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had vowed never to drive while liquor flowed through his veins. This took an effort of will because his mother kept offering him the use of the car. Guilt, on her part, probably, trying to compensate for the dismal thingtheir lives had become. Buddy was not very proud of himself these days but he was proud about keeping his vow even though the car, sitting day after day in the driveway, was a constant temptation.
    Addy studied him closely now, eyes narrowed in appraisal. “I have a feeling you’re drunk right this minute,” she said.
    “I’m not drunk,” he declared, bringing himself to his full height, which wasn’t much, really.
    She looked at him for a terrible moment, her dark eyes flashing darker than ever, and then turned away, slamming the door behind her as she dashed out of the place.
    Buddy grimaced, realized he’d been holding his breath. He let the breath out. That terrible look in her eyes. They had always shot dynamite glances at each other when they weren’t being completely indifferent, Addy dismayed at his lackadaisical ways, his lack of ambition, the way he bumped into things. He could not abide her schedules, her snap-crackle-and-pop way of doing things, always on time, on the ball. He was far from stupid but Addy made him look stupid, feel stupid.
    Leaning against the workbench, resisting another swallow of gin, he tried to bring back her expression, the way she had looked at him a moment before abandoning the garage. That look. Not only disgust at his drinking but something else.
    In the downstairs bathroom, he brushed his teeth with Crest, gulped Scope, gargled, hoping that the smell of gin had been obliterated. He went upstairs, listened at the landing, heard nothing. In the second-floor hallway, he saw that her bedroom door was closed. Not unusual. Neither was the absence of sound. Addy hated the radio, couldn’t stand rock music or anything resembling contemporary stuff while studying. Buddy could not face homework or atheme paper without Bruce Springsteen or somebody to help him along.
    He knocked at her door, softly.
What am I doing?
Knocked again.
I should be glad she’s in there and I’m out here.
    “What do you want?” she asked, voice muffled.
    “I don’t know,” he said. Which was exactly right.
    “Stupid,” she called out. Her voice sounded funny. Not funny, but broken.
    He stood there. Waited. What was he waiting for?
    She opened the door, slowly, letting it swing wide open before appearing. Her face, when he finally saw it, was red and shining. Eyes wet. She sniffed, blew her nose with a Kleenex.
    She’d been crying, for crissakes.
    “You’ve been crying?” he said.
    “You’re so observant,” she replied. Sarcastically, of course.
    And suddenly he, too, felt like crying.
    Because he saw himself and Addy for what they were: two kids whose parents were divorcing, living in a house where nobody loved anybody else anymore.
    While a bruised and battered girl lay in a hospital somewhere.
    “Come in,” she said.
    But he could not go in. He stared at her for a long moment and then turned away, dashed down the stairs, through the front hallway and out of the house, not realizing he was running until he found himself a block away on Oak Avenue heading nowhere.
    While Karen slept.
    Deep in her dreams—or did she dream? Or even sleep?
    Jane wondered about the strange place Karen now occupied, between life and death: alive but not alive, sleeping but not sleeping.
    Karen was seldom alone in that hospital room. Someone in the family remained with her almost all the time, except the late nighttime hours. Jane’s mother kept vigil in the morning and Jane often joined her in the afternoon after school. Her father and mother sat beside Karen’s bed in the evenings, sometimes together, sometimes alternating with each other. Jane dropped in at the hospital at odd hours, not only after school but on her way home from the Mall or from a movie and sometimes found her father, sometimes