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Prologue

Once, Dad stuck Percy in a tree.

We were all in the backyard, just after dinner, eating pears. Mom was sitting on the porch, barefoot, her thin red skirt folded between her knees as she skinned the pears and cut them into wedges and then passed them on to me and Dad. They were warm and juicy and required hardly any chewing.

Percy was playing with sticks in the garden. He was wearing pale blue overalls and a sea green shirt. I used to like to watch him play in the garden. He always looked so calm and complete, like a little man, as he bent down to sniff roses. Mom and I were sitting on the top step. Dad was on the bottom, shirtless and smoking a cigarette. Muscles flickered in his tan back in sculpted waves as he turned around to accept slices of pear from Mom. We were full from dinner and I was planning how I would escape to the park to ride the new ten-speed I'd received for my twelfth birthday without Percy trying to follow me on his little Razor scooter. But the thought was uncomplicated and faded quickly; I decided I would ride around the street with him that night, if he wanted.

We watched Percy going from flower to flower. His small hands were folded behind his back and he moved with the patience of someone much older. Then he stopped and stared at the oak tree at the end of the garden.

He pointed up and then looked back at us, insistently. Dad's cigarette dangled from his mouth as he walked over and said something to him. Percy nodded, mouthed something back to him, and grinned.

Mom and I watched his thin, tan body framing Percy's small figure as he lifted him over his head so he could grasp a branch. He held him there until he was certain he had established a firm hold. Then he let go.

As he strode towards us through the grass, the sound of crickets became louder. He took the porch steps two at a time and didn't turn back once. I watched his face as he pitched his cigarette into a tin can by the door and wondered if he would look back at her. He didn't.

Mom and I sat there sealed together by the warm August wind, watching the little slip of pale blue and sea green hanging six feet from the ground, swaying back and forth.

Percy's plaintive moan was a curious sound, not a cry of pain or worry, merely the sound of something buried, or nearly lost, and it caused Mom to snap out of the spell. She rushed across the grass and grabbed Percy by the waist. Percy fell into her embrace and laughed slightly, as if he were the only one who understood Dad's idea of a joke.