Read Shooting the Moon for Free Online Page A

wandering away from the camera, her shoulders slumped in their little-old-lady slouch. It was like someone had snuck her into the picture as a joke, and the other Lorenzos were ignoring her the best they could.
    â€œBrutus says he comes from Africa, but he never told you that because you don’t like Africa,” Cindy said, leading me into her room.
    â€œI like Africa,” I protested before I could remember not to get caught up in conversation with Cindy like she was just another one of my friends. Within seconds, I’d be arguing on her level, saying hurtful things just to feel superior.
    â€œBrutus says you don’t.” Cindy reached over and pinched me. “So don’t lie.”
    â€œSorry.” I rubbed the red welt on my arm. “I won’t anymore.”
    Cindy sat primly on her neatly made bed, the pink chenille spread pulled tight, and reached across a pile of stuffed animals toward a raggedy, stretched-out boxer dog with fluff coming out of his left eye socket where the eye used to be. This wasmy beloved Brutus, given to me by TJ on my third birthday. According to my mother, he’d struggled hard over whether or not to give me Brutus or keep him for himself, but in the end brotherly love had won out. He’d named Brutus before he gave him to me, saying that if he ever got a dog, if our mom suddenly stopped being allergic to them, that’s what he’d planned on calling it.
    â€œYou know you have to give Brutus back to me one day,” I told Cindy, the way I did every time I came over. “I only loaned him to you. It’s not for keeps.”
    Cindy hugged Brutus tight to her chest. “Brutus likes it here better, I told you he told me that. He told me that he hates you and wishes you would die.”
    You wouldn’t think that some crazy thing Cindy Lorenzo said to you, something made up in her halfway working mind, could hurt your feelings, but Cindy’s words could pinch as hard as her fingers. I knew I should just ignore her, and sometimes I could. But right then I wanted to pinch Cindy back.
    â€œHey, Cindy, do you want to go to the playground and see who’s there? We could swing on the swings.”
    Cindy went pale, the brown splotches on her skin standing out worse than ever. “No, no, no, no,” she said, the last “no” scaling into a wail. “No, I will not, no, no.”
    She curled up into a ball on her bed, still clutching Brutus. I felt a tiny pang of regret, but more than that, I felt like I’d gotten Cindy back and she deserved it. It was not the nicest part of myself that felt that way. Sometimes I thought it was too bad that I’d figured out Cindy couldn’t stand being around a lot of people at once. A nicer person than me would never have used this information against Cindy. I tried not to do it too much, but every once in a while I couldn’t help myself.
    â€œOkay, okay,” I said after a minute. I sat down next to her on the bed. “That’s not what I came over to ask you, anyway. I wanted to show you the pictures TJ sent me from Vietnam. Well, he didn’t send me the pictures, actually. He sent the film. I developed it by myself.”
    â€œTJ’s a meanie!” Cindy shrieked. “I hate him!”
    Cindy was in love with my brother. Her love had shown itself in a parade of little-kid insults and pinches and kicks. It was like watching the Three Stooges, the kind of funny that makes you laugh and wince at the same time.
    â€œI developed this film myself,” I repeated, wanting Cindy to be impressed, even though I knew that she wouldn’t be. She’d probably never given one thought in her life to how pictures got from the camera to a piece of paper. Still, I liked saying it. “Sgt. Byrd taught me how to print pictures this very afternoon. He said I’m a natural, from start to finish.”
    Learning to develop the film had been easier than I thought it