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"I couldn't sleep and finally gave up trying," he said. "What's wrong?"

He didn't answer for a very long moment.

"Is Aunt Glenda all right?"

"No." he said sullenly. "Why?"

I expected him to say something like the same old thing, but he didn't.

"You don't remember what today is then?" he asked, still not looking at me.

"Today?" I thought. "Oh," I finally said when I realized. "I'm sorry, I forgot."

It was the day Latisha had died, Maybe I didn't want to remember. Every year on the anniversary of her daughter's death. Aunt Glenda dressed in black and draped a funereal atmosphere over herself and anyone who came within a hundred yards of her.

"I wish I could forget. too." Harley replied sharply through clenched teeth. "Maybe I should rip out this page on the calendar and bury it someplace like you and your grandmother buried your bad memory. I doubt I could do it." he said and looked away as he continued.

"I was almost eight years old when she died. but I still had trouble understanding what death was. Latisha was often sick. I remember her being in the hospital a lot, but death was still something that happened only to old people. I think for days and days afterward. I kept expecting Roy and my mother would be bringing her home.'"

He laughed.

"I guess I thought if young people died, they died for only a little while. For them, death was nothing more than just another illness that they would !et over. The doctor would make her better.

"My mother spent a good part of every night out there at her grave. I remember her telling Roy she thought Latisha might be frightened, all alone in the dark.

"He didn't have much patience for that and yelled at her for talking so foolish.

"Then she turned to her religion because it made her feel better about Latisha's going. She was in heaven with angels, so she wasn't alone and wasn't afraid. According to my mother. Latisha felt sorrier for us having to mourn her passing down here on earth.

"My mother would sit beside me at the dinner table and tell me all that, almost the way another Mother might read a fairy tale to her child.

"She broke open her Bible and read to me from it and then told me all about Heaven. Roy couldn't stand it. He would get up and leave, sometimes without finishing his meal. My mother didn't notice or care. I guess. She had begun drifting away from both of us.

"You know what it's like waking up in the middle of a terrible thunder-and-lightning storm when you're just little and you call for your mother, but she's not there because she's more interested in being out at the gravesite of her dead daughter? I didn't get much comfort from Roy. I can tell you that. He would stick his head in my room and Fowl. 'Stop being a baby. Nothing's going to happen to you. Go to sleep.'

"I used to wonder if anything ever frightened him. Sometimes. I wanted to be like him because of that, and sometimes I hated him because of it."

He stopped talking and looked at me as if he had just realized I was standing there listening.

"Sorry I went off at the mouth like that," he said. "Oh, that's okay. Harley. I wanted to listen."

"Here I am telling you my troubles. What a selfish SOB I am. huh?"

"No. Besides. I don't want to dote on my unfortunate experience," I said.

"Unfortunate? It was far from something haphazard or destined. That creep. I wish I knew his name. I wish I knew where he was. I'd wipe that smug smile off his fact."

He stood so stiffly, his arms at his sides, his hands clenched.

"I know you would." I said, touching his shoulder. "That's why I'm not telling you anything. You would just get into trouble, and how do you think I'd feel then?"

He was silent.

"I'd feel absolutely horrible, Harley."

He nodded, his body relaxing.

"Can I tell you something very private?" he asked.