What It Meant

When Paddy O'Malleygave me a cardon my ninth birthdayI asked him, Does this meanyou love me? I guess so, he said.Now will you shut up about it already?

Because I threw like a boyand wasn't afraid to slide into second base—not because I had to but because I could—I was always the first girl he pickedwhen he was captain of the softball team.He taught me how to pop a wheelie on my bike,

that the trick of a slingshot is in the snapand balance of the wrist, that ifI held my breathand swallowed I could burp words.So I did. When he laughedit was the first time I knew what it meant

to want something to never end.I let him see my answerson every spelling test, ghost wrotethe reports for the books he never readwhile we sat in our back stairwell clubhousepuffing away on candy cigarettes.

Most Saturdayswe'd play ding-dong-ditch, race away gigglingand half out of breaththrough the neighborhood's back alleys and gangways. OnceI slipped across a wet front lawn,

took out a row of potted mums, trippedon the sidewalk and over a curbas the very pregnant woman whose bell we rangand rang stood at her courtyard's gatewith one hand pressed into the small of her backand the other waving a terracotta shard—

                her voicea stringed instrument of cursesrising above the din of traffic, the chugof the 155 leaving its last stop.More than the anger and hurt in her words,I remember the scared-for-me look on Paddy's faceas he doubled back

after seeing me fall, how he wrappedhis arms around mehalf lifting, half pulling me along.And later, how he washedthe bloodied dirt and gravelfrom my one skinned knee,

my two skinned palmswith a warm soapy dish towelthat smelled of Palmolive. How he flinchedwhen I flinched at the sting.My heartin my throat, my stomach a sea of wings

as he held my gaze too longbefore turning the other way.And the early autumn breezecoming in off the lake. How it sweptacross the hurtof where a first kiss meant to but did not go.