The Endless Knot

end / Set in five perfect points / Wholly distinct, yet part of one whole / And closed, wherever it ended or began.’ ”

For a moment he seemed to exist in a parallel universe; then he vaulted back to ours. He stood up so suddenly that, in what appeared to be his signature move, he knocked against the table. Zack reached and caught his jar of paint just in time.

“Now you really will think that I’m a dork,” Ethan said.

“Not at all,” Zack said gently. “I enjoyed our talk, Ethan. Maybe we can do it again sometime.”

“Okay,” Ethan said. “I’d better get home.”

“I’ll tell Taylor you stopped by,” I said.

Ethan looked stricken. “No. Please. Don’t. She’ll think I’m insane.”

And with that, he raced off into the dark.

Zack stared at the door through which Ethan disappeared. “I’d forgotten how much being thirteen can hurt,” he said.

“Was it a bad time for you?”

“Apart from being friendless, hornier than hell, and convinced that the only person I’d ever have sex with was myself, it was a blast.”

“Well you have me now. All your troubles are over.”

“And believe me, I’m grateful. When I was thirteen, I never thought my troubles would be over. I’ll bet Ethan doesn’t think so either. What’s his home situation?”

“His parents are divorced. He was living with his father, but his father’s new wife doesn’t want Ethan. He’s with his mother now. She doesn’t seem to want him either.”

“So faced with a shitty world, Ethan spends his time with Gawain.”

“And longs to spend time with Taylor,” I said. “And that is beginning to trouble Taylor, which means it’s beginning to trouble me.”

As soon as the girls got back with their pumpkins, they began drawing up rules for the contest, an activity that was abandoned the moment Pete’s truck pulled up and Pantera unfolded himself from the back seat. Ungainly, enthusiastic, graceless, and boundlessly energetic, he was irresistible. The girls ran him around the backyard, then I brought Willie out and everybody bundled up and came out on the deck to watch Willie and Pantera get acquainted. The night was crisp and starry – perfect weather to sit on the deck and observe the meeting of the titans. But we had miscast our titans. After a few rips around the yard with Willie, Pantera spotted Zack, loped over, dropped his great maw on Zack’s lap, and refused to budge. Rejected, Willie slunk over to me. Pete offered wieners and praise in an effort to induce his new dog to play, but Pantera wasn’t buying. Finally, we accepted the inevitable. The girls drifted back inside to plan; the rest of us stayed outside and talked.

For Charlie, only one topic mattered: the trial. “So what’s going to happen?” he asked Zack.

Zack rubbed Pantera’s head. “Serge Kujawa used to say that speculating on what a jury is doing and why was a total waste of time, so he spent all his time speculating.”

“So if you’re speculating, you must have some idea about the outcome.”

“I’d say our chances are fifty-fifty,” Zack said. “If Linda Fritz had been there all along, the odds would have been different.”

Charlie pounced. “But Linda Fritz wasn’t there.”

“And the charge she decided on was. That was a break for us. With attempted murder, the Crown has to prove intention to kill and that’s difficult to prove. If the Crown had gone for a lesser charge, it would have been a slam- dunk for them – even with Garth.”

“Then why didn’t they go for the slam-dunk?” Pete asked.

Zack absently wiped Pantera drool off his slacks. “Why do people do anything? But Linda’s a person of principle, and I think she genuinely believed that when Sam pulled that gun he intended to kill Kathryn Morrissey. She also knew that Sam had the money to mount a strong defence.”

“And that’s relevant?” Pete asked.

“There’s an old saying, ‘The more evenly matched the lawyers, the better the chance of justice.’ Linda knew Sam had enough money to get a fair kick at the can. And truthfully, no matter what the jury decides, I think Sam had a good defence. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m going inside. It’s getting cold out here.”

I stood back to watch how Pantera would react when Zack wheeled away. Pantera watched for a moment, then trotted off behind the chair as if he’d been doing it all his life. I felt the wisps of a challenge developing in our lives.

The girls’ Halloween party was Zack’s introduction to pre-teen, pre-dating culture, and he was as captivated as Margaret Mead had been when she clapped eyes on Samoa. The ritual of boys and girls trying to impress one another while pretending not to be impressed by one another was intriguing, and the fact that these girls and boys were in costume gave the ceremony an extra fillip. As there had been every year since my kids were little, there was a solid contingent of Star Wars characters: Princess Leia with her light sabre; Queen Amidala with her royal pistol, Luke Skywalker and two Darth Vaders. Marge Simpson made an appearance with a swarm of bats and a half-dozen pacifiers nesting in her elaborate cone of hair; Grace, Isobel, and Taylor had dressed as triplets – a clever choice because they were inseparable, and a funny one because they were as physically different as it was possible for three girls to be. Zack had a lot of fun spotting and identifying costumes, but there was one that baffled him. “What’s that kid supposed to be?” he whispered, pointing to a boy with a plastic dagger and little boxes of cereal stapled to his track suit.

“I thought you’d get that one,” I said.

He frowned. “Well, I don’t.”

“He’s a cereal killer.”