We move out of the street, letting the big car slide past us, the engine muttering as it goes. Anna May turns in her seat, craning her beautiful long neck to watch us as Everett Scott carries her off. She didn’t laugh like everybody else when he honked the horn.
Will watches her go, the newspaper hanging limp at his side.
“She going out with him?” he asks.
“Looks like it,” Pete says.
Will frowns.
Then, without saying a word, he turns and walks away.
The room flickers from the television set. The announcer reads from a card.
“Exit polls show Senator Robert F. Kennedy will win the California primary tonight. The senator has long considered a presidential run and is now in a strong position to win his party’s nomination for the November election.”
Dad lets out a bushel of air through his nose.
Will’s knees bounce up and down.
“He did it,” he whispers. “He did it!”
Dad sighs again and seems about to speak. Ma glances at him and shakes her head.
The news program ends. An advertisement for detergent comes on. Dad gets up and walks over to the set and shuts off the TV then. Our room goes dark. Without a word, Dad goes out to smoke his cigar.
“Congratulations, dear,” Ma says to Will once he’s gone.
I look over to Frankie on the couch. He’s asleep. I don’t blame him.
The whole election is boring.
Ma wakes Frankie and we begin for the stairs. Pete passes me, on his way out to the porch. I stop him.
“Pete?” I ask. “What we doin’ tomorrow?”
He shrugs.
“Can we start the search for that old fighter jet? Frankie passed his tests. He’s ready.”
Cicadas hum in the yard. Through the screen door we smell Dad’s fresh cigar.
“You’re right, Jack,” Pete says. “Frankie passed the tests. He’s earned it.”
“Then we can go tomorrow?”
He nods his shaggy head.
I hold back my smile until Pete is through the screen door. Then I climb the steep stairs for my room.
Frankie is on his knees at the windowsill, saying his prayers.
“Tell him thank you from me,” I say. “Tomorrow we’re going to find us an old wrecked fighter jet!”
Frankie’s dark eyes flash. After a long minute, he nods his head.
“I’ll be ready,” he says.
“You already are,” I tell him as I climb into my bed.
Something ain’t right.
I lie awake in my bed and wait for my mind to catch up with what my body already knows.
Pink sky outside my window. Trees are still dark. The morning around me is silent.
And that’s how I know.
Stairways ain’t ever this quiet, not even so early in the morning.
Ma and Dad should be awake, in the kitchen together. But I don’t smell Dad’s coffee. I don’t hear nothing sizzling on the stove.
Quickly, I look to my brothers’ bunk. Both of them are still sound asleep. Same with Frankie on his mattress.
Quietly, I slip out of my bed and steal down the stairs to the kitchen.
My parents are at Grandma Elliot’s old table. Dad has his arm around Ma. Her face has a hard look to it and her eyes are red around the edges. She’s been crying.
“What’s going on?” I ask them.
My parents see me.
“Is Will awake?” my father asks.
I shake my head, but then a groggy voice behind me says, “I’m right here.”
Will is at the bottom of the stairs. His hair sticks off his head at angles.
He looks at our parents, then at me. “What’s wrong?”
Ma gets up. She moves toward him, arms out.
But Will steps away, a look of alarm on his face.
“Tell me what’s wrong!” he cries suddenly, his eyes wide.
Dad’s chair scrapes across the linoleum floor. In a low voice he tells Will: “Son, Senator Kennedy’s been shot. He’s dead.”
Chapter 12
TROUBLE IN THREES
He isn’t getting up, that man in the dark suit and tie. His sandy-haired head stays down, resting on the kitchen floor, and for once that face looks so peaceful. The man’s eyes are half-shut, like he’s taking a nap, and his body under the suit appears to be draining, losing its shape, the arms and legs splayed out more like a scarecrow than a senator. He seems to be relaxing more and more by the minute.
Everyone else is screaming.
Waves of people crash against each other. Some try to get closer. Others push them back. One woman shouts loud enough that a microphone records her panicked voice. My family and all of America hear her wailing on the evening news that night.