Allie had never been in the church, although her grandparents spent every Sunday morning there except when she and her parents visited from the city three hours away. Her grandmother played the organ. Her grandfather, whose fine tenor voice was frequently featured in solos, sang in the choir. They rarely missed the weekly potluck suppers and always stayed for the prayer services afterward. Jesus, grandmother said, guided their lives.

Cam, who lived with his mother and grandmother at the base of the hill, had never been in the church either, but he knew every inch of the churchyard. When Allie came to visit, they played on the swings and slide in the church playground and watched the congregants in their Sunday finery drive off in their Sunday cars. The best part, for Cam at least, was that almost every Sunday, he and Allie could count on finding coins intended for the collection plate that had fallen from pockets or purses.
Allie let Cam keep the coins. She pretended not to see the quarters and half dollars until Cam spotted them and offered to share. Then she would refuse, saying, “No, you found them. You keep them.”

Her mother Sara had explained that Cam’s father had abandoned the family, so Cam’s mother was raising him alone. Sara and Keith were hardly rich, but Allie had everything she needed and most of what she wanted. She could tell that Cam wore clothes that had been passed down to him because they were often too large or too small, and they were always faded and frayed.

After they had scoured the churchyard for coins, Allie and Cam looked for other treasures nearby. Cam had a knack for discovering shiny rocks that glistened like silver after they scrubbed them clean under the faucet near the back garden. They even found iridescent shells carried from nearby lakes by birds. Sometimes Cam found cigarette stubs in the alley behind the church, and they would pretend to smoke. Allie claimed the butts with lipstick.

One afternoon, after Sara and her mother had caught up on family news and local gossip – which of her high school friends had gotten pregnant or divorced or lost their jobs – and had prepared for the big Sunday dinner, Sara stood on the porch, looking for Allie, calling her name. Keith and her father, who were watching a football game on the small television in the room the family nostalgically named the parlor, recalled they had not seen Allie for a couple hours.

When Allie finally appeared, Sara asked: “Where have you been? I called for you, and you didn’t answer.”

“We were just playing.”

“Where?”

“In the churchyard. And in the alley.”

“I didn’t see you there. Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

Allie shook her head.

Sara sat down at the kitchen table and pointed to a chair for Allie. When her grandmother joined them, the scene began to look to Allie as if a lecture were about to begin. She could not understand what she had done that was wrong. She wasn’t allowed to bring dolls or her dog with her when they came to visit her grandparents. Now, it appeared, she couldn’t even play outside without her mother scolding her.

“Allie, we don’t think you should be spending much time with Cam. His mother is not the kind of person that… I mean, she is not a nice woman.”

Grandmother nodded. “There are too many men –“

“I don’t think we need to talk about that, Mom.”

“But Cam is nice. What’s wrong with Cam?” Allie asked.

“Their morals –“

“Mom! Mom, let me handle this. Allie, Cam’s family is not the sort of family we would want you to be around, okay? Someday you will understand, but for now, I don’t want you to be around Cam unless you are on the front porch, where I can see you. Okay?”

Allie escaped into the living room, where Keith and her grandfather had both fallen asleep in front of the television while her mother and grandmother continued their whispered conversation at the kitchen table. She flopped onto the only surface not occupied by a snoring adult, waiting for her father to wake up because she could always count on him to be the reasonable one in her family.
After supper, while her mother and grandmother were clearing the table and starting to wash the dishes in the big iron sink, Cam knocked on the front door. Keith answered the door.

“Can Allie come out and play?”

“Allie,” he called into the kitchen. “Cam wants you to come outside and play.”

Before Allie could reply, Sara intercepted her and went to the door herself. “Allie needs to spend some time with her grandparents, Cam. She can’t go outside this evening.” Her voice was kind but firm. The boy looked disappointed but went back home without comment. Sara could hear the flimsy screen door of his grandmother’s house across the street slamming. Keith looked at her for an explanation, but she shrugged with a we’ll talk about it later expression on her face.

“Why won’t you let Allie play with him? He seems like a good kid.”

“I’ve known Cam’s mother Sandy since we were in grade school. Her mother lost control of her by the time she was Cam’s age. They are just not the kind of people I want Allie associating with.”

“Associating? She and Cam are eight years old! They are playing hide and seek, for Christ’s sake. What’s the harm? Did you know Cam’s father, too?”

“He was just as wild as Sandy. But then as far as I know he’s never been a part of Cam’s life.”

