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showed was his face, no makeup and somehow no scratches. Around Aaron’s neck was a tiny cross that had once belonged to Kathy’s Italian grandfather. It was thick and old-fashioned and Aaron loved it. Around his head was a wrap to cover the skull damage, almost like a white bandana. Everyone told Aaron Stories, and one by one, everyone touched him. Even Kathy. Did she want to wake him, to beg him to open his eyes and sit up and come home? Did she want to yell at him, Be careful! The roads are slick! Drive slowly around that bend! No, she told me later, she wanted to memorize him. They only left because a staff person came in to say that the family of the other boy—Aaron’s friend Ross, who was also laid out there—were on their way over.
    I tell you about Aaron because he died when you were both in diapers and his death has changed every day of our life together. I tell you about Aaron because I want you to live longer than he did. Even though I hope you have Aaron’s general trust in people and his belief that things usually work out, even though I want you to love people as easily and overtly as he did, I want you to be more cautiousand less optimistic. I want to keep you in the world where I can find you.
    I hurt you once, Georgia. When you were three. I’d taken you to the Lawrence Hall of Science to look at displays about gravity and Saturn’s rings and the crust of the earth. Afterward, we headed home for your nap. You were a great napper. On the way back to the car, you took a few steps away from me, right into traffic. I yanked you back as a car veered away from us, the driver pounding the horn. I squatted down and shook you, screaming, “Never! Never cross the street without an adult. Never! Do you hear me? Did you see that car? Never!” I could feel people watching. I was digging my fingers into your shoulders too deeply, and you cried because it hurt, but I didn’t care. It was worth it. I just thought, She has to remember this, this might be my chance to save her .
    I think about Kathy all the time.
    I wonder if she lives for the mention of Aaron’s name, hearing some story she’d forgotten or never knew, seeing his handwriting in a high school notebook under the sofa, an old photograph, a few frames of video. Here he is at his christening, or holding out a handful of roly-poly bugs, or playing stickball in that field across from the Wawners’ house. Remember how he brought a one-pound bag of M&M’s to that girl he had a crush on—Carmen?—or how many times he snuck off to the lake to go fishing and then confessed—he could never lie—before going to sleep? Remember how he’d be lying back on his bed with his hands behind his head, looking at the ceiling, and when you’d ask him what he was doing, he’d say, talkin’ to God, or how, when we lived on the farm, he was always climbing that tree and then jumping out, over and over, like he was practicing for a jumping-out-of-trees contest?
    I wonder if Kathy ever forgets entirely, then hates herself when it comes rushing back at her. I wonder whether she tells strangers that she has two kids or three. I wonder if she sometimes goes to sleep on a bed of Aaron’s clothes, breathing them in like so many scent squares.
    I asked her recently if she ever wanted to kill herself. I don’t remember exactly how I put it, but she knew what I was getting at. She said no. She was still Maggie’s Momma and Lena’s Ma. She was still Tony’s wife. Someone still needed to fill Satchel’s dog bowl and take him for walks twice a day. There were still rivers to float on and yellow moons that stopped her short in the night and diner food. There were still days when she had the urge to wear her leopard-print loafers, something a seething person could not possibly do. There were still close lacrosse games that got her up on her feet andCamp Wahoo, a place Aaron loved, where you could wear nothing but a bathing suit and flip-flops for days, play flashlight tag