"How did he seem?"
Though the question touches a new vein, Nelson answers promptly. For all the shadows between them, they have lately grown toward each other, father and son. "Jumpy," he answers, into the book. "Said he was getting bad vibes lately and hadn't slept at all last night. I think he had taken some pills or something. He didn't seem to see me, looking over my head, kind of, and kept calling me Chuck instead of Babychuck."
"And how's Jill?"
"Dead asleep. I looked in and said her name and she didn't move. Dad -"
"Spit it out."
"He gives her things." The thought is too deep in him to get out easily; his eyes sink in after it, and his father feels him digging, shy, afraid, lacking the right words, not wanting to offend his father.
Harry prompts, "Things."
The boy rushes into it. "She never laughs any more, or takes any interest in anything, just sits around and sleeps. Have you looked at her skin, Dad? She's gotten so pale."
"She's naturally fair."
"Yeah, I know, but it's more than that, she looks sick. She doesn't eat hardly anything and throws up sometimes anyway. Dad, don't let him keep doing it to her, whatever it is. Stop him."
"How can I?"
"You can kick him out."
"Jill's said she'll go with him."
"She won't. She hates him too."
"Don't you like Skeeter?"
"Not really. I know I should. I know you do."
"I do?" Surprised, he promises Nelson, "I'll talk to him. But you know, people aren't property, I can't control what they want to do together. We can't live Jill's life for her."
"We could, if you wanted to. Ifyou cared at all." This is as close as Nelson has come to defiance; Rabbit's instinct is to be gentle with this sprouting, to ignore it.
He points out simply, "She's too old to adopt. And you're too young to marry."
The child frowns down into the book, silent.
"Now tell me something."
"O.K." Nelson's face tenses, prepared to close; he expects to be asked about Jill and sex and himself. Rabbit is glad to disappoint him, to give him a little space here.
"Two men stopped me on the way home and said kids had been looking in our windows. Have you heard anything about this?"
"Sure."
"Sure what?"
"Sure they do."
"Who? "
"All of them. Frankhauser, and that slob Jimmy Brumbach, Evelyn Morris and those friends of hers from Penn Park, Mark Showalter and I guess his sister Marilyn though she's awful little -"
"When the hell do they do this?"
"Different times. When they come home from school and I'm at soccer practice, before you get home, they hang around. I guess sometimes they come back after dark."
"They see anything?"
"I guess sometimes."
"They talk to you about it? Do they tease you?"
"I guess. Sometimes."
"You poor kid. What do you tell 'em?"
"I tell 'em to fuck off."
"Hey. Watch your language."
"That's what I tell 'em. You asked."
"And do you have to fight?"
"Not much. Just sometimes when they call me something."
"What?"
"Something. Never mind, Dad."
"Tell me what they call you."
"Nigger Nellie."
"Huh. Nice kids."
"They're just kids, Dad. They don't mean anything. Jill says ignore them, they're ignorant."
"And do they kid you about Jill?"
The boy turns his face away altogether. His hair covers his neck, yet even from the back he would not be mistaken for a girl: the angles in the shoulders, the lack of brushing in the hair. The choked voice is manly: "I don't want to talk about it anymore; Dad."
"O.K. Thanks. Hey. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you have to live in the mess we all make."