Saturday morning begins with a hangover and a funeral, each making the other one worse. Toby Williams lived down the street from my parents until he decided to shoot himself on Monday night. He didn't die until Wednesday, which leaves me wondering which part of himself he shot that took so long to kill him.

He was a junior in high school, five years younger than I am. I have a vague seventh grade memory of him and his brother getting on the bus, pudgy and wearing Boy Scout uniforms. I don't consider this enough contact to qualify me as a mourner, but my mother says it would be good of me to go. She just doesn't want to go alone. So I wait for her outside my apartment building, dressed in black and squinting in the sunlight. I should have stayed inside until she came, but I forgot that in January the fact that the sun is out doesn't mean that it's warm. I think of my gloves lying on the table just inside the door. I think about a big glass of water and how 'real fun' is an anagram of 'funeral'. My breath escapes like smoke, or steam.

We are late and have to stand in the back. The funeral is hot and crowded, and the priest so soft-spoken that all I can hear are the muffled sounds of crying and nose blowing. I try not to pay attention to them. I remember how once Mrs. Williams used an old toilet for a planter in her front yard, the seat up and geraniums spewing out. My mother would complain each time we drove by their house, claiming that the toilet brought down the value of our entire neighborhood. I find myself smiling, so I look up at the ceiling to regain some solemnity. The two rows of chandeliers hanging down are identical to the one above my parents' dining room table. I wonder if my mother knows that hers is a funeral home chandelier.

After an hour of mumbling about how this boy lived they play a country song over the sound system and we all file out, thinking about how he died. Outside the funeral home, while my mother and neighbors speak in hushed tones, I realize that I have mixed the brothers up. The one that I thought was dead is standing by the door, staring at his feet and picking his fingernails. I walk away from the clusters of people because I feel as though I might cry, even with no right to.

In the car, she asks me if I want to go out to lunch.

"I don't think so," I say. I don't feel like being next to my mother anymore- it's oppressive. She gives me this heavy feeling sometimes, like she increases gravity's pull on me. With her, I feel like I'm sixteen again, at that stage where the only thing standing between you and everything you want is your mother.

"That's fine, Molly, I can understand that this is upsetting for you." She is over-enunciating, like she's speaking to someone unfamiliar with the language.

"The funeral?" I can't keep the agitation out of my voice. She pats my hand with hers, dry and wrinkly, but the same temperature.

"Of course, dear. It's difficult to lose a schoolmate. You need to remember that Toby wasn't a normal, well-adjusted person. If he were, he would have seen that suicide isn't a solution to problems." She's bobbing her head like a high school guidance counselor. I try to remember that she is my mother, that I'm supposed to be kind to her.

"What are you talking about?" I raise my voice. I'm being abrasive. "You're the one who wanted to go to the funeral. I didn't even know the kid." She blinks quickly a few times, concentrates on the road. She is trying to decide if she should be hurt or not. Even if she is, it won't last the five minutes that it will take to bring me back to my apartment.

My mother has been bored for years. So bored that instead of doing things, she creates drama in the situation at hand. Once she called to tell me she was now blaming my father's surliness on the fact that he hadn't received enough affection as a child. She said she was giving him lots of hugs to make up for it, that it might not be too late. She reads a lot of magazines and watches too many TV news shows. She'll call me at ten o'clock on a weeknight to share hints on ATM safety, or to warn me of the dangers in eating frozen raspberries. I usually thank her, tell her that my doors are locked and that there's nothing to worry about. I try, most of the time, to keep her happy.

I have less than a minute of silence before she starts to complain about the lackluster priest, directly attributing his faults to the fact that he's a Congregationalist. When she drops me off, she doesn't drive away until I am safely inside my building. I wave from the front window and walk to my room, where Jared is still asleep in my bed. I take my clothes off and get under the covers beside him, where it is warm despite January.

I feel like I won't be able to fall asleep again. The room is too light, and Jared is facing the wall on the side of the bed that is usually mine. I move closer to him and examine his back, spotted but smooth. Above his left shoulder blade there is an area where his skin has no pigment- he has told me the name of the condition, but I always forget. I put a finger on the edge of one of the splotches, and it looks like my paleness has been transferred to him, like some of me dripped onto him and stained.

My hand is on his back when I wake up. He hasn't moved at all. I whisper his name, and he surprises me by responding right away. I ask him how long he's been awake.

"A while," he says. "I was just lying here thinking about how good it feels to have your hand on my back."

"Oh," I say, not really knowing how to respond. It makes me uncomfortable when he's mushy like this; I feel like a third grader who gets grossed out by people kissing on TV. Jared rolls over and smiles at me.

"You're so funny sometimes."

This makes me feel bad, so I ask him what he means.

"About stuff like that. It's like you get embarrassed or something." I crinkle my nose at him, but still can't think of anything to say. "Why is that?" he asks, looking at me hard. It seems like he's enjoying this.

