"When is he getting here?" Isaac perched in a chair next to the front window, restless and impatient.
"A little while." Dan skimmed through the comics section of the newspaper. "I can draw better than this," he told Zac. "I bet you can to."
Zac looked up from the piece of paper he was scribbling on. His eyes were solemn. "I can."
"A little while is what you said a long time ago," Isaac told Dan. "Not to bother you or anything, but how long do you mean when you say a little while?"
Dan didn't look up. "Within a year."
"Now, I know that's a lie." Isaac folded his arms across his chest. "How long, really?"
"Within a half an hour," Dan told him. "Does that satiate your curiosity?"
"What does that mean?" Isaac asked.
"Never mind." Dan stretched. "It's hard to wait, huh?"
"Uh huh." Isaac rested his chin on his forearm. "Time goes by so slow. . ."
"Last year I was two," Zac added, incongruously. "Only two. And then I had my birthday, and Ike and Tay said 'happy birthday!' And I said 'oh, it's my birthday?' and they said 'yeah,' and I was three."
"When was that?" Dan asked him.
"About forty-eleven years ago," Zac told him, seriously.
"Oh, okay." Dan winked at Isaac. "Forty-eleven."
"It was forty eleven years ago!" Zac's lower lip went out. "Forty six, forty-two, forty-nine, forty-eleven. Forty eleven!"
"Is that the way it works?" Dan asked.
Again, Zac was forced to shake his head at Dan's ignorance. "Yes."
"Okay," Dan nodded. "I'll remember that now."
"You better, or you'll always miss Sesame Street," Zac told him. "It comes on everyday, and if you can't tell time, you might miss it."
"That would be tragic," Dan agreed. "I'd cry."
"You shouldn't cry," Zac scoffed. "You're a great big old man. Old mans don't cry."
"This old man cries if he misses Sesame Street," Dan grinned.
"Old mans don't watch Sesame Street, either," Zac informed him.
"Is that them?" Isaac peered off down the street, squinting. "I think that's them."
"Is it a little green car?" Dan asked him.
"Uh huh," Isaac agreed.
"Then it's them all right," Dan concurred.
"Hurry up!" Isaac told the car. "We've been waiting all day!"
"Yeah, car!" Dan piped. "We can't wait even forty eleven more seconds."
"No we can't," Zac put down his pen and picked up a pencil. "Not even forty twenty nine more seconds."
"Not even forty-twenty nine," Dan agreed.
"Let's go outside and see them," Zac suggested. This sounded like a good idea, and so they did.
Nora Conway, Isaac thought, was a very hugging person. Every time you turned around, it seemed she was putting her arms around you again. ("Oh, honey, it's so nice to see you, Taylor missed you so much! How are you doing?") He thought, out of loyalty to his mother, that maybe he shouldn't like it, but he kind of did. He smiled. Taylor was nestled in blankets on the couch, somewhere between asleep and awake. Nora had gone upstairs and fallen asleep, and Zac had climbed into bed next to her. Then, Dan had gone looking for Zac, and, finding him with Nora, had decided to take a nap himself. Isaac figured that he was the only person in this whole house who was awake. It gave him time to think. He had to figure out what to do next. He wished he knew what was going to happen next. . .
"Ike? Hey, Ike?" Taylor opened his eyes suddenly, scanning the room until he found his older brother. "What happened while I was gone."
Isaac looked up "Oh, hi. "I didn't know you were awake."
"I was resting." Taylor played with the edge of the blanket. "In the hospital, I got a lot of shots, and they hurt."
"Is that what all the Band-Aids are from?" Isaac asked him. He'd noticed that his brother seemed to be sporting a lot of Superman bandages.
"Uh huh. But this was from an IV. . ." Taylor pointed to a piece of gauze taped to his forearm. "A needle was stuck in my arm."
"Ouch." Isaac swallowed. He didn't want to think about people hurting his brother, even if they were trying to help him.
"But I was brave," Taylor assured him. "Nora said I was very brave."
"Yeah, I knew you would be," Isaac agreed.
"I know," Taylor smiled. "I thought you would think I was brave. This one kid, he was older than you, and he cried all the time." His eyes darkened. "And he was mean."
"What was his name?" Isaac asked.
"Allen the Butthead." Taylor's lower lip went out. "I hated him."
"You shouldn't hate people." Isaac said it mildly. "What did he do?"
"You know what he said?" Taylor burst out. "He said that mommy left because. . . because she didn't love us."
