I was surprised and almost disappointed by her restraint, by her ability to keep the blame in check, to stay cool and quiet with all that grief sizzling away inside. The casket was polished and shining and closed, and while I stood against the back wall, wondering how soon I could leave without showing any disrespect, Big Red leaned next to me and exhaled hard, the gin heavy on his breath. He was wearing a suit, his tie in one of those enormous Windsor knots, but his trademark red beard was scraggly as always.
    "Oh, man," he said. "You meet the mother yet?"
    I nodded, and he shook his head, his eyes rolling drunk and loose in their sockets. "What gets me, Tom, is there's nothing in that box. Nothing left of him, you know? There can't be."
    Later, I followed Red outside and stood under the front awning while he smoked a cigarette. He'd run out of matches, so I handed him the lighter I'd been carrying with me since I'd retrieved it from the attic. I'd polished it, replaced the flint and wick, and filled it with fuel.
    Red flipped it open, lit his cigarette, and blew smoke from his nose. "Do me a favor?" he said.
    "What's that?"
    "Come up to the mill with me. I'm a little sauced to be running the debarker alone."
    Â 
    On Christmas morning, when we led the boys out to the barn, Anne teased them with the latch, saying it was stuck, letting them squirm awhile with excitement before swinging the doors open. Inside, the two dogs were curled up under Nate's new blue Honda CR80. They were full grown—half Lab, half golden—one with copper fur that seemed to shine even in the dim dawn light of the barn, the other a dull yellow thing with huge drooping eyes. Both were female, but Matty insisted on naming them Bo and Luke after his