"I don't know," I say.

"I think you do. I think you just don't want to tell me." What I want to do is punch him for not being careful with me. I've told him not to expect so much so soon, but he still pushes me. I just don't think that I can look at him and explain that I've never had a boyfriend who would admit that he liked me, that I don't know how to react to him. Jared is in such a hurry to make himself vulnerable, and he wants me to do the same. And I wish that I could say things back, but they just won't sound right coming out of my mouth. I know they won't. My friends tell me that he will be the best thing that has happened to me in a long time; they say that he is a keeper. This is a little worrisome for a girl who has never known how to keep one.

"You know that I hate it when you try to pull things out of me." He rolls onto his back and closes his eyes. I've wrecked his fun.

"I'm sorry, Molly. I'm not trying to be mean, but I just feel like I'm so open with you. I don't want you to be afraid to tell me things." He looks hurt, and now I feel like it's all my fault. I lean over him and touch his face.

"I told you, I'm repressed. If your parents were Catholic you'd know what it's like." He opens his eyes and I smile at him. This is my excuse for everything. He smiles back and now everything is okay. He asks me how the funeral was and then how my mother is.

"You don't even want to know," I say. "She was acting like it was an after-school special and she had to be the mom giving the kid the serious talk about suicide. She was actually trying to tell me things about being a normal, well-adjusted person. Like she knows how to do that."

"Do you?" he asks.

"No," I say. "Do you?" He shakes his head and we laugh, even though I feel like it's not that funny at all.

It's seven o'clock that night, and I'm sitting on the couch watching television with my roommates when he calls.

"I'm at Eli's," he tells me. "I was hoping you could come out and meet him. If you're not going out or anything." He knows that I'm not going anywhere. We are far too lazy to walk to the bars when it's this cold out.

"I don't know," I say, wondering if I've used up all of the good excuses in the three months that we have been dating.

"Come on, Molly. It'll only take twenty minutes to get out here. And it's not like you have to shower or anything, because he's only eight. You don't have to worry about impressing him." But I am worrying about that, to a certain extent. I hear screaming in the background, high and uncontrolled.

"Is he okay?"

"Who, Eli? Yeah, he's great."

"Then why is he screaming?" I feel like I shouldn't have to ask this.

"Because he's happy. It's just how he expresses himself. Please come -- I miss you." When I hang up the phone, I wonder where my resistance went. I have detailed directions to the Mayer's house, and I have sworn that I will be there within an hour. But I don't want to go.

Jared baby-sits for Eli every other Saturday night. Eli is eight years old and has cerebral palsy; he can't walk, can barely hear, and can only say a few words. Jared met him last summer when he worked at a day camp, where he volunteered to learn all of the special things needed to take care of Eli. After camp was over, Mrs. Mayer asked him if he would mind watching him on weekends sometimes, so she and her husband could have time to themselves. They have a hard time finding people who are qualified to take care of him.

Jared gets paid really well to baby-sit, but I honestly don't think that's his motivation to do it. I get irritated sometimes by how nice he is and how terrible I must be in comparison. Sometimes I feel like I'm waiting for him to slip up-- I've always been suspicious of people who never do or say anything that is less than nice. I don't know how I ended up with Jared. And I've told him that I don't like children, that they're sticky and frustrating and always in need of a nose wiping. He just smiled and dismissed it in the same way he dismisses the fact that I used to smoke a pack a day and that once, before we were dating, I slept with one of his best friends. It seems like he decided what I was like before he really knew me. Sometimes I feel like he only accepts the parts of me that he wants, and pretends that the rest aren't here. Or that he can see the girl I was before I lost track of myself.

I'm scared that Eli will start crying the second that I walk in the door, and then Jared will see that there's something wrong with me. Girls and little kids are supposed to be crazy about each other. Jared loves children, Eli above all. He told me once that the thing he's looking forward to most in life is having a family. It's the way he wants to correct everything that was wrong when he grew up. His dad totally ignored him, which made his mother feel so bad that she let him do whatever he wanted. He thinks that having an asshole for a dad will make him a great father. I say that there's no such thing as a good family, and the last thing I want to do is create a person who is going to resent me as much as I resent my mother.

I have a shirt with a robot on the front, a trendy thing that I bought and have worn maybe twice. I put it on because little boys like robots. I wear my hair down, too, just in case that will interest him. But that's all I can do, and when I walk up to the Mayer's door I try to pretend that I'm not nervous. I remember that kids can tell when you're trying too hard.

I can see Jared through the window, sitting on the floor with his back to me. I walk right in, taking my shoes off by the door. Jared has turned to me, and waves. Eli is next to him, tiny underneath Jared's baseball hat. They are playing with racecars, motorized ones with remote controls and a big, loopy track. Eli is absorbed in the action, and Jared has to take the controller out of his hands to get him to look away.