“Poor kid! Don’t you think he has been punished enough for his mother’s behavior?”

“Don’t fight me on this, Keith.”

“But if Allie doesn’t even go into their house –“

Grandmother caught the tail end of the conversation. “Sandy is as out-of-control as she was when she was a teenager.”

Keith knew when he had lost an argument and retreated to the parlor to watch another football game on television, where the winners and losers were clear and definitive.

That night when Allie was tucked into bed in the upstairs bedroom next to her parents’ room and before Sara turned out the lights, she asked again: “Why can’t I play with Cam?”

“Allie, we’ve been over this. I told you Cam’s mother is not the kind of woman that I would want you to be around.”

“But I’m never around her. Just Cam. And I never go into their house.”

“There are men there that I don’t approve of. Your grandmother sees a lot of men who are not good influences on Cam coming and going. We don’t know what Cam is learning by being around these men.”

On Sunday morning, Cam came calling for Allie as soon as the preacher threw open the door to the sanctuary, and congregants began to file in. But Sara reminded Allie of their talk the night before. “You and Cam have to stay where I can see you.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Allie asked.

“Why don’t you play hopscotch?” Sara suggested.

“First because we are not five years old, and second, we don’t even have any chalk!”

“See,” Sara said, glancing toward Cam, “you’re getting a smart mouth already!”
Cam, oblivious to his being blamed for Allie’s “smart mouth,” looked as if he wanted to say something, too, but Sara frightened him with her stern expression.
Allie and Cam sat on the porch swaying back and forth on the wooden swing until Sara called her to lunch. Cam went home via the churchyard, hoping to find enough money to salvage the morning.

As they packed their luggage for the long drive home on Sunday afternoon, Allie saw Cam sitting alone on his grandmother’s front porch, rocking in an old wood chair that sat moldering in the sun and rain. She waved, and Cam waved back, smiling somewhat sadly. Sara focused on the street, ignoring Keith’s silent glare, which seemed to say: Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?

At their next visit to her grandparents’, Cam was sitting alone on his grandmother’s porch when they pulled into the driveway. Engulfed in an oversized jacket, he looked even smaller and more vulnerable than ever. The stiff canvas collar of the jacket covered the lower half of his face so only his eyes were visible. With hair as pale as winter wheat, he looked as if he were slowly disappearing, dissolving.

Allie waved and jumped out of the car as soon as it stopped. She looked to her mother for permission to invite Cam to play. Sara held her chin and looked into her eyes. “Remember what we talked about.”

“Allie, why don’t you see if Cam knows how to play checkers? I’m sure we can find a checkerboard here somewhere. You can play on the front porch,” Keith said.
Keith looked defiantly at Sara, who shook her head. “Why are you encouraging this?”

“Playing checkers is not going to hurt anyone.”

Keith searched through the stack of dusty board games stored in the closet under the staircase and found a checker set with enough pieces left to make a game. He showed Allie and Cam how to set up the board and instructed them in the basic rules, knowing they would probably invent their own game as the afternoon went on. They sat on the top step, laughing when one or the other had the chance to yell “King me!” or in Allie’s case, “Queen me!” They played until Sara called Allie to lunch.

“Have you had your lunch yet, Son?” Keith asked.

Cam shook his head no. “I think we can rustle up a sandwich for you. Sit tight.”
Sara stomped into the kitchen, her face a study in fury. “He’s not a stray puppy, dammit. He has a place to live.”

Keith slapped together a sandwich out of the meatloaf the family was having for lunch. He covered the meat with a glaze of ketchup, since Cam looked to him like a boy who liked ketchup, and added some potato chips to the paper plate. He poured a glass of milk from the pitcher on the table and carried the food and drink to Cam, still sitting on the porch step.

“Here you go, my man.” Cam smiled. He tucked into the food as if he had not eaten for days.

After lunch, Allie and Cam played checkers and then their own game that seemed to involve flipping the discs to see whose flew farthest. This was followed by a contest to see who could make the tallest stack of checkers before the stack collapsed. All the while, Keith noticed that neither Cam’s mother nor his grandmother checked to see if he was all right.

Cam was antsy and ready to go exploring. “Let’s see if we can find more money.”

“I’m not allowed to leave the porch.”

Cam was puzzled. “You can’t even go to the church? Or the park?”

Allie shook her head. She still did not understand her mother’s rules, but she knew somehow that it would hurt Cam’s feelings if he became aware of her mother’s objections to their playing together, and she did not want to hurt her friend.

