Some kids are just shy. They hide their eyes from others' stares, shut themselves in their bedrooms, or find a way to shuffle out of a class if their name is called - whether in praise or anger, it doesn't matter. Ben Willian had not begun life like this. When he was much younger, Ben had been a very outgoing kid. He played Little League; maybe in the same league as Dave, neither could remember for sure. He got invited to parties. He got straight As and was proud of it. All that changed in the summer of his seventh birthday. The car that killed his parents was going seventy-two miles an hour when it struck their old Toyota. It sheared the top of the little import and sliced both his mom and dad apart at the waist. They had been on the way to pick him up after Little League, but they had few friends and no one who knew what their schedule was, so little Ben Willian sat on the tin bleachers by the practice field alone until dawn, when a concerned state trooper asked him his name and phoned it in. Ben had met his uncle Raymond only twice, both of these occasions on very unpleasant Christmases, but they stood together as the caksets were lowered into the ground as if they were really family. He was a thin man who wore an ugly tweed jacket on chilly days and never combed his mousy brown hair. That Christmas awkwardness followed them as they walked to Raymond's large SUV, Ben dying to say something but Raymond's blank slate face impossible to address. Raymond turned to Ben with a withering look. "You're going to live with me now. I'll be honest with you. I don't know anything about raising children. You and I will probably not like each other. But your mother was my sister and I have at least some fond memories of our childhood, so I'll do my best. Understand?" Ben nodded.
