The plane outruns the clouds and Tommy looks down at patchwork fields—tan and green rectangles, squares, triangles. The pages of his geometry text come to life, but without Mrs. Oswald leaning over his shoulder, her sour breath telling him why two shapes aren't congruent. Next to him, his mother is writing another note on her lavender paper. Maybe she's telling Grammy again how their new home has cacti in the front yard, how she's finally going to get her real estate license. Or maybe she's writing to his Aunt Kate, who has his mother's long brown hair but smells like the outdoors. They talk most every night, his mother closing the bedroom door behind her. When he hears his father's name and the talk about wrong turns, Tommy puts in his earbuds. On the last Every Other Sunday, his father had taken him to the construction site. They craned their heads toward the top of the skyscraper, where his father worked every weekday, adding new beams. "Higher and higher," his father said, before gripping his son's hand. "That's what we have to do, Tommy-gun. Dream big." Then, almost to himself, "Up there, everything down here seems so . . . small." When they got home, his mother stood stiffly, her arms crossed as Tommy and his father said good-bye. Tommy remembers most how it felt when his father let go of his hand. He turns back to the window, stares down at the black lines separating each field. Most of them run hard and straight except for one; it veers away, as if someone had called to it from a distance. He places his index finger over the straying road. Just one nudge, he thinks. That's all it would take.
three sides to every story the sun's angle shifts
