At the end of her apple peeling, Mrs. Connelly brings her white glass bowl into the kitchen and washes the apples again. She asks the boys if they have studied good, and they answer that they have. She asks Roy what he is learning in school and he tells her about advanced algebra and auto mechanics. She listens to the description of dismantled carburetors, fuel pumps, and polynomial equations, shaking her head at the complexity. "His daddy knows all about motors too, but I don't." She offers Nathan a fresh slice of apple. "And I never could do numbers. I don't think women have the minds for some things. I know a lot of people think that's old-fashioned, but I think that's the way God intended it."

"My mom doesn't know anything about motors either," Nathan offers.

"See there." She nods her head at the profundity of it all. "What about you, Nathan, what do you like in school?"

"I like to read science fiction books."

"You mean about space travel and all like that. Lord, I don't think I would like to have all that stuff in my head. I don't read too much, except the prayer magazine we get. Guideposts. I like that magazine. It's really a Baptist magazine, but I like it anyway. We're not Baptists, we're Holiness."

"We go to the Baptist church."

"With Preacher Roberts? I like him. I think he's handsome."

"You ought not to be talking about handsome men," Roy says, "you know Dad don't like it."

"Your daddy ain't studying who I talk about. And I do think he's handsome. Did you always go to the Baptist church, Nathan?"

"No, ma'am. My mom used to take me to the Holiness Church too. But my daddy didn't like it because they play electric guitars."

"No. You don't mean it."

Even Roy is interested in that. "Electric guitars in the church?"

"One time they had drums, too. You know, like in a band."

"Lord help me," says Mrs. Connelly. "I don't know about that. We don't do that in our church, we just have a piano."

"We've been Baptist since my daddy started going." "Now I know you all moved here from somewhere." "Smithfield."

"That's right. Your daddy told me. You lived in Smithfield."

"We didn't live there long. We lived in Goldsboro before that. And Tims Creek."

"I think Tims Creek is a nice little town."

"Don't you get tired of moving so much?" Roy asks.

Mrs. Connelly is watching. Nathan has the feeling they have talked about this before, and is therefore more guarded. "Sometimes. It's not so bad though. We lived in Rose Hill for a long time, when I was little."

Mother and son look at each other. Nathan becomes afraid they've heard something, a story about the reason Nathan's family moves from one place to the other. Something about why they left Rose Hill. Dad likes to move, all right, but never quite far enough.

The conversation ends when Roy's father comes from his office looking for a glass of tea. He waits pleasantly while Mrs. Connelly stirs her large body to put ice in a glass. They talk about the fall weather, the clover Roy and he are planting in the field next to the house, the abundance of fish in the pond. The ease with which the Connellys keep company with each other almost makes Nathan feel at home himself.

Later, they carry their books to Roy's room, which is smaller than it seems from the other side of the hedges, a narrow, angled space, mostly occupied by a bed and Roy's desk. High on the wall are shelves for his baseball trophies, a sturdy collection. Nathan examines each trophy scrupulously but makes no comment. Nathan studies everything with the same attention to detail, including the view to his own window. Roy leans beside him, then smiles. Finger to the lips, be quiet.

They study. Roy sits on his bed. In his own house he behaves less bravely and dares less than in Nathan's, and Nathan knows better than to get too close. He spreads his science textbook across his lap. He peers into the closet, through the shadowed crack in the door. He studies the poster of a famous baseball player. Roy murmurs aloud as he reads.

He and Roy take long walks, over the whole farm, till Nathan understands the scope of Roy's world. The sullen houses in the bare field become their landscape, and they wander around the pond, memorize the graveyard, visit the Indian mound, pick apples in the orchard, search out deer in the surrounding woods, hunt for foxes and squirrels with Roy's 22-gauge, or simply lie on beds of leaves with their shirts open and their hands ripening on each other's bare skin. Nathan learns that Roy will kiss but he will not kneel in front of Nathan as Nathan will kneel in front of him. Nathan learns that he himself is somehow different from Roy, governed by other laws.

Always the admonition is the same. You can't say a thing about this to anybody else. You can't do this with anybody else but me. Okay? Followed by the cloud of guilt, the moment when Roy can no longer bring himself to look at Nathan or to touch him. The guilt clouds him worse each time.

