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sideways across three parking spaces.
    “I’ll call Lisa after,” Marcus said. “Once I get my hand fixed up. She’s real sweet. You can’t judge a person in three seconds like that.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I don’t feel so good.”
    Alex cut the engine and went around to open Marcus’s door. He helped Marcus to his feet, and together they started toward the Emergency Room doors. Marcus, from fear or blood loss or pain, couldn’t walk very straight. He leaned on Alex for support.
    “I’m going to marry that girl,” he said.
    They were almost at the door when Alex stopped. His face hardened, and he pointed at an old red Ford Taurus. Picked up a rock. Before Marcus could stop him, Alex threw it at the windshield. The rock flew off to the side and skipped across the hood of a brand new SUV
    Marcus grabbed Alex’s arm. “What are you doing?”
    “It’s h-h-his—that’s M-m ... Morrison’s car!”
    Marcus let the boy go and circled the car, looking closely at the passenger side. He bent over the bumpers and tires. He checked the head and tail lights. Finally, he checked out the chip Alex had just made in the windshield.
    Alex, collapsed on a bench, started to cry, his shoulders shaking with each sob. His dad’s sunglasses fell to his feet, and Marcus picked them up. He wrapped his arm around the boy and held him close. A woman with a handful of flowers stopped to ask if they needed help. Marcus waved her on.
    Five minutes later, maybe ten, Alex looked up. His face was puffy and wet, and tears stuck his eyelashes together in clumps. When he started to speak, his voice came out thin and high. “I-it’smy fault. I’m the reason Morrison went after my d-dad. I wrecked the stupid bushes. My d-dad would be at work right now ...” He looked down and touched the shirt. “He’d be wearing this if I hadn’t cut across Old Man Morrison’s lawn.”
    Marcus made Alex look him in the eye. “It’s not your fault, Alex.”
    “Is so.”
    “It was just an accident. A rotten, sucky, piece-of-shit accident. Just like the gun going off. Just like the spider.”
    “You weren’t there. D-dad went over to Morrison’s and—”
    “Alex. Morrison didn’t do it.”
    “You don’t know anything. He did so!”
    Marcus stood the boy up, led him to the front of the car, and walked him around it. “There’s no damage. Not even a dent. It isn’t possible for this car to have taken the door off another vehicle with no damage.”
    “That proves nothing. Morrison got it fixed. Repainted.” Alex wiped away his tears, leaving a faint smear of Marcus’s blood on his cheek.
    “The paint on his car isn’t fresh. The only damage on that car was caused by a rock to the windshield. Justnow. The rock you threw.” He stared at Alex. “What happened to your dad was a terrible accident. A rotten, sucky, piece-of-shit accident that never should have happened. But it did. Life blows sometimes, and there’s not much you can do about it. You can’t possibly control all the good and bad that happens. I mean this in the nicest way possible: not everything is about you.”
    “Why don’t you shut up!” Alex dug his fingernails into his jeans. “What do you know, anyway? You’re just some goof-off with a crappy girlfriend. A girlfriend so crappy she can’t even stand that you bled on her nightgown. Why would I listen to you?”
    Marcus didn’t speak right away. He held his bad hand to his chest, and pain tore through the hand and into his wrist. “Okay. I’m going inside before I pass out here in the parking lot.”
    “Go. I never want to see you again. You killed my spider.”
    Marcus turned away, leaving Alex to study the rust and dead bugs on Morrison’s car. But first, he handed the kid a twenty. “Hide the gun and holster in my car. Go over there to the exit and wave at a cab. Get home before your mother starts to worry.”

Chapter Eleven

    Marcus lay on his side in the hospital recovery room. On the