The Rock and the River Read Free Page B

driveway. As we walked up the path to the porch, I had an odd urge to climb onto the long slope of the roof and lie there, alone and away from everything.
    â€œSamuel, go to your room,” Father instructed as soon as we got inside. “Steven, couch.”
    â€œYes, sir,” I mumbled. I shuffled to the bedroom I shared with Stick and closed the door. Ten loose wooden building blocks lay scattered across my desk. I scooped them all up. It was definitely a ten-block kind of day. Breathing deeply, I forced myself to relax and steady my hand. Then I approached our castle.
    The block castle towered over the foot of my bed, stretching so tall, it nearly touched the ceiling and so wide,we could only partly open my half of the closet door. I cradled the blocks in my left arm, picking up one at a time to place it. One, at the base by the main entrance annex. Two, at eye level, completing the royal arch. Three, right at the corner by the bed, sticking off like a gargoyle. Four.
    I used to build for fun, for the sheer pleasure of crafting a miniature warehouse, office, palace, stable, restaurant out of rubble.
    Five.
    Lately, it was more like a way to leave the real world for someplace better. Just for a minute, I could focus only on the tower, only on the placement of each block.
    Six. Seven.
    As I reached above my head to set a block near the apex, I had to take such care not to knock any walls over that there wasn’t room for anything else in my head, no space to even breathe.
    Eight. Nine.
    From the living room, the sounds alternated between Father’s low rumbling tone and Stick’s occasional grunting response. I could hear Father speaking, but I couldn’t make out the words. He never raised his voice, no matter how mad he got.
    Ten. I held the last block, thinking of where to put it. The perfectly edged rectangle felt good in my hand. Familiar andsolid, almost big enough to cover my palm. We had some blocks that were cubes, and a few triangles for decoration, but mostly it was this kind. I bounced it on my fingers. Maybe I would save it for Stick.
    I flopped onto my bed and closed my eyes, imagining the world inside our castle.
    Stick and I used to lie on our beds after lights-out and play the game together, making up elaborate lives and characters, before we got too old to make-believe. My wall was covered with photos of famous buildings—the Wrigley Building, Marina City, the Egyptian pyramids, the Guggenheim Museum, the Taj Mahal, the palace of Versailles. The block tower could be any or all of them, and we had invented stories about the worlds that might exist inside each of their walls.
    Stick pretended not to be as into it as I was, but he went along, adding pieces to the tower here and there when he felt like it. Anyway, he was the reason we still had the thing.
    We’d started it when I was nine. I wanted to build a really big castle. Stick said okay, and we spent an entire day setting up an elaborate floor plan and building the base and everything. By the time we used every last block we had in the house, we had only built up a few inches from the ground.
    â€œLet’s build something else,” I’d said, ready to tear down the walls and start over on something more manageable.
    â€œNo way,” Stick had said.
    â€œBut we can’t finish it,” I said.
    â€œSure we can, we just need more blocks.”
    â€œFrom where?”
    â€œI don’t know. We’ll get some.”
    â€œThat’ll take forever.” I started to break apart the blocks, but Stick dragged me away, pulling me over by his bed.
    â€œIt’ll be worth it,” he insisted. I didn’t understand what he meant.
    â€œCome on, let’s go outside,” he’d said. So we went to play in the yard, and later whenever I mentioned tearing it down, Stick would say, “We’re keeping it.”
    Stick was always like that—stubborn and patient. A lot of things ended up