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bar fight. He was hitting on a woman while her husband was sitting right there. The woman turned out to be the lieutenant governor's sister-in-law, but we didn't know that at the time. When the husband shoved him, I jumped in and popped him a good one."
    "Gotta tell you," Echo said. "I'm on the husband's side in this."
    "Yeah, but the other guy was my friend."
    "You went to jail for a single punch?"
    "I went to jail because I put a guy in the hospital. Plus, the cops thought my buddy and me were boosting cars, and they threatened serious jail time if I didn't testify against my friends."
    Echo folded her arms over her chest. "You should have testified."
    "I'll remember you said that if shit ever comes down. Look, did you see the picture Jon had today? His mom took that on the day of the intramural championships. It seemed pretty important when we were 12."
    "And you hit the winning home run off of Jon."
    I was surprised Macy knew about that. I had almost forgotten it myself. Jon really had talked about me. "The thing is, after the ball sailed over the fence, Jon smiled at me. He'd just lost the game, but he was proud of what I'd done. He was always on my side."
    "And you spent a lot of time at his house," Macy added. "He said his mom fed you breakfast every day before school, and lots of dinners, too."
    A sudden vision of Jon's mother came into my mind--her leaning over me, smiling, as she set a bowl of cereal in front of me. Across the table, Bingo would complain about "cold soup" but I loved it. I'd watched Mrs. Burrows carefully, searching for some sign that she resented me and my space at the table, but I never saw one. "There wasn't a lot of breakfast at my house. There wasn't much dinner, either. Most of the home-cooked meals I ate were at Jon's house. That's where I learned that people can have normal conversation when they eat with their family. His backyard is where his father taught me to throw a baseball. When his kid sister misbehaved, I saw how they..." I almost said punished misbehaving kids but nothing that happened to her met my family's definition of punishment.
    "So it wasn't just Jon, then," Echo cut in. "You were friends with the whole fam."
    "Yes, I was."
    Macy nodded, thoughtful. "And a few months after that game, you shot him."
    "What?" Echo said. "Seriously? You're the one who shot Jon?"
    "It was an accident, of course, right?" Macy's tone was sympathetic; I had never gotten much sympathy from people who knew the story and I sure as hell didn't want it now. She continued: "Boys and guns in the same house, no safety training, no trigger locks, no gun safe. I know whose fault it was that Jon was shot, even though Jon's family laid all the blame on Ray."  
    I could remember the sound of the gun going off, and the sight of the blood, but what I remembered most of all was my refusal to believe that Jon had been shot and my own desperate search for an excuse that would make it someone else's fault. "Some debts can never be repaid."
    Everything is different now. I walked away from them and started toward the batting cage, where Jon was still hitting balls. Above the canvas, in a neat line along the top of the fence, was a perfect line of baseballs wedged into the chain link. Jon smacked another one and I saw the metal deform as the ball slammed into it, sticking in place.
    I turned to Macy and Echo. "What is going one with the four of you?"
    "Four?" Echo answered, smirking. "Payton's an athlete. He can't afford to 'risk' his body."  
    Macy sniffed at the air like bloodhound. "God, what is that smell?" Then she spun and hopped onto the picnic table. "Trouble."
    Echo sprang up beside her. The gate of the batting cage banged open as Jon dropped the bat and joined them. All three stood tall, as alert as prairie dogs, staring into the parking lot. Payton emerged from the restaurant with an armful of food but as soon as he saw the others, he scattered the baskets onto the table and climbed up beside them.
    I