"Eli, this is my friend Molly," he says loudly. Eli tips his head back and looks at him, his mouth hanging open. He's grabbing at the controller. "Molly," Jared repeats, opening his mouth really wide. He points at me, and Eli slowly follows his finger to where I stand. He jumps when he sees me, and Jared laughs. "He didn't hear you come in. He's just startled, that's all." I wonder how worried I look.

Eli is examining me. I walk closer and sit down across the track from him, looking at him as intently as he looks at me. He's very small for an eight-year-old, but his head looks big. He is also the skinniest kid I've ever seen, his stick-arms almost lacking muscle completely. He sits with his legs out at his sides, leaning forward with his mouth still open. And while I can tell from his face that he's not like other kids, his eyes don't have the vacant look that I was expecting. They look completely normal, even lively, despite the drawn face that they occupy. He picks up a car from the track and tries to hand it to me, smiling and ducking his head. I thank him.

"He loves you," Jared says. "He's such a flirt."

I had forgotten that Jared is in the room, and I'm suddenly conscious of how closely he is watching us.

"Do you think so?" I ask, wondering if Jared is just trying to convince me. Eli starts babbling, making sounds that aren't even close to words. He smiles a giant, gorgeous smile that makes me happy just from looking at it. I grab Jared's hand.

"He's beautiful," I say, and I mean it.

We play for a long time, the two of us following Eli as he drags himself from toy to toy. I stop thinking that Jared is weird for wanting to hang out with a little kid on the weekends. When Eli gets tired, the three of us pile onto an oversized chair, our legs stretched onto the ottoman. Jared flips through the stations until he finds cartoons and we just lie there, laughing. I'm not worried about anything and it feels so good.

Eli has to go to bed at ten o'clock. Jared takes him to the bathroom, changes his diaper, and put his pajamas on him. He leaves him in the family room with me and goes into the kitchen. Eli tugs at his diaper and looks at me, almost like he's embarrassed. I pretend not to notice and hand him a plastic airplane, making flying noises even though I know he can't hear them.

When Jared comes back in, he's carrying a tube and a syringe filled with dark green sludge. Eli tries to crawl away when he sees it, but Jared scoops him up and sits behind him on the floor. He reaches around and pulls up Eli's pajama top. There's a white plastic valve sticking out of his stomach. I cringe a little.

"Did you see this before" Jared asks. I shake my head and try not to look as Jared pulls the cap off the valve and attaches the tube. "This goes straight into his stomach. He can't keep much food down when he eats, so they have to pump it directly in. These are his vitamins." Jared sticks the syringe into the other end of the tube and forces the green stuff down the tube and into Eli's stomach. Eli looks at me, his eyes pleading and his face all crinkled. I want to cry. Before this it seemed like Eli lived like everyone else, just quieter.

We put him on a couch and turn the news on, which bores him to sleep pretty quickly. Jared says that Eli hates his room, that he'll have a crying fit if he's put in there before he falls asleep. I feel so bad that he can't tell anyone why. They have taught him a little sign language, but he's not coordinated enough to do the signs correctly. Jared taught me the signs for "Eli" and "dog," Eli's two favorites.

Jared shows me Eli's baby book, filled with pictures of a tiny baby in an incubator with all sorts of tubes going in and out of him. Some of the pictures have his parents in them, leaning over and smiling at Eli through the plastic. I think that I want to leave before they get home. Jared walks me out to my car and kisses me goodnight.

"It must be so hard for them," I say before I go. I think about this the whole way home.

I ask Jared if I can go with him two weeks later. He picks me up and we stop at the grocery store to buy ravioli, sauce, and some vegetables for a salad. I meet Eli's parents briefly, but they're in a hurry since they can't remember when the opera starts. They want to get dinner first. I'm surprised that they seem more laid-back than parents of kids that I baby-sat for in high school; I was expecting the opposite. Jared makes dinner while Eli and I play with a beach ball on the kitchen floor. We roll it back and forth, then sometimes to Jared, sometimes to the golden retriever. I make the "dog" sign to Eli, who laughs like it's the funniest thing he's ever seen. While I'm crawling after the ball, I see Jared look at Eli and point to me, then move his hand in a circle over his face. I stand up.

"What does that mean?" I ask.

"It means 'she,'" he points at me, "'is beautiful.'" He sweeps his hand across his face again. I let the ball drop to the floor. I step towards him and take both of his hands. They are so much warmer than mine.

"Thank you," I say. I kiss him on the cheek and put my head on his shoulder. I feel something bump my shin and I look down. Eli presses his face against my leg, and then against Jared's.

"That's how he gives kisses," Jared explains. Eli pulls himself up between our legs and the three of us stand there, holding onto each other. He tilts his head back and looks up at us, laughing. He screams. This is the noise that my heart would make.