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pocket as if that was supposed to mean something, turned and swaggered away. He often swaggered, but he couldn’t help that; he was a jock. Was he mad? Tess stared after him.
    â€œHe tries to be a big man so his father will notice him,” Lupe said.
    Butch’s father was some sort of Army general stationed at the base in the mountains outside of Canadawa, where Tess went to school. Butch mentioned his father a lot. His father was away at the Pentagon, his father had to go to a meeting with the secretary of state, that sort of thing.
    â€œHuh,” Tess said, and she went on break.
    The boy waiting out back was Kamo.
    Kam didn’t lean against the Dumpster—he stood straight and still, waiting beside it. “Hey,” he said, friendly but unsmiling, as Tess walked up to him.
    â€œKam, this guy I work with says you’ve been asking questions.”
    He acknowledged with a nod. “I was hoping other people around here might know your father.”
    â€œOh, great. Just wonderful.” She was glad to see him, yet suddenly she was angry at him. “Talking about me behind my back.”
    â€œNot about you.”
    â€œAbout my father, same thing.”
    Kam said, with passion yet without raising his voice, “What else am I supposed to do? I need to find him. You can’t help me.”
    Damn, he was right. There was nothing else he could do except go away, and she didn’t want that. She let out a long breath and said nothing.
    â€œAnyway, no such luck,” Kam said more quietly. “It seems like you and Mr. Mathis are kind of new here. Just moved here four, five years ago. Nobody knows a thing.”
    â€œHuh!” Tess was taken aback. Somehow she had assumed that she and Daddy had lived in the little cow-plop cinder-block shack in the country since she was born. But it seemed not.
    It seemed like Daddy had let her think that, though.
    Kam gave her a minute to process the information, and then he asked, “Tess—why don’t you remember?”
    Dumb question. “I just don’t.”
    â€œBecause you’re a mental deficient? I don’t think so. Tess, c’mon. Why?”
    No, it wasn’t such a dumb question. Something dark and hard had started to gather in her chest and she didn’t have a name for it but she knew it was the bomb that was going to blow the walls of her world in. She admitted it, though only to herself: some horrible thing had happened when she was a child, something so awful she could not remember.
    Kam said, “Don’t you want to know about your parents? Aren’t you curious?”
    She shook her head vehemently.
    â€œTess,” he said, “I’m asking your permission to talk to Mr. Mathis.”
    She knew he was. “Go away.”
    He could tell she didn’t mean it. He turned to go, but said gently, “I’ll be back when you get off work.”
    How he knew when she got off work was a mystery to Tess, because she had never told him. Maybe he just stood there for hours. When she came out, though, there he was by the Dumpster, swiveling his head to check her face like a hawk checking to see which way the wind was blowing. She didn’t know what to say to him, but stood and waited for him to come and walk beside her before she headed toward home.
    Neither of them said a word as they walked up Hinkles Corner. Tess trudged more slowly than usual, noticing things, as if that could help her. Outhouses. Somebody had a plywood cutout, a granny fanny, leaning against an outhouse. Springtime, so people were putting ornaments on their lawns, propeller-wing ducks, kissing kids, plastic pinwheel daisies. Some old woman even had the push mower out already. Tess saw yellow posy bushes blooming, yellow smoke rising from a chimney—somebody had a coal fire going. It was going to be a chilly night.
    She and Kam said nothing until they were clear out of Hinkles Corner, through the salvage yard and