Lost Boys

"Yes," said DeA

"And that mother's going to blame herself, DeA

"Yes," said DeA

"No she isn't," said Je

"But he couldn't!"

"This time he couldn't," said Je

"Turning up missing isn't quite the same thing as falling down."

"Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I don't know that one moment of carelessness and my Aaron could be lying there under the swing set with a broken neck? Dead or paralyzed for the rest of his life? Do you think I don't have a stab of fear go through my heart when I see him up there?"

"Then why do you let him?"

"Why does God let us live on this earth?" asked Je

DeA

"I just can't stop watching out for them," said DeA

"For what it's worth, DeA

"Je

"Good heavens," said Je

"And the truck guy saw her and he slammed on his brakes and it turned out that he really could stop in time, but then she was a full- sized person, who knows whether he would have seen her little boy? And he gets out of his truck just yelling and cussing at her, you know, what kind of idiot are you, and she just stood there crying and crying until finally the guy sees the little kid pull up to his mom on his Hot Wheels, right there in the middle of the road, and the guy realizes that he never saw the little kid until right that minute, and he says, 'My God,' and they didn't have any trouble with him speeding down that road anymore."

"I don't know if I could have done that," said Je

"She didn't know either, till she did it," said DeA

"Well of course you save your kid from a speeding car," said Je

"He grows up knowing that his mom gave her life to save his. That's got to help."

"Or he feels guilty all his life because he feels like it's his fault she died. DeA

Anything can do harm, anything might work. Well, not anything, but you know what I mean. Maybe you're right to be so protective, and maybe I'm right to run a looser ship. Maybe maybe maybe."

"So no matter what we do, we're probably wrong."

"No, DeA

"I know," said DeA

Je