Bear snorted.
“Then you must work as hard as your father did. You are his son, Bear. You have it in you to do just as he did and keep this family together. You were never hungry when he was alive.”
“We were never hungry? Is that what he told you? And you believed him? Is that why you were always buying our piss-poor little vegetables and hauling away those stupid carvings, Rei? Is that why you were always bringing us the food you made? Because my father did such a good job providing for us?”
Rei didn’t respond. Bear took a long drink of his beer. Then he leaned across the table toward me until he was close enough that his beer breath wet the tip of my nose. I forced myself to look right at him and not blink. “Were you never hungry when Dad was alive?” he asked. “Surprise everyone and tell the truth.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I was never hungry,” I said. The lie came so easily, so enjoyably, that I felt a thrill in my stomach. When I glanced at Amir, I saw that he was struggling not to smile.
Bear sat back and drank his beer. “It doesn’t matter. Rei, you know it would be easier for us without Amir.”
Rei fell quiet. I stared at her, wondering if she would allow for this betrayal. But then she put her hands on her hips. Her cheeks were flushed with anger. I had known her my entire life, and I had never seen her look so furious.
“Do you know how much money Amir’s carvings fetched before you took away his knife? No, I am sure you don’t. I’ll tell you this: Without Amir, you will not pay your tax bill. And that’s not all. If Amir is no longer your problem, then you will no longer be mine. I will not buy your vegetables. I will not help you sell anything made or grown here. You will be on your own.”
I wanted to leap from the table and throw my arms around Rei. But I sat still, looking from Rei to my brother and back again. Amir did the same.
Bear took a long drink from his can of beer, glowering at Rei over its rim. He did not say anything.
“Amir stays at Horseshoe Cliff,” Rei continued. “You will give him back his knife so he can make the carvings that I will sell for you. And I will arrange to teach the children. You will watch over them in the manner your father expected. The manner that your mother would have wanted, too.”
At this, Bear stood so abruptly that his chair fell back and hit the floor. His face was red, and he did not look at any of us. He grabbed a six-pack of beer from the fridge and strode out of the house, slamming the door behind him. As I watched him go, I had to clasp my fingers together to keep them from shaking. Iwas happy that Rei had spoken up for Amir—but I knew that Bear would punish us for witnessing his humiliation.
IT DID NOTtake long.
That night, I was reading aloud in our bedroom when the door was thrown open. Bear loomed in the doorframe, swaying.
“Get out,” he slurred. “You.Amir.” His hand slipped from the doorframe, and he stumbled forward a couple of steps before straightening. I stared at him, frozen in my bed. Across the room, Amir was frozen in his. “I said GET OUT!”
“What do you mean?” I cried. “Where is he supposed to go?”
“The shed.”
“Theshed?”
“It’s freezing out there,” said Amir. He spoke in the cool voice he always used with Bear, the one that drove Bear crazy. I was never able to stay as calm as Amir, but I was working on it. If I couldn’t scare Bear the way he scared me, I could at least try to get under his skin the way that Amir managed to. Amir spoke in a way that seemed disconnected from his skinny body; it was the voice of a bigger man, made calm by the knowledge that he had the upper hand. Of course, his upper hand was only a bluff; Bear had all the power. We were children, and Bear was now the adult in charge.
“You want to stay at Horseshoe Cliff? You’ll sleep in the toolshed,” Bear said. Spittle sat in the corners of his mouth, threatening release into the room. “You should never have been allowed in the house in the first place. From now on you can live like the other filthy pets that my father gave Merrow.” Hestepped toward us. With one violent yank, Amir was on the ground. Bear towered over him.“Move.”
Amir stood and slowly gathered his pillow and blanket into his arms.
I scrambled to my feet, but Amir held up his hand, stopping me. He walked out of the room. When the front door opened, a blast of damp air swept through the cottage. The door shut.
Bear looked down at me. I had learned that he loved to see me miserable, so I tried to hold my face expressionless. I couldn’t manage it. My skin felt hot with the rage that seeped up from my chest. I would never be like Amir, who so easily closed his anger into his fists, saving it.For when?I wondered when I watched Amir speak to my brother with such control. What moment was he saving up all of his anger for?
“How could you do that to him?” I yelled at Bear. “You heard what Rei said! She’s not going to help you if you don’t let him stay.”
Bear leaned down. I smelled his sour, unclean skin below the yeasty scent of beer. “Amirisstaying,” he sneered. “In the toolshed.” On his way out of the room, Bear shoved his knee into Pal’s side, making my dog hit the floor with a pitiful yelp.
I rushed to Pal and held him in my arms. He licked my face, reassuring me for a moment, but when he lifted himself off the ground, he would not set down one of his paws. “Poor boy,” I cried, burying my face in his warm fur.
I thought of Amir out in the dark shed and when I did something mysterious happened: My room became the dark shed, too, and I lay on the dirt floor among the saws and shovels andpicker baskets. I was Amir, without a parent, without a friend, without even a dog. A black loneliness gripped me. I dug my nails into my palm and my room became my room again.
I could not stand to wait—Rei frequently said I was the most impatient child she had ever known—but now I did. I sat beside Pal and stroked his head and waited.
When the tinny thump of Bear’s beer can returning to the table finally fell away, I peered into the kitchen. My brother’s head rested on the crook of his arms. His shoulders rose and fell with his deep, shuddering breaths. I grabbed my pillow and blanket and hurried outside with Pal limping along at my side. The front door closed with a hushed click behind us. The fog was so dense that I couldn’t see the shed until I was nearly upon it.
When I opened the door, I heard Amir suck in his breath, but I couldn’t see him in the soupy blackness of the windowless room.