One Friday afternoon, without warning, Roy asks Nathan, "Do you want to go riding around tonight?"

They are assembling their books on the school bus. Roy has headed down the metal steps, then pauses to ask I question. Turning almost casually.

Roy has always seen his girlfriend on Fridays. Nathan never asked, but he knows.

"I need to ask my mom."

Roy shrugs.

Quickly, lest the offer be withdrawn. "I'm sure she’ll say it's okay"

Roy shrugs again, but in a more friendly way.

"Come with me while I ask."

The request, unusual, reverberates. Roy considers, momentarily uncomfortable. A slow change takes place as Nathan watches; a new thought occurs to Roy and a smile spreads outward. "She'll like that, won't she?" he asks.

Crossing the yard, they are aware of each other, as if either of them could contain, for the moment, the consciousness of both. They are echoing in each other through the mown grass, they are feeling the freshness of air on Roy's shoulders, the brush of the rose bush against Nathan's sleeve; they are each feeling each. Into the door they walk, and Nathan's mom is in the kitchen as always, dark eyed, sitting at the table reading a novel by Emily Loring. She closes the book with a dreamy sigh as the boys enter, and focuses on them with effort; and for a moment Nathan feels a tremor of chill. She is hardly in this kitchen at all, she has fled somewhere else, dreaming. But this blankness quickly passes. She returns to the room from Emily Loring's world and adjusts her eyeglasses across the bridge of her nose.

Nathan is preparing his request and nearly has the words in perfect order when Roy seizes the moment unexpectedly "Please, ma'am, I was hoping you might let Nathan go out riding with me tonight."

"Well I knew you boys wanted something the way you busted in here like you did." Her expression is gentle and her focus on Nathan soft. "You want to go riding, son?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You know your daddy don't like you to run around."

Nathan makes no response. But she smiles as if he has answered her with something pleasant. Brittleness pervades her voice and manner, the sense that she may suddenly say something more shrill. "Well, you never go anywhere except church, I know that's the truth." Brushing her face as if hair or insect touches her. "Your dad and me have a church supper tonight."

"I don't need to go this time, do I?"

She reflects. Glare on the glasses, momentary blindness. "I guess you don't. Him and me in church is plenty for one night."

"Thanks, Mom."

"You make sure you behave like you ought to. Your daddy is real nervous lately. You know how he is. I can't get him to lay down, he don't rest at night. He don't need any trouble from you."

This is her way of talking, as if Dad were a being of delicate sensibility, to be treasured and protected. But something else in her tone, some edge, awakens memory in Nathan. It is as if she is issuing a warning. But he tries to refuse the fear, he clings to his happiness, stubbornly, because he will spend the Friday night with Roy, the hours entirely their own. Mom looks at Nathan with the air of blindness returning. Roy stuffs his hands in his pockets as if suddenly shy. "Thanks, ma'am. We won't be out too late. I'll bring him back by eleven o'clock." Giving Nathan a secret within the look they traded. "Get ready and let's go. All right?"

"Yeah."

The screen door opens and wind rushes out. Suddenly Roy has vanished and Nathan waits to catch his breath in the kitchen.

"He sure seems like a nice boy" Mom adjusts her glasses and opens her book. "He's got a good way of acting. Don't you think so?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You need any money?" "I got five dollars."

"Well, that's good." She is white eyed again, facing the window. "I like this house. I hope we don't have to move."

"Me too." Feeling suddenly fearful. "Are we?"

"Oh no. Oh no. We ought to be able to live here a long time. Your daddy likes his job. He likes Allis Chalmers, you know he always talked about working for them. I don't think he liked John Deere as much." She presses a curved fingernail into the jacket of the Emily Loring volume. "But he goes through cycles. You know. And he's real nervous, like, lately. You know. Because he's not making the sales."

Nathan knows. He is suddenly afraid. "He's not going to bother me, is he?"

But she is away. She is wherever she goes. "He's just got some problems on his mind. Don't worry"

He finds himself watching the loosening flesh at her throat, the place where the tendons stand out. A vein beats against the skin. She smiles without any comprehension. That is all. The sense of warning has almost vanished. Except, before she submerges into the yellowed pages, she murmurs, "Stay out of his way tonight." A chill touches Nathan along the spine. He watches his mother and her lost, empty face. He goes upstairs. She hardly notices he has gone.