Page 8 of String Boys

“Yeah, usually, but Mom wasn’t feeling good, so she took a nap with them, and Matty had homework. I came down to listen—”Oh no! No!He wasn’t supposed to listen. God, he was bad at lying. “—help. I came down to help Seth put up the Easter decorations. They look real good, Mr. Arnold. Way better than at Christmas. I helped put the eggs in the window. Don’t they look good?”

“Looks great, Kelly,” Craig said, like he was humoring Kelly, but since Kelly was babbling, that was okay. “What were you listening to again?”

Kelly looked at Seth unhappily, but Seth didn’t get mad or anything that Kelly spilled the beans. “I was practicing for the spring assembly,” Seth said, putting a handful of plastic eggs in the bowl with Kelly’s before going to find the others on the floor. He was acting like there wouldn’t be a follow-up question to that, but Kelly was pretty sure adults weren’t that stupid.

“Singing?” Seth’s dad sounded genuinely interested, so Kelly looked at Seth, pleading with his eyes.

“No,” Seth said, but whether to Kelly or to his father, Kelly couldn’t be certain.

“Poetry?” Mr. Arnold said, and for the first time ever, Kelly looked at him and realized he was pretty too, like Seth. His skin was paler, and his hair wasn’t super curly, but he was very much Seth’s daddy. He even had the quiet smile that made Kelly want to make Seth laugh so much more.

“No,” Seth told him, arranging the eggs carefully in the bowl.

“Seth!” Mr. Arnold laughed. “What are you doing for the spring assembly? I’m curious. I’d like to go see you!”

And the look on Seth’s face was a terrible mixture of hope and fear. Oh! Seth wanted his daddy to be proud of him, but who was proud of the violin? Matty and Kelly’s dadsaidhe was proud of them, but that didn’t stop him from swooping them up on Wednesdays and taking them to indoor soccer.

“He plays the violin!” Kelly burst out, the pressure so bad that he felt like he had to pee.

Nobody said anything, so he kept going. “Me and Matty play too, but Seth plays it best of all of us. He plays best of all the string boys. That’s what Mrs. Sheridan calls us. String boys. I sort of want a T-shirt that saysstring boys, but Mrs. Sheridan says we can barely afford the violins.”

Still, there was no response.

“Not that my violin’s so great—there’s a big chip off the bottom, and I’m pretty sure that’s why it sounds so whiny, but Seth got the good one. His violin always sounds perfect. He can make it sing, sad, like on the radio. Someday his bow will get faster and he’ll make it funny, like ‘Turkey in the Straw.’”

Mr. Arnold was looking at Kelly in surprise, and, well, that was a lot of information in one go. Kelly knew that, but Seth was staring at them both, stricken, and Kelly didn’t know what else to do but babble.

“Have you heard ‘Turkey in the Straw,’ Mr. Arnold? It goes really fast, and it’s like all the ice cream truck songs. It goes dee-dee-dee-dee-da-dee-dee-dee-dee—”

Mr. Arnold was holding up his hand and laughing. “I know what ‘Turkey in the Straw’ sounds like, Kelly. I didnotknow that Seth could play it.”

“I can’t!” Seth said, sounding panicked. “We’re learning that for the big assembly in June. It’s not ready for spring assembly. Spring assembly is scales in rounds. And parts. But not—”

“Seth,” Mr. Arnold said, his expression deepening to worry. “I’m not angry. I….” He looked away, and Kelly thought he looked sad and maybe ashamed. “I understand why you wouldn’t have told me earlier. But how long have you been playing the violin?”

Seth looked at Kelly, who shrugged.

“October? Right, Seth? We started the beginning of October, and then practiced through Thanksgiving, and then we did the Christmas concert. You remember the Christmas concert, right? It’s the night my daddy came home and….” Kelly trailed off and looked at Mr. Arnold’s face. “You might remember that night.”

Mr. Arnold nodded. “I do. Seth, don’t be afraid to practice violin in front of me, okay?”

Seth’s expression was… hurt. And angry. “I don’t know if you’ll feel like that all the time,” he said, his eyes shiny. “What if you come home one day and hate it and break the violin? It’s the school’s, and it’s expensive, and I love it, and—”

Mr. Arnold held up his hand. “And I haven’t earned your trust yet,” he said sadly. “I… I’m lucky I’m here to do it at all.” He nodded to the kitchen. “I’m going to make some spaghetti for dinner. You boys can go play in your room, okay?”

Seth nodded angrily and ran into his room, and Kelly followed.

“I’m sorry!” he said as soon as the door was closed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell him everything. I just—”

Seth shook his head. “It’s not your fault,” he muttered. “I just… I’m so confused. If I knew he was going to hit me, I’d know what to expect. But now he’s… he’s nice. And I don’t remember him being nice in so long. And I’m so afraid, because what if he gets mean after he’s been nice—it’s so damned scary when you don’t know!”

Seth curled up on his bed then, miserable and tense, and Kelly patted his arm gently, like he did when the twins were crying. He didn’t say anything about Seth using the grown-up word. He figured fourth graders got to do lots of stuff he didn’t get to do in the third grade.

“Maybe… I don’t know,” he whispered. “Maybe just hope? We kept hoping our daddy would come back, and he did. Maybe you just keep hoping that this is the real daddy and not the mad one. And maybe it will be true, you think?”

Seth nodded, but he didn’t look any less tense. Kelly just crouched there, patting his arm, until there was a knock on the door.

“Seth? Kelly?” It was Kelly’s dad, and Seth scrambled up so quickly, Kelly fell on his ass.