In the Break Read Free Page A

ball games when we were young, putting a basketball backboard in their
     driveway and shooting hoops with us far into those summer nights that seemed to go on forever when I used to spend the night
     at Jamie’s. His house was bike-riding distance from mine, and he and I spent all our free time together.
    For a time I think I secretly wanted to be a Watkins, to be their second son, to have those soft searing blue eyes that Jamie
     and Amber had, to have the sandy blond hair, to be in a two-child family, to acquire the ease with which they all seemed to
     do everything. Jamie’s father was a professional, an up-and-coming architect, someone who was in the paper sometimes for awards
     and things. Mrs. Watkins was athletic and perky (my mother’s term — I think she was jealous), and stayed home.
    My parents were the same age as Jamie’s, but they were not Claire and Eddie. My father was a printer, my mother a secretary,
     and sometimes they fought over not having enough money. There were four kids in my family and money was tight. Our land was
     worth a lot, though, and that was something.
    I was thinking all this shit as I tried to get comfortable on the shower floor, where I always fell asleep. I don’t know why,
     but I liked to nap with the water cascading over me. I liked the tingling feeling the jets of spray made as they hit my head;
     I liked the warm, safe feeling I had inside the shower, locked inside the bathroom. None of my family could disturb me here.
     While leaning my legs up against the opposite tile wall I couldn’t help thinking about this morning at the beach.
    “Hurry up, I need to pee!” my little sister shouted from the other side of the door.
    “Go away!”
    “I’m telling, you’re not supposed to stay in the shower so long,” Patti whined.
    “Okay, I’ll be out in a minute,” I lied. I listened to see if she was actually going to tell, which she rarely did. She could
     use the other bathroom, dammit! In time, I forgot about her threat, the warm water making me drowsy.
    Jamie and I had met in kindergarten. One day Mrs. Watkins approached my mother, asking if it was okay for me to come and play
     at their house. Of course it was, but, still, my mother had to go over and check things out just for form’s sake. From that
     time on we had a regular play day — Tuesday — which lasted through elementary school.
    After Mr. Watkins died, Tuesdays turned into every day, because I would walk home with Jamie and hang with him. Mr. Watkins
     died in a freeway auto accident. He was driving early in the morning on his way to a shopping-center site that his firm was
     going to design. A big rig crashed over the center divider and hit Mr. Watkins’s car head on. He died on impact, the Highway
     Patrol told Mrs. Watkins. He hadn’t suffered, they said. And his car had hit others, three more people dying in the fiery
     crash. The Highway Patrol said the stuff about dying instantly because there was a horrific fire, and not much was left of
     some of the accident victims. It was all right there on the freeway, and on television and in the newspapers, really sucking
     in its gory details.
    Jamie was in the fifth grade, Amber in seventh. People from all over the area attended the funeral, and so did I and my parents.
     Even my older brother went because he knew the family, and my father said he should pay his respects.
    At that time it was no longer fun to go over to Jamie’s, but I still did. He started coming over to my house more often, and
     I knew it was hard for him to see my father, but that was what he wanted, to hang around somebody else’s father, I guessed.
    My legs were above my head, my back flat on the floor, which stopped the drain, I noticed, as water was almost overflowing
     the shower pan, so I switched positions, leaning against the wall and pulling up my knees into my chest so the water hit my
     neck and back as I stretched my upper body forward. I settled in, thinking how hard it