Hide and Seek

I got there. With the result that the sole of my foot took seven or

eight stitches.

That's how it was this time too.

I think my hand was on the ignition as soon as her rock went crashing

through the window. I think the car was in drive and my foot on the

brake before the shattering sound even left my ears. Part of it was

instinct, part of it self-preservation.

It was her house. But I had the feeling it would be my ass.

My throat felt constricted.

"Jesus!" I yelled. "Come on!"

Somehow I couldn't get her attention.

She was still moving in that same determined way across the field stone

path and then across the right side of her lawn, ignoring me. I knew

instantly what she was doing, where she was going. I knew it like I

knew how my head would hurt if you hit it with a hammer. There would

be no stopping her. Calling out would only make it worse. The sound

of breaking glass had been so loud I half expected to see porch lights

go on all along the street. But everything was still quiet. As she

marched across the lawn and over a macadam driveway to the house next

door.

I looked back to her place. My hands were sweating on the steering

wheel. I saw her father framed in the window. He had just come

through the doorway and was standing there in perfect profile, staring

down at the damage, at all the broken glass I imagined winking up at

him from the floor.

He turned slowly toward the window and looked out. He looked to the

right and then to the left, and then he looked at me.

I had to turn away.

*

There was too much sadness there, too much guilt in me.

I heard another crash. Louder than before. She had put the second

rock through the right front window of the house next door.

I didn't ask myself why. I knew why. There would be questions now,

plenty of them. Her father would be answering some of them.

There was shouting inside. A woman. A man. Casey was straightening

up, recovering the follow-through. A slab of glass came drifting down

off the top sill like the blade of a guillotine, hit the