Isaac squeezed his eyes shut. "Tay, that's not true. That's not true at all."
"Why does she leave, Ike?" Taylor asked, his eyes brimming with tears. "I think she does hate us."
"No. . . I think she just doesn't love me," Isaac told him. "Because she says I'm too much like he was. Our father. She says I'm too much like him, but she loves you and Zac, Tay, she really does."
"But sometimes I'm bad," Taylor said. "Sometimes I don't behave."
"That's not your fault," Isaac told him. "You're just a little kid. If it was anyone's fault, it was my fault."
"It was my fault," Taylor contested. "It was both our faults, maybe."
"No, my fault," Isaac sighed.
"My fault!" Taylor insisted.
"Anyway, we can't change it," Isaac told him. "We can't depend on her. We can only depend on each other."
"I think we can depend on Dan and Nora," Taylor suggested.
Isaac shook his head. "I really don't know. It's probably better not to." He swallowed. "Do you think we should?"
Taylor coughed, squirming into a more comfortable position. "I think they're nice," he said. "Ike, maybe it would be better if we did, because I don't know as much as you do."
"Well, you're only five," Isaac pointed out.
"Yeah, but what if anything ever happened to you?" Taylor asked. "What would happen if you got sick?"
"Nothing's going to happen to me," Isaac assured him. "I promise."
"Well, what if something did?" Taylor persisted. "We can't just trust each other."
"We can try," Isaac told him.
"No we can't." Taylor's lower lip went out. "You aren't a grown-up, Ike. You don't know everything."
"Taylor. . ." Isaac chewed on a fingernail. "Taylor. . . I don't know everything, but. . ."
"That's right." Taylor scowled. "You only know a little bit."
"Yeah, but I do know that grown-ups split you up and put you into foster care," Isaac defended. "Do you want that to happen?"
Taylor's eyes grew watery. "I just want to know when Mommy's coming back. And nobody tells me anything. And she's in jail and she hates us, and now she's going to hate us even more."
"Taylor. . ." Isaac began. "I wish I knew. I don't think anyone knows."
"I don't care how much she hits me!" Taylor cried. "I just want her to come back!"
"I know. . ." Isaac thought about his mother. She had moments of being nice, and sometimes he felt really sorry for her. He'd wake up in the middle of the night sometimes to see her silhouetted in the doorway, the expression in her eyes unreadable. He didn't think she deserved the life she'd had. Other times, like when she'd storm through the front door and start hitting the first kid she saw, Isaac hated his mother. He wished she'd go to hell. There were times when Isaac thought he would have been perfectly happy never to see his mother again. They'd be better off without her, he'd told himself. Way better off.
Taylor struggled to catch his breath. He brushed the tears out of his eyes and yawned. "Ike, don't go anywhere, okay? Not anywhere."
Isaac felt defeated. "Where would I go?"
"I don't know," Taylor admitted. "Just stay here, okay?"
"Taylor, I would never leave like she does," Isaac promised. "I swear. Have I ever lied to you?"
Taylor yawned again. "You said that Santa Claus died in a bus accident."
"That was because he wasn't coming." Isaac was matter of fact. "Anyway, he did die in a bus accident. Watch and see if he comes this year. He won't. Again."
"Because he's dead," Taylor supplied.
"Because he's dead," Isaac agreed. "And the tooth fairy's dead, too."
"Yeah, some kid's parents got her with a fly swatter," Isaac agreed. "So that's why she doesn't come."
"And the Easter Bunny got killed in a drive-by," Taylor remembered. "So that's why he doesn't come."
"Yeah," Isaac nodded. He'd felt kind of bad inventing horrible deaths for childhood mythological figures, but he had to get rid of them somehow. Taylor and Zac would never buy a simple "they're not real."
"A girl in my class went to the mall, though, and she saw four Santa Clauses," Taylor argued. "All at once."
Isaac thought fast. "Well, you see. . . there's a bunch of 'em, there has to be. Because every year at least four Santa Clauses come down the chimney and someone comes out and thinks their house is being robbed, so they shoot him. Anyway, do you really believe that one guy, in one night, can visit every kid in the world who believes in him and leave them all presents? Of course not. So there's millions of Santa Clauses."
"So how come we never see Santa Claus?" Taylor asked.
"For one thing, we don't have a chimney," Isaac pointed out. "For another, there's no way Santa Claus would ever, ever come to our neighborhood."
"Yeah," Taylor agreed. "I didn't think of that."