Imperfect Spiral by Debbie Levy Page A

supposed to be thrown.”
    â€œExcuse me,” I say. “It’s the only football we had.”
    â€œYeah, no. I’m not blaming you. Just saying. It’s not like there’s anything wrong with using a regulation football.”
    How relieved I am not to be blamed for using the wrong football. All that’s left is forgiveness for walking at dusk, dropping the football, and having no control over the child I’m supposed to protect.
    â€œThey sell the youth footballs at the mall,” he says. “At that toy store there.”
    â€œI won’t really be needing one,” I say. “Anymore.”
    He looks at me with deep brown eyes, dark lashes—and then I see my words registering.
    â€œOh, jeez,” he says. “He’s the boy. The one who got hit by—that car.”
    â€œRight,” I say.
    â€œJeez.”
    â€œYeah.”
    He doesn’t immediately say anything more. From the look on his face—half horrified, half incredibly sympathetic—I sort of expect him to walk away, to go back to the basketball court. He doesn’t, though. He leans against the picnic table, hesitates, and then pushes himself up to sit on top, like I am.
    â€œI’m really sorry,” he says.
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œSo you were his babysitter.”
    I nod.
    â€œI’m really so sorry.”
    â€œMe, too.”
    â€œHis name was Humphrey, right?”
    â€œOr Humpty,” I say.
    â€œHumpty?”
    â€œSometimes that’s what I called him. Or Humpty Dumpty. Short for Humphrey,” I say.
    â€œThat’s quite a name,” he says.
    â€œI think it was a family name. Someone in Mr. Danker’s family—like his father or grandfather or something. The point is, it wasn’t for Humphrey Bogart.”
    He thinks about this for a moment. “But I wouldn’t say Humpty is short for Humphrey,” he says. “You know? Humpty. Humphrey. Two syllables, either way.”
    â€œI never really thought about it,” I say in a voice that I hope is cold. Who asked him to count syllables? “It was a nickname.”
    â€œSorry. That was stupid.” He sounds embarrassed. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
    I wave the apology away.
    â€œDid Humphrey like the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme or something?”
    â€œOr something,” I say. As if Humphrey would stoop to nursery rhymes. Could this conversation be stupider?
    â€œSo you were with him. When he. You know.”
    â€œYup,” I say. “I was.”
    â€œJeez.”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œMan.”
    â€œYup.”
    We sit there for a few minutes without talking.
    â€œDo you … do you go to Western?” he asks. Smooth transition.
    â€œYup.”
    He gives me a kind of look, I assume because I’ve now said “yup” four times in a row. If he were Thomas R. Danker, he would inform me that this was an inappropriate means of expressing the affirmative. But he’s not Thomas R. Danker.
    â€œDo you know …?”
    He names a bunch of people I don’t know.
    â€œHow about …?”
    Now come the names of Western’s mini-celebrities, including a few hockey players.
    â€œI don’t
know-them
know them,” I say. “But I know who they are. Partly because my brother used to play hockey, so I used to go to all the games.”
    â€œWhy’d you stop?”
    â€œBecause I was at the end of my sentence.”
    He laughs. “No, why’d you stop going to hockey games?”
    I deflect the question. “You don’t go to Western, though, do you?” I ask.
    â€œNo. MacArthur. I’ll be a junior.”
    â€œSo you don’t even live around here,” I say.
    He laughs again. “I live close enough. Why? Is there a geographic limit on who can use the basketball court?”
    â€œNo. Just who can sit on the picnic tables.”
    â€œI see,” he