it.
No, she didnât even know heâd written a book, much less sent it off. She knew he wrote, sure, but seemed to think it was some weird phase he was going through, though after all these years youâd thinkâ¦
No, it was his book and his letter, no matter what it said. Nobody needed to know anything. Just him and somebody in New York. For a second he wondered whoâ¦
Ken was grilling hot dogs on the Jenn-Air.
âAnything up?â
âNaw.â Travis wished Ken werenât such a hard ass about letting him drink anything. He sure could use a slug of bourbon. âShe just wanted to make sure everything was okay. Was I eating right, you know.â
âI hope you lied.â Ken took the mustard knife away from Christopher, who was trying to mustard the hot dogs still on the grill.
âYeah, I did.â He remembered something. âShe said to say hi. She called you Kenny, made you sound like a little kid.â
âShe always didâcalled Tim, Timmy too. He swore when he had a kid, the nameâd be something she couldnât put a
y
on.â
âI thought she picked my name.â
âShe did, but Tim had to approve it. He was sure you were going to be a boy ⦠She got the name out of a book, didnât she? The MacDonald mystery series?â
âNo,
Old Yeller
. The dog book.â
âTim used to tease her about all the books she read.â
Mom reading? He hadnât seen her read anything except
Readerâs Digest
and
National Enquirer
and those books that always had a picture of a pirate ripping the shirt off some girl. That wasnât
real
reading.
âYour mom was a real sweet girl. Pretty too. She thought Tim hung the moon.â
Hung the moon. What a weird expression. Travis had never heard it.
âSheâs fat now,â Travis said. He tried to think of Mom young, pretty, and reading, and couldnât do it. Young, pretty, and reading and thinking someone hung the moon ⦠Obviously she thought a lot more of Stan than Travis could, but he wasnât any moon hanger.
âCome here,â Ken said suddenly. He picked up Christopher and sat him on one of the high barstools at the center island table.
âPut your hand next to Chrisâs, open your fingers. See?â
Travis stared at the two hands, wondering ⦠then he saw. Christopherâs hand was a miniature of his own. The shape of the fingers, the set of the thumbsâTravis was startled to see even a lot of similarity in the palm prints.
âWow.â
âHeâs got Teresaâs coloring and features, but my details: Ears, hands, feet.â
âLet me see yours.â
Again, an amazing resemblance. Travis thought: Thatâs how my hand will look. But surely not that old.
âDo I remind you of my dad?â
âJust in looks. Youâre a lot quieter. Tim was a very ⦠vivid personality.â
âYou guys get along?â
âOnce a year.â
âWhyâd you let me come here?â
Ken met his eyes. Ken had light brown eyes, clear, like iced tea with the sun shining through.
âWhyâd you want to come?â
And Travis knew exactly when the same thought went through both their minds: I thought youâd be Tim.
Federal Express, he thought, I should have told her to Federal-Express it. He couldnât eat, heâd hardly slept, and he couldnât expect the letter for two more days, anyway. It would have cost a lot of money, he wasnât sure how much, but he could have hocked his tape playerâno, calm down, whatever the letter said it would say the same thing two days from now.
He went directly to the barn after heâd put in his time at school. The house was more peaceful, now that Christopher was gone, but Ken was in a bad mood. He was ticked off because Christopher had left saying a word he hadnât said before; Travis figured if Ken had cable TV like any normal person the kid would