They played their made-up checkers games until Sara called Allie in for the evening. Cam went home and sat on his porch, watching Allie’s house until the sun went down and even his thick jacket wasn’t enough to keep him warm.

At Christmas, Keith parked the car, loaded with wrapped presents, in the grandparents’ driveway, which was already crowded with the cars of Sara’s sister and her family (two girls close to Allie’s age), and her brother with his two boys: one a couple of years older than Allie, the other a year younger. Although the girl cousins saw each other only on holidays, they were inseparable as soon as they arrived at their grandparents’ house.

As he was carrying luggage and presents from the car to the house – Sara and Allie conveniently disappeared when there was carrying to be done – Keith noticed Cam watching from his porch, dressed in the oversized jacket he had been wearing the last time he saw him. Keith waved. The next thing he knew, Cam was standing beside the car, looking at the gifts still filling the trunk of the car.

“That’s a lot of presents. Are all them for Allie?”

“No, Allie has aunts and uncles and cousins, and the gifts are for them, too.” He quickly tried to remember what the gifts for his nephews were, and which one he could inconspicuously spare to Cam instead. He pulled one out of the trunk and ripped the name tag off discretely, hoping it would be something Cam would like – and need. He was pretty sure the gift for the younger nephew was a sweater, which might just fit Cam.

“I believe this one is for you.”

Cam took the present shyly.

“I don’t have a present for Allie.”

“That’s okay. Allie will get enough presents. She doesn’t need anything else.” He reached into his pocket and fished a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet.

“This is so you can get a present for your mother.”

He wanted to ask Cam about Christmas at his grandmother’s house, but he felt it would be embarrassing for him if Christmas there was as grim as he suspected. Cam looked as though he would cry. Keith clapped him on the shoulder and ruffled his hair. “Allie may not have much time to play this time, Son. She has a house full of cousins, but we’ll be back in a couple months.”

Cam ran back to his house, holding the precious bill in his pocket with one hand and clutching the wrapped gift to his chest with the other. Keith wondered if that would be Cam’s only Christmas gift. Now he had to figure out how to replace the gift for his nephew two days before Christmas in a town with only a grocery market and a drug store.

Just the thought of Cam cast a pall over the whole holiday for Keith, and each time on Christmas morning one of his spoiled nephews opened a gift, tossing it aside with no thank you, he was silently furious. Allie was only slightly more gracious, something Keith had never noticed until now.

A couple days after Christmas, when they had loaded up the luggage and gifts from their family, a beaming Cam waved goodbye as they drove away.

But they did not return a couple months later. Allie came down with the flu in mid-January, and when she had recovered enough to go back to school, Sara became sick with the virus, followed by Keith. They decided to wait until there was no chance of spreading the virus to Sara’s elderly parents before they visited again.

All the while, Keith squirreled away small gifts to take to Cam when they would finally make the trip to the grandparents’ house – a couple T-shirts, a hooded sweatshirt, a backpack in a camouflage fabric, a book about famous baseball players… He stashed it all in a bag in the trunk of his car so Sara would not find it.

Weeks later when they pulled into the driveway of her grandmother’s house, Allie looked for Cam, but he was nowhere in sight. There were lights on in the house. Maybe, she thought, Cam would come out to the porch when he heard the car doors slam shut. She made as much noise as possible, but Cam did not come to the door. Even after all the luggage was carried in and the T.V. was tuned to a football game, the sound blaring out the door, he did not appear on his own porch or hers.

“Grandma, where is Cam?”

Grandmother looked startled, as if she had not noticed something she should have noticed.

“You know, I don’t believe I’ve seen Sandy or Cam for a couple weeks now. Probably just moved on.” She and Sara shrugged as if to say, it was inevitable!

“Did Sandy just move away with Cam?”

Sara noticed the distress on Keith’s face: “You’ll have to find a new project, honey.” She laughed. “My husband wants to save the world!” Grandmother laughed, too.

Allie watched the porch all afternoon, but there was no Cam. Once, she heard the screen door to their house slam shut, and she rushed to the window to see if it was Cam, but all she saw was his grandmother, wrapped in an overcoat and sitting in the rocker, smoking a cigarette and sipping something out of a tumbler.

As they got in the car for the drive back to the city the next afternoon, Cam had still not appeared. The empty rocker on his grandmother’s porch swayed back and forth in the wind, the only thing moving, the only memory of Cam.