“They picked a funny place to live then,” Mary said. “Where’s your brother?”
“You sent him upstairs to change his shirt.”
“Oh. Right. Go get him, will ya? I want to get moving.”
“Will do,” Ricky said.
# # #
“Get out of there,” Ricky said.
George was rummaging through Ricky’s closet when he finally found him.
“What did you do with those tricks?”
“What are you talking about?” Ricky asked.
“Those old magic tricks that you used to do. Where did you put them? You didn’t throw them away, did you? You sank, like, all of your ice cream money into those things.”
“Actually, I didn’t spend that much. I don’t mess with that stuff. You know that.”
“I’m not talking like demonic possession and stuff,” George said. “I just want to see your old card tricks and stuff. You never would tell me how they were done. I want to get a look at them and see if I can figure things out.”
Ricky sat down on the edge of his old bed. His dog was nosing around near the window. Ricky used to climb out through there and sit on the porch roof when the weather was nice. Tucker put his chin on the sill and looked through. His breath created fog on the glass, ruining the dog’s view.
“Most of the card tricks were done with a regular deck, George. You can’t figure out anything from looking at the deck. It was all sleight of hand.”
“Didn’t you have one deck that was different? I remember because it looked like a regular red deck of Bicycle cards, but up close the logo was different. Were they marked or something? How come you only used them for one trick?”
Ricky smiled. Sometimes, when they were back at home, he still thought of his brother as a little kid—easy to manipulate and deceive. But George was smart—really smart—and his memory was impeccable. He would remember old things that Ricky had done or said back when they were kids and he was able to analyze them again with the eyes of an adult and figure things out.
When Ricky thought about the past, he usually slipped right back into that age. He viewed those memories like he was still a helpless kid.
“Hey,” Ricky said. “You remember when Mom and Dad split up for a couple of days.”
“Of course.”
“And Mom left and Dad was supposed to take care of us?”
“Yup,” George said. He pulled down a box from the top shelf of Ricky’s closet.
“Why do you think they got back together? Was it because we were such a wreck? Did they just agree to get back together until we were both out of the house or something?”
George looked at him and set down the box on the desk. He spun the chair around and sat facing Ricky before he pulled the box into his lap.
“No,” George said. “It wasn’t because of us. I think that they figured out that their problems with each other weren’t their real problems.”
“How so?”
“Well, after that one summer,” George started. That was the way that George always referred to the incident when their world was nearly torn apart by insanity—“That one summer.”
He continued, “They were having a lot of problems feeling safe in the world, you know? When you discover how fragile everything is, and how you’re essentially unable to protect the ones you love, it makes it difficult to sleep at night or go through the motions of daily life.”
“And they blamed their marriage?”
“Yeah. When you suddenly don’t feel safe, I guess it’s natural to blame your partner. To their credit, after just a couple of days apart they came to their senses and Mom moved back in.”
“So it wasn’t just because Dad realized that it was a nightmare to be alone in the house with the two of us.”
George laughed. “Maybe that was a part of it.”
Ricky leaned forward and took a deck of cards from the box on George’s lap.
“But you’re not worried about back then,” George said.
“Sorry?”
“You’re worried about right now. You were concerned that they only stayed together because of us. Now that you’re living on the other side of the creek and I’m off at school, you think they’re moving towards another breakup.”
“No,” Ricky said, looking down at the cards as his hands started to work them. When he was a kid, he never looked at the cards when he worked. His hands knew what to do on their own—everything had to be by touch. If he looked at his hands, they would slow down and he would spot the deception. If he spotted it, then other people would too. But now, he found that his hands couldn’t remember how to move unless he was staring down at them.
“No?” George asked.
Ricky looked up. His brother was studying him.
“That’s not why you tried to start that support group?” George asked. “Your dinner party for survivors of the paranormal thing that you’re trying to get going?”
“George. It’s not like that. I just wanted to see if I could get Mom and Dad out of the house more and I figured that they would be more comfortable talking to people who had something in common with them.”
“And they can’t talk to the immediate neighbors because?”
George knew the answer. Ricky didn’t like that his brother was prompting him to say it out loud.
“Because some of them blame me for what happened,” Ricky said.
George shook his head.
“Ricky, I know you feel that way, but you have to stop. Nobody blames you. Nobody. Except you, of course. If you would just look with fresh eyes you would see that the only reason that people don’t talk about it is because it scares them. It’s not a matter of blame, it’s a matter of wanting to forget.”
“You should change your major,” Ricky said.
“Why? I’m being perfectly philosophical. What should I change it too?”
“Pre-law. You’re too good of
