What We Remember. Michael Thomas Ford

thin piece of metal. It was covered in slick black oil. “This is the dipstick. It tells you how much oil is left in the car.”

      Billy hadn’t the vaguest notion of why he should care about such a thing, yet he nodded gravely. He watched as his father took a rag and wiped the stick clean. The oil on the rag was a greenish black, ugly, like the insides of a bug.

      “You want the dipstick clean when you slide it back inside the engine,” his father continued, demonstrating. “That way you get an accurate reading when you take it out.”

      He pulled the dipstick from its sheath and held it out toward Billy. “See those two dots?” he asked. “You want the oil line to be between them. What do you do if it isn’t?”

      Billy hesitated. He looked at James, who was biting his lip as if to keep from blurting out the answer. But the question had not been directed at him, and Billy knew his brother would not come to his rescue.

      “Um, take it to the garage?” he tried.

      His father shook his head. “Maybe if you were your mother, you would,” he said, laughing. “Or your sister. But you, me, or your brother would just add a quart of oil.”

      James laughed along with their father, as if the two of them were sharing a joke that Billy didn’t understand. Billy tried to laugh as well, but it sounded too loud to him, and he was embarrassed by his attempt. He saw James glance at him, and he felt his cheeks flush.

      “Now you add oil to the engine,” his father continued, seeming not to notice. “Here, you do it.”

      He handed Billy a can of oil. It was heavier than Billy expected. Then his father handed him a metal spout with a single sharp metal tooth on one end.

      “You snap that onto the can,” his father explained. “Try it. It’s easy.”

      Billy pressed the metal tooth against the top of the can. Applying pressure to it, he was surprised when it easily pierced the top and clicked into place.

      “Good job,” his father said. “Now just pour it into the hole where the oil goes.”

      Billy waited for his father to show him where the hole was. He could see several possibilities. But his father didn’t offer any help, merely saying, “Go on. It’s easy.”

      Billy stepped forward. In order to look for the oil hole he had to put his head beneath the raised hood. He looked once more at the flimsy rod holding it open. It was hooked into a hole in the edge of the hood. That could slip out, he thought. He turned his eyes away from it, concentrating on finding the correct hole in which to pour the oil.

      He knew that his brother and father were watching him. He knew, too, that James at least expected him to mess up. James was always good at everything, while he, Billy, was always doing things the wrong way. It was as if James had gotten all of the common sense, while Billy had been given all the imagination. James had very little of that. He was practical, where Billy was always dreaming.

      “You need to—” he heard James say.

      “Let him do it,” their father interrupted. Then he said to Billy, “You can do it, Bill.”

      Now he’s calling me Bill too, Billy thought. He wondered when he had stopped being Billy.

      He chose the hole from which he thought he recalled his father removing the stick and tilted the oil can toward it.

      “That’s the radiator!” he heard James shout.

      A hand reached for the can, knocking Billy’s arm. The can flew from his grip. The spout fell off, and oil spewed from the gash in the top. It sprayed Billy’s T-shirt with heavy, wet drops. A thick smell filled his nose.

      “Shit!” His father’s voice was loud, harsh with anger.

      Billy whirled around and looked into his face. His father looked disgusted as he reached for the can of oil, now on its side and pouring its viscous contents all over the car’s insides. Billy reached for the rag in his father’s hand.

      “I’ll clean it up,” he said.

      His father snatched his hand away. “Just go inside and clean yourself up,” he said.

      Billy backed away. James moved in to take his place. Their father handed James the rag, and James began mopping up the results of the spill. Neither paid any more attention to Billy.

      Turning, he ran not back toward the house but away from it. The oil-slick shirt stuck to his skin, and the smell made him want to throw up. He wiped his arm across his face, leaving streaks of oil behind that only increased the stench in his nose.

      He ran down the block, past the houses of neighbors, some of whom looked up from their porches and yards as he dashed by. He ignored them, looking straight ahead. At the corner he turned and continued on. He had no destination in mind. He just ran.

      After another three blocks he stopped, gasping for breath. His lungs burned and his heart pounded. Feeling that he might throw up, he pulled his T-shirt over his head and dropped it to the sidewalk. Staring at it, he realized that it was his favorite—the blue one with the Tron iron-on. Now it was stained with oil, filthy and ruined.

      He started to wipe his hands on his jeans, then thought better of it. Picking up the shirt, he attempted to use the still-clean part of it to remove some of the oil from his skin. He succeeded only in smearing it around.

      He sat down on the sidewalk, feeling the warmth of it soaking up through his jeans. Goddamn James, he thought. Why had his brother had to do that? Why couldn’t he have just minded his own business? Their father wouldn’t have let him pour the oil into the wrong hole. James had just wanted to be right all along. He always wanted to be right. No, he had to be right.

      His anger at James wasn’t the worst of it, having disappointed his father was. He still saw the look on his father’s face. He was the cause of it, his inability to do something as simple as put oil in a car engine. James was right; at his age he should know how to do that. He bet every other guy at school did.

      But he didn’t. Just as he didn’t know how to hit a baseball or put a worm on a fishhook or shoot a rifle worth a damn. These were all things his father had tried to teach him, and at which he had failed. He didn’t understand how these things came so easily to other people—to his father and to James in particular. What was missing from him that he couldn’t do them? What defect prevented him from being like everyone else?

      His father had never said as much, but Billy feared that he was a disappointment to him. But he has James, he thought. Isn’t that enough? Why can’t they just leave me alone?

      He thought sometimes that he must be adopted. Somehow he had been switched at the hospital with another baby, one who belonged to a family that was even now wondering how they had ended up with a boy they didn’t understand at all. They were waiting for him to come back to them, anxious to give up the practical, boring son they’d gotten by mistake and welcome home the one they’d wanted in the first place.

      Someday he would find them. Someday he would get away from this small town and the people who had gotten him by mistake and kept him prisoner. Then James will be sorry, he thought. Then they’ll all be sorry.

      CHAPTER 5

      1991

      The house looked the same as it had the last time he’d visited. Actually, it looked the same as it had the day he’d left for his first year of college five years before. The same red-and-white dishtowels—not the exact ones, but identical to their predecessors—were hanging from the rack near the sink. The same pig cookie jar was on the counter. The same yellow paint was on the walls.

      Celeste, though, looked different. Her face was worn, her eyes tired. Her hair, normally tied back neatly in a ponytail, fell loose about her shoulders. When she hugged James, she rested her head against his shoulder.

      “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said.

      James held her