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Her left eye throbbed. She shut it and rubbed it hard with her palm and opened it again, and for a moment she thought the bridge was there. She saw, or thought she saw, a kind of afterimage of it, a white glare in the shape of a bridge, reaching all the way to the opposite bank.

But the afterimage didn’t last, and her left eye was streaming tears, and she was too weary to wonder for long what had happened to the bridge. She had never, in all her life, so needed to be home, in her room, in her bed, in the crisp folds of her sheets.

She got on her bike but could only pedal a few yards before she gave up. She stepped off and pushed, her head down and her hair swinging. Her mother’s bracelet rolled loosely on her sweaty wrist. She hardly noticed it there.

Vic pushed the bike across the yellowing grass of the backyard, past the playset she never played on anymore, the chains of the swings caked in rust. She dropped her bike in the driveway and went inside. She wanted to get to her bedroom, wanted to lie down and rest. But when she heard a tinny crack in the kitchen, she veered off course to see who was in there.

It was her father, who stood with his back to her, can of Stroh’s in one hand. He was running the other hand under cold water in the sink, turning his knuckles beneath the faucet.

Vic wasn’t sure how long she had been gone. The clock on the toaster oven was no help. It blinked 12:00 over and over, as if it had just been reset. The lights were off, too, the room cool with afternoon shadow.

“Dad,” she said, in a weary voice she hardly recognized. “What time is it?”

He glanced at the oven, then gave his head a little shake.

“Damned if I know. The power blinked out about five minutes ago. I think the whole street is—” But then he glanced back at her, eyebrows rising in a question. “What’s up? You all right?” He turned off the water and grabbed a rag to pat his hand dry. “You don’t look so hot.”

She laughed, a strained, humorless sound. “That’s what Pete said.” Her own voice seemed to come from way far off—from the other end of a long tunnel.

“Pete who?”

“Hampton Beach Pete.”

“Vic?”

“I’m all right.” She tried to swallow and couldn’t. She was painfully thirsty, although she hadn’t known it until she saw her father standing there with a cold drink in his hand. She shut her eyes for a moment and saw a sweating glass of chilly pink-grapefruit juice, an image that seemed to cause every cell in her body to ache with need. “I’m just thirsty. Do we have any juice?”

“Sorry, kid. Fridge is pretty empty. Mom hasn’t been to the grocery store yet.”

“Is she lying down?”

“Don’t know,” he said. He did not add, Don’t care, but it was there in his tone.

“Oh,” Vic said, and she slipped the bracelet off her wrist and put it on the kitchen table. “When she comes out, tell her I found her bracelet.”

He slammed the door of the fridge and looked around. His gaze shifted to the bracelet, then back to her.

“Where . . . ?”

“In the car. Between the seats.”

The room darkened, as if the sun had disappeared behind a great mass of clouds. Vic swayed.

Her father put the back of his hand to her face, the hand that held his can of beer. He had abraded his knuckles on something. “Christ, you’re burning up, Brat. Hey, Lin?”

“I’m fine,” Vic told him. “I’m just going to lie down for a minute.”

She didn’t mean to lie down right there, right then. The plan was to walk back to her room and stretch out under her awesome new David Hasselhoff poster—but her legs gave way and she dropped. Her father caught her before she could hit the floor. He scooped her into the air, a hand under her legs, another under her back, and carried her into the hall.

“Lin?” Chris McQueen called out again.

Linda emerged from her bedroom, holding a wet washcloth to the corner of her mouth. Her feathery auburn hair was disheveled and her eyes unfocused, as if she had in fact been asleep. Her gaze sharpened when she saw the Brat in her husband’s arms.

She met them at the door to Vic’s bedroom. Linda reached up with slender fingers and pushed the hair back from Vic’s brow, pressed a hand to her forehead. Linda’s palm was chilly and smooth, and her touch set off a shivering fit that was one part sickness, one part pleasure. Vic’s parents weren’t mad at each other anymore, and if the Brat had known that all she had to do to bring them together again was make herself sick, she could’ve skipped going across the bridge to get the bracelet and just stuck a finger down her throat.

“What happened to her?”

“She passed out,” Chris said.

“No I didn’t,” said the Brat.

“Hundred-degree fever and falling down, and she wants to argue with me,” said her father with unmistakable admiration.

Her mother lowered the washcloth she was holding to the corner of her own mouth. “Heatstroke. Three hours in that car and then right outside on her bike, no sunscreen on, and nothing to drink all day except that rotten milkshake at Terry’s.”

“Frappe. They call ’em frappes at Terry’s,” Vic said. “You hurt your mouth.”

Her mother licked the corner of her swollen lips. “I’ll get a glass of water and some ibuprofen. We’ll both take some.”