No Man Is An Island

"Good shoulder turn, David."

The boy looked over at his father. Bobby was the most handsome, friendly, glad-handing club pro that a Timuquanan at the 19th hole could ever hope to smoke a cigar and drink three Scotches with—but nowhere to be found at home, having left a year after Brent's death. It was all too confusing for David to understand. He loved sharing the language of golf with Dad. But David would not be like Dad.

"How was my hip transfer?" the boy asked.

The father had taught his son the fundamentals, but he believed in letting a novice find the swing that was natural to his body, not imposing the instructor's. The father was relieved that his boy had found somewhere to turn, the safest, most soothing place in the world. The father was a little intimidated by this son.

"Looked fine," replied Bobby. Then his cart vanished into the mist.

Mist gave way to rain. The boy didn't go home. He went into the pro shop, where a cup had been built into the floor. He took the putter that was for sale and hit balls into the hole until that was no longer a challenge. Then he banked them off the golf-shirt display, off the wall, into the cup, so many times that he could gauge, from every angle, the effect of the grain of carpet and the subtlest slope of the floor. He would alter the placement of an item or two, perfect the new ricochet, then wait to sucker some innocent club member into a bet.

Day gave way to night. David went home. He looked at his mother. She had taken her children to Catholic church every Sunday before losing her first son, but now her faith, like her husband, was gone. She was an open wound, a softhearted woman racked by sobs at any time of the day, still referring to Brent as if he were alive, sweeping her two children off to bed for the day at the first stomach cramp or cough—just groping, like Bobby, just doing whatever she could to survive. David would not be like Mom.

He looked at Brent's bedroom. Nothing in it had been altered since his death. It almost seemed to be waiting for him. It was afternoon at the Duvals', but mourning hadn't ever come and gone. The boy refused to see the therapist or the grave site after the first few visits, refused to speak of what had happened, to look at pictures of his brother. "Can I move into that bedroom?" he asked his mom.

He kept one thing on the wall: the poster of the black Lamborghini Countach, Brent's shining dream. At night he stared at it and made a vow: He'd own one by age 25.

Neighbors and friends noticed what was happening to the boy. His mother sensed it too, but it couldn't be spoken of. Before David fell asleep, she would come to his room and rub his temples, his neck, his shoulders, every night for years.