So we went to the pool. We rarely saw the smoking lady, and when we did, she barely tried to stop us. She just stood in the hall, her cigarette fidgeting in her trembling hand, calling us no good and saying we’d be back.
The water was so warm we could jump in right away. Chris came most days, though he didn’t talk to me much. In his eyes I went from pesky stableboy to traitor to the throne. Without a word I had been tried for treason, found guilty, and kicked out of the kingdom. I became mad at my brother for letting this happen, and each night I pictured myself in my mother’s room, standing over her bed. I’ve got something to tell you, I would say. We’ve been keeping a secret. Or I pictured myself at the police station, in a gray room with my dad. He’s at the pool, I would confess. The stranger you want.
But I couldn’t make myself rat my brother out. Even though it increasingly felt like I was supposed to, like in the end it would be the right thing to do. Instead, we went to the pool, and when they told me to fetch them popsicle strips, I did. When they told me to go home and leave them alone, I did that, too. It’s fine, my brother would say, if I paused too long at the gate, I’ll be home in a bit. And every day I was worried. And every day he stayed out longer. But he always came home, though what he did with Chris he would no longer say.
One morning we exited the apartment building and a police cruiser was parked in the spot reserved for our van. I though it was my dad at first, but the car light’s bar was lit up, flashing bursts of red and blue. The officer stepped out of the car and I immediately saw that it was Alan, not my dad. He did a double take when he saw us. He must have not known we lived here, with our mother. Our dad must have never told him.
“Hey there,” he said, and swallowed a breath, gathering himself. “Boy, you startled me. I thought you’d be with your pop.” A lady came out of the building opposite ours, a small kid behind her. I didn’t recognize the lady at first, but when I saw the kid I realized it was the mother and son we’d seen the day Chris was waiting in the chair outside the pool. The boy with the chalk. He was crying, and the mother was hugging him with one arm, rubbing his shoulder.
“I’ll be with you in one second, ma’am,” Alan said to the lady. He came over and walked us to our door. “I need you boys to go inside, OK? Is your mother home?” We told him no. It was just us. “OK, well, everything is fine,” Alan said. “Just go inside, and I’ll come check on you in a bit. Can you do that for me?”
We told him yes, of course we could, though we wanted to stay outside and hear what had happened, find out why the kid was crying. Why Alan’s police lights were on, but not his siren.
Alan opened the door and pushed us in, like two baby ducks. “Go on,” he said. “You be good.”
My brother marched upstairs, touched our doorknob, then marched back down to the pea-green door window. I followed him, and we took turns spying on Alan, the lady, and her kid, describing to each other what we were seeing. The lady is talking. Alan is nodding. He is jotting things down. Now the lady is pointing to her building, at a window on the second floor. Now she is crying. She is looking at the ground and shaking her head. Now she is taking her boy inside. Alan is right behind her. Now the door is closed. Now there is nothing.
“What are they doing now?” I asked my brother.
“He’s probably checking out the crime scene. Taping it off.”
I thought of the time our dad brought home the last few feet of a roll of yellow police tape. How I went upstairs one evening and found my room taped off, my brother guarding the door. Sorry, he said, can’t let you in. Official crime scene. I pushed him out of the way and opened the door. Inside, Sparky, my favorite stuffed animal, was hanging from the ceiling fan, a suicide note taped to his chest. My condolences, my brother said. I’ll notify the family.
“Do you think it’s Chris?” I asked my brother.
“Do I think what’s Chris?”
“Why Alan is here.”
“What would he want with Chris? Chris hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
“Right,” I said. “Because you’re best friends.”
I shoved the pea-green door as hard as I could and went outside, stepping on every sidewalk crack and wishing it were my brother’s or Chris’s back.
“What’s wrong with you?” my brother said. He had followed me outside and was puzzling at the weird way I was walking. “Do you want to ask Alan? I’ll ask Alan.”
I stopped my back-breaking. “What if it’s the Stranger?”
“No,” my brother said. “He wouldn’t come here. I don’t think it’s anybody.”
“How do you know?”
“Listen, if you want me to ask, I’ll ask. I guess he could know something, probably more than Dad anyway. Not that that’s hard.”
He kicked a rock down the sidewalk, in the direction of the police cruiser.
“What are you so mad at Dad about?” I said. He shook his head, said isn’t it obvious? The dull look on my face must’ve told him no, I didn’t get it. So he ran through his list of grievances. It’s Dad’s fault we’re here in the first place, and not in our big house. It’s Dad’s fault we have to see Rick every week. It’s not Dad’s fault the Stranger escaped, but Dad’s not doing anything about it. The Stranger could be coming to kill us all and yet Dad does nothing. Dad has no leads. No clues. He says he’s going to catch him, but then he goes out, leaves us alone. Dad doesn’t care.
“He does too care,” I said.
But when my words came out, they sounded shallow. They didn’t come close to convincing myself, let alone my brother. So we went inside, forgetting to ask Alan, and the cruiser’s lights flashed behind us, without a wail, warning the Frontiers in silence.
* * *
By the time Alan came to check on us, our mother was home for what she called her mid-morning break. Really, she had stayed at Sandy’s again and had come home to change clothes before heading back to work. She didn’t ask what we’d done the night before. She didn’t check to see if we had any food left, which we didn’t. When Alan knocked on the door and my mother answered, my brother and I crept out of the room and spied. We heard Alan tell our mother about the break-in, how someone had entered a neighbor’s (the chalk family’s) apartment while they were gone. We learned what the burglar had taken: food, toiletries, nothing really valuable. They got in through the patio door, Alan said. Smashed the glass and walked right in. Actually, there had been a couple other break-ins around this area, our street and the street over. So make sure you lock up at night. Neither said what I was thinking, as I’m sure my brother was as welclass="underline" What good is a lock if they throw a rock through the window?
After Alan left, our mother breezed past us into her room and changed into her work clothes. When she came back out, she had a bag like the ones we took with us to our dad’s on the weekend. She seemed surprised to see us sitting in the hall, surprised we existed at all.
“I’m assuming you heard all that,” she said. “Well.” She looked at us and scratched her big hair, like we were two strays she’d found on the street. She put her bag down. “Well, so what. This is the city we live in. If it wasn’t safe, your dad would say something.” She picked her bag back up and stood straight, as if by doing so she would prove the matter was settled. “I have plans,” she said. “With Sandy. OK? I’ve already made plans and why is it every time I want—”