Mean Season by Heather Cochran Page B

going-away party the week before, but there’s nothing like the very last day you’re going to see someone to make the loss hit home.
    â€œLeanne, didn’t you hear me? I’m talking right at you,” Momma said. She sounded mad. “Beau Ray’s done mixed up all his playing cards, plus the ones from the game chest. I don’t know, just fix it!”
    â€œYes, Momma,” I told her, and I put the artist’s cottage picture inside the pages of the fancy Bible that Susan had given us the year before.
    Beau Ray’s room was a mess of playing cards.
    â€œBeau Ray,” I said to get his attention. I could see how Momma had probably taken one look and called for me. There were cards strewn across his bed, across the rug, across the dresser, everywhere. If there’d been anyone else to ask, I’d have kept passing the buck.
    Beau Ray was squatting in the doorway of his closet, pretending to play solitaire. Sometimes, even though years had passed, I’d have these split-second moments when I’d forget all that had happened, that Beau Ray wasn’t exactly Beau Ray anymore, that there was a new person in our midst.
    â€œWhat’s with all the cards?” I asked him.
    He looked up at me, confused, and it all came back.
    â€œPlaying solidtare,” he said.
    â€œSolitaire,” I told him. “But what about all these?”
    â€œPlaying twenty-eight pickup,” he said.
    From the door, I could see that he’d mixed at least four different decks, four different designs including one from my room that had roses on the backs and gold around the edges. I don’t put too much stock in playing cards, but Vince had given me the rose deck when I was twelve, so they were not something I wanted to see torn up or stepped on.
    â€œLooks like two hundred and eight pickup,” I said, doing the math.
    â€œTwo hundred eight pickup,” Beau Ray said. He threw his solitaire pile into the air. On the outside, it looked celebratory, the cards fluttering around him like petals and whirligigs. But he didn’t look happy.
    â€œMomma says we’ve got to clean this up. Help me get the cards into a big pile, okay?”
    Beau Ray nodded but didn’t move. I started gathering the cards into one pile and finally he shrugged, then helped a little. I told him that I wanted him to ask before he took the deck of rose cards, and even though I was trying not to sound mad about it, Beau Ray started to rock back and forth as he did when he sought to comfort himself.
    â€œBeau Ray, it’s okay,” I said. “I’m not yelling at you. It’s just that they belong in my room—like this is your room and your cards live here, right?”
    He nodded, but I knew that we’d be having the same conversation again about something else, some other thing he found and would take or break or both. I’d learned not to become too attached to things since Beau Ray’s fall. Nothing lasted.
    Beau Ray was a good guy—at least, he meant to be. That he’d always been mellow, even back when he was functioning at normal levels, was a saving grace. I’d heard stories of people, brain-injured like him, full of adult-sized rage but without the ability to put it anywhere. So my brother marked Raoul’s departure by throwing four packs of playing cards in the air. That wasn’t so bad.
    Maybe an hour later, I was in my room replacing the rose-backed cards in my desk drawer when Joshua opened Vince’s door. He stood in the doorway, stock-still for a moment, staring across the hall into my room. He looked both sleepy and mad, like a toddler roused too early from a nap. His dark hair curled out in different directions. Then he shuffled across the hall and stood at my bedroom door, frowning out my window toward the yard below and the street beyond. He looked down at his left ankle, where the gray plastic sensor with a locked band hung. He shook his