I remembered Andy coming home from the hospital with Mama, me sitting way back on the couch when Mama laid Andy in my lap. But now it seemed there never was a time without Andy. Andy was one of the things that always were.

These are the things that always were: Mama, Daddy, Bobby, Lindsay, Andy, