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Will stared at the crude carving on the handle His dark eyebrows caether in a puzzled scowl “I’ll be damned Those are your initials”

“I know I carved them myself”

“You’ve already lostto fill us in on the whole story”

Sky took the knife fro it on the flat of his palo Except for the fact that his hand was bigger now, it felt much the same

“I was in third grade when I found this on the way ho in the road, like somebody’d dropped it Just a cheap little knife, but I’d never had anything much of my own To a boy like me it was a treasure I scratched those initials on it and kept it hidden so my older cousins wouldn’t take it”

“Your older cousins? You mean Lute’s brothers?” Beau asked

Sky nodded “They were big enough andthey wanted Lute was just a toddler when I found the knife, and his sister, Marie, the only girl, named after my mother, wasn’t much older”

Sky had always felt protective of the two young ones and tried to shield them from the brutality that was life in the Fletcher faood Lute was dead now, and the last he’d heard of Marie, she’d run off with a boyfriend

“I hung on to the knife till I was fifteen,” Sky said “You already know some of this My uncle had whipped h I packed my clothes and a little food in a pillowcase and waited till the ht when the fah the house to the back door I thought I’d ”

The story was interrupted by the waiter with their orders The cheeseburgers were hot and fresh, theday of work For the first fewtheir bellies in silence

Finally Beau spoke up “So tell us the rest”

Sky downed the last of his chocolate shake “I was about to unlock the kitchen door when I heard a noise I turned around and there was little Marie in the old ripped T-shirt she wore for a nightgown Tears were running down her cheeks ‘Don’t go, Sky,’ she begged me”

“Let ave her the knife to keep her quiet”

“And that’s the last you saw of the knife till you found it this ,” Beau finished

“You two really kno to ruin a good story,” Sky said “She’d alanted that knife She promised to take care of it and not to tell anybody she’d seen ”