A decade later, on the same parquet floor, in the same gym, I will stand speechless, blank, as though I've switched places with K. Jenny stands beside me, the two of us behind a lily-flanked lectern, she's reading aloud from letters our parents have written and from her own, at the funeral service we, Jenny, myself, my mother and father, have arranged for Jeff, who, at 29 years old, after a night of drinking and debauchery at a bachelor party in Palm Desert leads to a freak accident, is dead. Hundreds of mourners fill the stands and sidelines. Hundreds are gathered outside on the lawns and sidewalks, leaning in. I did not make the freshman cheerleading squad, though I was granted the one alternate slot, which felt to me, at the time, like a sign of divine intervention. I had proved to Jeff that I was worthy and had tried but was released from acting a part that was not mine. Ms. B. did not hold it against me, nor did she linger about the dressing rooms peeping while girls changed clothes as school lore indicated, though I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was deeply disappointed at my profound inability to properly release my bow. Jeff and I went on to fight viciously. I would date a series of deadbeats. He would raise them, one by one, by their shirt collars, up against walls at keggers, and afterwards berate me for convening with such scum. In these outbursts of Jeff's protection, I would secretly luxuriate, soothed by my ability to incite my brother's fury and my boyfriend's humility in such a compressed public display. There would be periods when Jeff and I won't speak to each other, many periods, and even when our rage is at its heights, on game nights I will be there in the bleachers, my long hair parted down the middle, a crystal amulet strung from my neck, my brother's most die-hard, if docile, and high, supporter. It is only after alcoholism has irretrievably ended his life, when, among all the faces looking back at me none of them are his, that I will begin to question what it was he had needed that summer. Someone to root him on.    ◊