* * *
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One idea that Billy had was to start on the Fourth of July 1946, when he and Emmett and their mother and father went to Seward to watch the fireworks display.
Billy was just a baby at the time, so he couldn’t remember what the trip to Seward had been like. But one afternoon, Emmett had told him all about it. He had told Billy about their mother’s love of fireworks, and the picnic basket in the attic, and the checkered cloth that they would spread on the lawn in the middle of Plum Creek Park. So Billy could use what Emmett had told him in order to describe the day exactly as it was.
But he also had the photograph.
Reaching into his backpack, Billy removed the envelope that was in the innermost pocket. Opening the flap, he slipped out the photograph and held it near the flashlight’s beam. It was a picture of Emmett, Billy in a basinet, their mother, and the picnic basket all in a row on the checkered cloth. Their father must have been the one who took the picture because he wasn’t in it. Everyone in the picture was smiling, and though Billy’s father wasn’t in the picture, Billy could tell that he must have been smiling too.
* * *
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Billy had found the photograph together with the postcards from the Lincoln Highway in the metal box that was in the bottom drawer of their father’s bureau.
But when Billy had put the postcards in the manila envelope so that he could show them to Emmett when Emmett returned home from Salina, he had put the photograph from Seward in a different envelope. He had put it in a different envelope because he knew that memories of the trip to Seward made his brother angry. Billy knew this because his brother had become angry when he had told Billy about the trip to Seward. And he had never told Billy about it again.
Billy had saved the picture because he knew that Emmett wouldn’t always be angry with their mother. Once they had found her in San Francisco, and she had had the chance to tell them all the things that she had been thinking in the years that they had been apart, Emmett wouldn’t be angry anymore. Then Billy would give him the picture, and he would be glad that Billy had kept it for him.
But it didn’t make sense to start the story there, thought Billy, as he returned the picture to its envelope. Because on the Fourth of July 1946, their mother hadn’t even left yet. So that night was closer to the beginning of the story than it was to the middle.
* * *
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Another idea that Billy had was to start on the night that Emmett hit Jimmy Snyder.
Billy didn’t need a photograph to remember that night because he had been there with Emmett and had been old enough to remember it himself.
It was on Saturday, October 4, 1952, the last night of the fair. Their father, who had gone with them to the fair the night before, decided to stay home on Saturday. So Emmett and Billy had driven there together in the Studebaker.
Some years, the temperature at the fair can feel like the beginning of fall, but that year, it felt like the end of summer. Billy remembered because as they drove to the fair they had their windows rolled down, and when they arrived, they decided to leave their jackets in the car.
They had left for the fair at five o’clock so that they could get something to eat, and go on some rides, and still have time to find seats near the front of the fiddling contest. Emmett and Billy both loved the fiddling contest, especially when they had seats near the front. But on that particular night, even though they had plenty of time to spare, they never did get to see the fiddlers.
* * *
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It was while they were walking from the carousel to the stage that Jimmy Snyder began to say his mean things. At first, Emmett didn’t seem to care what Jimmy was saying. Then he began to get angry, and Billy tried to pull him away, but Emmett wouldn’t go. And when Jimmy tried to say one last mean thing about their father, Emmett punched him in the nose.
After Jimmy fell back and hit his head, Billy must have closed his eyes, because he didn’t remember what the following minutes looked like. He only remembered how they sounded: with Jimmy’s friends gasping, then calling for help, then shouting at Emmett as other people jostled around them. And then Emmett, who never once let go of Billy’s hand, trying to explain what had happened to one person after another, until the ambulance arrived. And all the while, the calliope at the carousel playing its music and the rifles at the rifle range going pop, pop, pop.
But it didn’t make sense to start the story there either, thought Billy. Because the night at the fair was before Emmett had been sent to Salina and learned his lesson. So it too belonged in the beginning.