Craw-fords’ field in time to witness Brandon’s flying tackle.
“He’s always been a freak of nature,” Katrina said. “Once saw him climb out of his father’s truck to help a night crawler across the road.”
“A worm?”
“Is there any other kind of night crawler?”
Alexandra did her best impression of Brandon’s snorting laugh. “Gotta admit he’s kinda handsome though, in an overgrown, innocent kinda way.” Then she broke into an off-key rendition of “Super Freak,” growling, “the kind you don’t bring home to mo-therrr …”
Sophie waited for a lull, then recounted Dionne’s full rendition ofhow he’d chased five illegals into her arms, and how the nationality of the injured couple remained a mystery. “They put them on the phone with AT&T translators and passed the call around, but nobody could place their accent. Can you imagine?”
She was mentioning that the woman Brandon caught had been wearing clothes made of silk and lamé when Madeline volunteered, “He called me.”
“Who?” Sophie asked, sensing that Madeline was drunker than she looked.
“Brandon.”
“Last night?”
“Uh-huh. He wanted to know if we’d seen anything. Needed to talk, I think.”
Sophie waited out the commentary. “So that was it?”
“Said the most interesting people he meets these days are criminals.”
“Out of the blue?”
Madeline smiled. “Completely.”
“He is the strangest,” Alexandra began over the rising gabble. “I mean, have any of you actually—”
“Speaking of strange,” Danielle interjected, saliva whistling in the corners of her mouth, “I hear you had a date with some foot-sucker, Madeline.”
Madeline’s head fell, and Sophie leaned forward as if to catch it. “Dessert anyone?”
She then glided toward the kitchen, blocking out the chatter and reimagining Brandon’s tiny, nameless couple flying into Vancouver, and waiting a few anxious days until some overpriced stranger they couldn’t understand coaxed them across the ditch.
Is this America?
The air, soil and trees looked and smelled the same.
Are we really in America?
And then—YES!—to be in the land of liberty for all of three electrifying minutes before getting chased and crushed by the largest, most unusual agent in the history of the U.S. Border Patrol.
Welcome to America, whoever you are.
7
N ORM WATCHED his son lope up the stairs three in a bound, still resembling a giant Boy Scout in that silly uniform, ducking beneath the beam and looking so alive and powerful that if he inhaled too deeply everyone else in the room might pass out.
As usual, he seemed to see everything in a glance, his eyes sweeping from the ice on his father’s knee to his mother hunched over stacks of photos on the sun-faded couch that her husband had promised to replace years ago. She’d written the names of friends and relatives on the back so she could flip through the prints like flash cards. From what Norm could tell, this exercise only complicated matters; the images were so meshed with memories it was like separating salt from sugar. At what click of the second hand, he wondered, would those names become meaningless jumbles of letters?
Until the past eight months—yes, it began when Brandon went away to the academy—she’d been their memory, their crossword whiz, their
Jeopardy!
champ. Norm had never read much except
Hoard’s Dairyman
while she inhaled everything from
The Economist
to Darwin’s original essays to
National Geographic Kids
—a holdover from Brandon’s childhood—and armed herself with believe-it-or-not facts she nimbly recycled into conversations. Now these tidbits were part of her daily memory exercises and came out like meteors, if they came at all. “When you’re one in a million in China,” she’d told him recently, “there are still fourteen hundred people as good as you.”
The dinner table was covered with clashing flavors and odors,braised lamb chops, red potatoes, spinach salad
“He’s always been a freak of nature,” Katrina said. “Once saw him climb out of his father’s truck to help a night crawler across the road.”
“A worm?”
“Is there any other kind of night crawler?”
Alexandra did her best impression of Brandon’s snorting laugh. “Gotta admit he’s kinda handsome though, in an overgrown, innocent kinda way.” Then she broke into an off-key rendition of “Super Freak,” growling, “the kind you don’t bring home to mo-therrr …”
Sophie waited for a lull, then recounted Dionne’s full rendition ofhow he’d chased five illegals into her arms, and how the nationality of the injured couple remained a mystery. “They put them on the phone with AT&T translators and passed the call around, but nobody could place their accent. Can you imagine?”
She was mentioning that the woman Brandon caught had been wearing clothes made of silk and lamé when Madeline volunteered, “He called me.”
“Who?” Sophie asked, sensing that Madeline was drunker than she looked.
“Brandon.”
“Last night?”
“Uh-huh. He wanted to know if we’d seen anything. Needed to talk, I think.”
Sophie waited out the commentary. “So that was it?”
“Said the most interesting people he meets these days are criminals.”
“Out of the blue?”
Madeline smiled. “Completely.”
“He is the strangest,” Alexandra began over the rising gabble. “I mean, have any of you actually—”
“Speaking of strange,” Danielle interjected, saliva whistling in the corners of her mouth, “I hear you had a date with some foot-sucker, Madeline.”
Madeline’s head fell, and Sophie leaned forward as if to catch it. “Dessert anyone?”
She then glided toward the kitchen, blocking out the chatter and reimagining Brandon’s tiny, nameless couple flying into Vancouver, and waiting a few anxious days until some overpriced stranger they couldn’t understand coaxed them across the ditch.
Is this America?
The air, soil and trees looked and smelled the same.
Are we really in America?
And then—YES!—to be in the land of liberty for all of three electrifying minutes before getting chased and crushed by the largest, most unusual agent in the history of the U.S. Border Patrol.
Welcome to America, whoever you are.
7
N ORM WATCHED his son lope up the stairs three in a bound, still resembling a giant Boy Scout in that silly uniform, ducking beneath the beam and looking so alive and powerful that if he inhaled too deeply everyone else in the room might pass out.
As usual, he seemed to see everything in a glance, his eyes sweeping from the ice on his father’s knee to his mother hunched over stacks of photos on the sun-faded couch that her husband had promised to replace years ago. She’d written the names of friends and relatives on the back so she could flip through the prints like flash cards. From what Norm could tell, this exercise only complicated matters; the images were so meshed with memories it was like separating salt from sugar. At what click of the second hand, he wondered, would those names become meaningless jumbles of letters?
Until the past eight months—yes, it began when Brandon went away to the academy—she’d been their memory, their crossword whiz, their
Jeopardy!
champ. Norm had never read much except
Hoard’s Dairyman
while she inhaled everything from
The Economist
to Darwin’s original essays to
National Geographic Kids
—a holdover from Brandon’s childhood—and armed herself with believe-it-or-not facts she nimbly recycled into conversations. Now these tidbits were part of her daily memory exercises and came out like meteors, if they came at all. “When you’re one in a million in China,” she’d told him recently, “there are still fourteen hundred people as good as you.”
The dinner table was covered with clashing flavors and odors,braised lamb chops, red potatoes, spinach salad
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