Yes, I’m a freak. I don’t just mean that I’m smart—IQ nudging 150, and I don’t just mean that I’m tall—six foot six and still growing as a high school freshman. I have talent. I’m what they call a basketball phenom. I can run and jump and shoot. People come from all over the state to see me play, and I don’t disappoint them. I fill up that net from way downtown. I’m also full of shy modesty. I’d pretend to shrug off the accolades, the predictions of immortal greatness, the pats on the back and butt. I’m carefully humble. But deep down I’m really shy, shy and lonely, and only with my sister Molly could I be myself.

Look at what I’ve written! Ha! Well, it’s still true, in a way, but I don’t play basketball anymore.

“You’re basking in the glory, Dan,” Molly teased me, after one of my games, my next-to-last, and I laughed and smiled, and agreed with her.

“It’s good to be good at something,” I answered. “You’re good at everything.” She was twelve but she was much smarter than me, with an IQ off the chart. Besides that she was more sure of herself; she had tons of friends; she was always cheerful; and she meant the world to me. Sometimes it seemed I played basketball just to please her. She never missed any of my games.

Besides being all-around brilliant, Molly’s was a musical prodigy. Her instrument was the oboe. “Most oboists blow their brains out before they’re thirty-five,” she told me gleefully once. “Not a very ladylike instrument.” I was lying on the rug listening to her practice. She was nine then, normal-sized, but the tones that came out of her oboe were special. I won’t even try to describe the magic of her music except to say I couldn’t get enough of it. It was as if she herself was in those pure mysterious seductive tones, notes sliding into or against each other—smooth and innocent and knowing.

“Don’t blow your brains out on me,” I’d say every evening before settling down on her bedroom throw rug to listen to her, doodling at the last of my homework.

“Don’t you get tired of it?” she’d ask. Or “Are you pretending to be some giant cobra I’ve paralyzed with my spellful tunes?”

I’d just smile.

She returned the favor. All summer long while I was in our driveway working on my jumpshots, my free throws, my fadeaways, she’d catch the ball and feed me passes. “Don’t you want to try a few shots?” I’d say.

“Basketball is your game,” she’d answer, “And besides, I’m too short.”

“I could always hold you up,” I’d reply.

“You’d have to catch me first.”

She was quick, but eventually I’d catch her, and I’d hoist her up near the rim, and she’d drop the basketball right on my head. It was sort of a ritual.

“Real grown-up behavior,” I’d say.

“What’d you expect ... I’m only ten.” Or eleven. Or twelve. “You’re not exactly Mr. Maturity. I’ve seen the way you brush your teeth etcetera.” She said etcetera with such a sly grin.

She was right; I was immature.

Freshman year I was on the varsity, naturally. We won our first four games easy. The team was good. It had been good the year before without me, and many of the starters were back, and with me everyone expected we’d win the conference in a walk, everyone expected we’d make it to the state tournament come spring, and many thought we’d win it—we’d go all the way.

“Do you think we have a chance?” I asked Molly. We were walking towards her bus stop on the last day of school before Christmas break. I had her oboe case under one arm and her little hand in mine.

“If you don’t screw up,” she said, squeezing my fingers.

“You shouldn’t say ‘screw up,’” I told her. Big brotherish, mildly stern.

“Okay,” she said. “If you don’t fuck up. Is that better?” She gave me an impish smile and let go of my hand.

“You’re cute when you blush,” she said. “How come you don’t go out on any dates?”

“I guess no one likes me,” I said. “I’m a freak. A freak of nature.”

“I like you,” she said. “Even if you are an abject freak of nature.” Then, before I could ask her what ‘abject’ meant, she stuck out her tongue, crinkled her eyes, and scampered off to catch the school bus for junior high, snug backpack bulging.

“You run like a duckling,” I called out after her, but I’m not sure she heard me. I didn’t say it with much force. I was still thinking of what she said. “I like you.” Why didn’t I say “I like you, too?” Her bus was pulling away before I realized I still had her oboe case under my arm. “Ha,” I said to myself. “Good luck playing in the Christmas concert without this.”

That night was the first round of the holiday basketball tournament. We were scheduled to play the same team that had knocked us out of state last year. The problem was Molly’s instrumental group was to perform a concert of The Messiah that evening. My parents discussed the conflict with me. “We might be able to make it to the second half of your game,” they said. “After Molly’s concert.”

I pouted. No false humility or artificial good behavior at home.

“We’ll try,” they said. “Maybe if you stall. Just play slow.”

I told them to tell Molly to play quick. They laughed.

