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cracked into Jimmy’s nose so fast, no one saw it coming. Jimmy went down in an instant and, when he did, Joe was on top of him, pounding his fist into Jimmy’s face. Everyone but me started yelling, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” until some of the grown-ups came running over and separated the two boys.
    The three of us—Jimmy, Joe, and me—got called into Mrs. Gray’s office. She had me come in first. I remember how frightened I was, sitting across from that big desk, legs swinging from the seat of a chair three times too big for me. My knees were covered in bloody scrapes, the pads of my hands throbbing. She asked me to tell her the truth about what happened, and I did. I told her how Jimmy had tripped me and how Joe, my new friend, had come to my rescue. “I don’t think Jimmy likes Joe, Mrs. Gray,” I said. “But you should know that Joe’s a real nice boy.”
    Mrs. Gray smiled at me. “I’m sure he is, honey. What I want you to do now is walk on down to the nurse’s office. She’ll put something on those boo-boos for you.”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    I hobbled out of the room and into the wide hallway bathed in semidarkness and lined with lockers. Joe and Jimmy sat on a single bench with about four feet between them. I stopped long enough to look at Joe but not at Jimmy. “See you at lunch tomorrow?” I asked.
    Joe gave me a crooked smile. “Yeah.”
    I smiled back. “Don’t forget my tater chips.”
    â€œI won’t,” he said.
    And he didn’t.
    I pulled the gun from the hobo bag and held it loosely in my hand as though I hadn’t really expected to find it there. Light shining from the moon and the lamp over the barn door came together, illuminating the dark of the pistol’s grip.
    What was I going to do now? Try again? Here? In this truck? Billy’s truck? It wouldn’t be the same. Go back to the alley behind Murphy’s? I’d have to wait another year for that to make sense, which was about as illogical a thought as any of the others I’d been having lately.
    Keisha’s blood had dried between my fingers and around my cuticles, and I could see it on the hand that was wrapped around the gun. How was it, I wondered, that those children had been out so late at night? And what were the odds of Keisha getting hit in front of my truck?
    Billy’s truck. Always, always . . . Billy’s truck.
    What’s more, what were the odds of her being somehow related to Joe?
    What was it he’d said when I asked him about it? That’s complicated.
    A stepfather, maybe? Or an uncle? Joe didn’t have any siblings that I knew of, but Keisha and Macon could be the niece and nephew of his wife. If he was married. He hadn’t said, and I hadn’t asked.
    I placed the gun back in the glove compartment, slammed the door shut, got out of the truck, and called for Billy’s horse, who I could see stood nearby, by making kissing noises. She ambled up from the north side of the barn, her mocha-colored mane and tail shimmering in the moonlight. Just being near her made me feel that much closer to Billy.
    She nuzzled my shoulder. “Hey, Cricket,” I said. I stroked her forehead and leaned over to kiss the top of her muzzle. “How’s my girl?”
    I ran my hand up her cheek, down to her shoulder. I stepped closer, laid my head against her, drew in the scent of horse and hay. Billy. “Strange day today, huh?” I asked, as though she had been with me from start to finish.
    My purse hung heavy in my hand as I walked into the barn, past a few bales of hay and some small farm equipment, and through the area where Billy had done his woodworking. His “thinking hobby,” he called it. I’d not touched a single item since he’d died. The wood shavings, the hand tools, the half-finished birdhouse—it was all there.
    Over on the wall, mounted, was the first