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out the doors of First Baptist Church behind Richard Aman and a mahogany coffin. We lowered our heads and placed our hands in front of our faces to avoid Lillian’s apathetic stare and the barrage of cameras lenses closing in on us. The scene shifted, and we now stood behind Richard Aman at Springhill Cemetery. A woman sang an operatic version of “Amazing Grace” while another woman that no one noticed drowned in her tears. Her name was Frances Pelt, and the earth was shifting beneath Frances’ feet. She tried to run but she slipped and fell on the ground beside Barney’s grave. Frances had forgotten she was alive, so we walked over to Frances and let her know she wasn’t dead. We led her past the stares and whispers, through the wrought-iron gates, to a blue Bonneville parked on the curb a block away. We waved bye as Frances began the lonelyand regretful journey back to her dispirited life in Jacksonville. Nigel’s day became my day.
    Nigel pulled the remote out from between the sofa pillows, then turned to The Weather Channel. For eleven years, since I came home from the hospital, Nigel’s life had been my life. But that night, for the first time, Nigel swallowed the acrid guilt curdling in his mouth and selfishly kept the woman whose name he didn’t know to himself.

CHAPTER 5NIGEL
    C aleb was trying to make me get out of bed. That’s why he and Tupac were in the living room headlining a concert for the entire neighborhood. I must have lucked out and won a front-row ticket. My head, like my house shoes which were on the floor beside the bed, tap danced as the walls, floor, and ceiling palpitated to a thunderous bass that suffocated Caleb’s and Pac’s vocals.
    Yesterday, it was Caleb and Will Smith. That spectacle started around seven-thirty with Caleb bellowing “Brothers Just Don’t Understand,” his version of Smith’s ode to parental cluelessness. It ended at four minutes ’til ten when I was tired of hearing them “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It.” I jumped out of bed, charged out the room, and stumbled over Caleb, who was in the hallway spinning, kicking, and grabbing his crotch.
    â€œThat move was Michael’s,” I yelled, “not Will’s!”
    Caleb saw the anger in my eyes and he knew where I was headed. He tried to hold me down to keep me from getting up. Dragging him behind me, I crawled into the living room and over to the front door. I reached up and grabbed the doorknob, then yanked the front door open. I let the world inside. Caleb took off to his bedroom and I closed the door and locked it. I unplugged the CD player, the television, the phone and the answering machine, everything that could make a sound. Then I went back to my bedroom, remade my bed, and hid under the covers until the sun began to set.
    This morning’s show started at seven-thirty. Around eight-thirty, Caleb and Pac were still performing songs from Pac’s early years. I knew why Caleb was pissed off. That’s why I lay in bed and promised not to say a word unless “Keep Your Head Up” was on his playlist. There was no way I was going to let him desecrate my favorite Pac song.
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    Memories were killing me. Not all memories…only the uninvited ones.
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    I tried not to think about Flatley Creek or the thin membrane of ice covering it that ominous December evening thirteen years ago, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to choose which memories replay and when. Flatley Creek was a narrow but deep stream that bordered the backyard of the house we grew up in. The creek, a stone’s throw from every house in the neighborhood, was about fifty feet across at its widest point and over seven feet deep in the middle. Caleb and I bought this house because the creek outside my window reminded me of Flatley Creek.
    When I didn’t want to see the creek outside my window, I closed the curtains and blinds. I was still searching