The first half I was a little jittery. I kept looking around, hoping to see Mom and Dad and Molly come in. Even so I’d scored 18 points by intermission. We were only down by three.

“What’s a matter with you, Dan?” Coach Muir snapped. “It’s like you’re sleep-walking out there. C’mon ... you’re letting them eat you alive.” I shrugged.

Later some of the papers said Coach Muir knew about the accident before the start of the second half. I hadn’t read the papers myself, but Coach Muir told me he hadn’t known, and I believed him. After the half-time warmup I glanced around, saw my family wasn’t there, and whispered “who cares” to myself. I scored 41 points in the second half, not missing a single shot. With every basket I said to myself, “This shows you,” and I didn’t look around for my family. “They’re going to be sorry they missed this,” I said. “They’re going to be so sorry.”

Right.

At the end we won by eleven and everyone was screaming and I felt so smug, so satisfied. In the shower, though, the sadness hit me. An emptiness I couldn’t understand. For some reason I started thinking about the one time my parents had spanked me. I’d cried for what seemed like hours and hours and then I was so empty I could hardly breathe. Now I felt that same emptiness; I felt there wasn’t enough fresh air, there wasn’t enough of any kind of air. I stayed in the shower a long time. Finally someone called in. “C’mon, Dan ... there’s some cops out here. They’re going to arrest you for using up all the hot water.”

I was wearing a skimpy orange towel when they told me my mother and father were dead. What a silly towel, I was thinking, what a silly, stupid towel, what a silly, stupid, idiotic towel, while the cops explained that apparently my dad had swerved to avoid some geese crossing the highway and slammed into the side of a railroad overpass. “They were killed instantly,” one cop said. “They didn’t know what hit them,” said the other. At first I thought it was the geese who had been killed, the geese who hadn’t known what hit them. “My dad ran over some geese?” I said. The cops explained it all again. I’m sure I understood all along.

I didn’t want to be wearing the towel. If I took it off I’d be naked. I wanted to be naked, but I didn’t want anybody to see. “What about Molly?” I asked. “Will someone pick her up from the concert? I can’t drive yet.”

They didn’t seem to understand.

“I’m not sixteen yet,” I explained. “I’m not even fifteen. I’ll be fifteen in a week and I don’t have a driver’s license. My sister is at a concert and she’ll need a ride home.”

“Your sister is in the hospital,” the cop said. “She was in the back seat and she has some head injuries.”

“But she’s okay?”

“We don’t know, son. Get some clothes on, and we’ll take you to the hospital.”

I don’t remember getting dressed. Probably everyone was watching me. It seemed everyone was always watching me, but for once I didn’t care. I just dressed. I was thinking about Molly. I was praying. Please, God, just let it be a little band-aid. Some kind of scratch. Some kind of little bump. Something ... small. And maybe she won’t remember the crash. Maybe she won’t remember anything about it. But what if she didn’t remember me. I’d have to coax her memories back. But only the good memories. I’d take care of her, and ... and in a day or two she’ll smile and everything will be like...

The doctor wouldn’t let me see her. “She’s in pretty bad shape,” he said. “She has a chance, but not a very good one.”

The next few months were kind of a blur. The days seemed so much the same. Dad’s lawyer called. Mr. Rothchild. He took me out to eat a lot and explained a lot of things and I think I mostly nodded. After school I’d take a cab to the hospital and sit with Molly. She lay there so peacefully, day after day. She wasn’t conscious but she was alive. The doctors didn’t hold out much hope. “If she comes out of it she might be worse that a baby,” they said. “She might not know anything and the prospects of her ever...” I shut them out. Neighbors brought food and said soft shrill things and I nodded. I figured out how to work the washing machine. Mr. Rothchild said I was a ward of the state. “What kind of award is that?” I asked. He thought for a moment I was making a joke.

That night I told Molly, “We’re awards of the state.” Then I kissed her nose. She’d been off the respirator for a week, but she still needed tubes to eat and so on, and she was still as unconscious as ever. But when I touched her nose with my lips and felt the faint bit of air which was her breath I was sure she was going to make it, she was going to come out of it, and everything would be fine.

I quit the basketball team. Not so much quit as just never showed up. At first everyone was polite about it. “Take your time,” they said. But after a while most of the kids just ignored me. “We need you, Dan,” a few of them said. “You should play ... for Molly’s sake.” Some of the parents said that, too. I turned away from them. They put their hands on my shoulders, but I jerked away. “She would have wanted you to.” I felt like screaming at them. “What do you mean ‘would have’! She’s still alive.” I was so angry. But I didn’t say anything. I just turned away. Sometimes I thought, if I sacrifice myself by not playing, then God will make Molly better.