Page 54 of Middle of the Night

Ethan senses his father felt the same way because he left for work earlier than normal—an act that seemed to make his mother angrier. It only got worse when Ethan asked, for the second time that day, when Ashley was coming over to babysit him.

“She’s not,” his mother snapped. “You’re stuck with me now.”

Yet Ethan can hear Ashley downstairs. Another reason for his speed. Maybe his mother had a change of heart and decided he can still have Ashley as a babysitter.

Downstairs, he understands that’s not what’s happening. What is, he doesn’t know. Because his mother is seated at the kitchen island, her head on Ashley’s shoulder. As Ethan gets closer, his heart seizes in his chest.

His mother, he realizes, is crying.

“Oh!” she says when she spots him, and quickly tries to dry her eyes, as if that will make Ethan forget what he’s just seen.

But then Ashley swoops in, blocking Ethan’s view of his mother. “Hey, buddy,” she says. “Why don’t you go outside and play? I’ll meet up with you soon, okay?”

Ethan reluctantly heads outside, giving his mother a quick backward glance as he goes. She’s composed herself in the few seconds he was with Ashley and now looks more embarrassed than sad. Yet the image of her weeping sticks with Ethan as he stands in the backyard, his imagination filling with all sorts of dire scenarios. The main one from that morning—his parents’ imminent divorce—is quickly usurped by others. Illness and death and having to move.

He’s so occupied with terrible thoughts that he doesn’t notice when Russ Chen squeezes through the hedge separating their yards. Ethan only becomes aware of him when Russ speaks, squeaking out a nervous “Hey, Ethan.”

“Hey,” Ethan says absently.

“What’s going on?”

Ethan finally turns to look at his neighbor, struck as usual by how awkwardly skinny he is. All legs and arms and knees and elbows. Not for the first time, Ethan wonders how Russ stays upright on such thin limbs.

“Nothing,” he says, which is the opposite of the truth. Everything,it seems, is going on, and he understands none of it. “I was going to Billy’s to play.”

“Cool,” Russ says. “I’ll come, too.”

Ethan knows Billy won’t like that. But he doesn’t have the willpower to resist. “Sure,” he says as he scoops up Billy’s baseball and carries it through the hedge and into the Barringers’ backyard.

There, he finds not Billy but his younger brother, Andy, lazily running a Matchbox car over the grass. Andy perks up when he sees the two older boys.

“Hi, Ethan! Hi, Russ!”

“Is Billy around?” Ethan asks, knowing the answer is yes. If Billy threw a ball into his yard, it means he’s surely home.

A window on the second floor opens. Billy’s bedroom, Ethan realizes. Through the window screen, Billy calls down to the yard, “I’ll be right there!”

When he emerges from the house twenty seconds later, Ethan tosses him the baseball. “Here’s your ball back.”

Billy lunges for it, misses, and watches chagrined as the ball plops onto the grass. Then he spots Russ on the edge of the yard. A moment passes in which Ethan and Billy have a full conversation without saying a word, exchanging looks that only a best friend can interpret.

What’s he doing here?

It’s not my fault. He invited himself.

Why couldn’t you get rid of him?

Please just deal with it.

“So, do you guys want to play?” Russ says in such a way that Ethan can’t tell if he understands the silent exchange with Billy or remains completely oblivious.

“We’re not playing,” Billy says. “We’reexploring.”

This is news to Ethan, who assumed they’d be playing hide-and-seek or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. “Where?” he asks.

Billy shrugs, as if he hasn’t given it any thought. “The woods.”

Ethan looks to the trees bordering the swooping curve of Billy’s yard. His parents don’t like him going into the woods without telling them first, something he can’t do today because it might mean he’ll see his mother crying again.

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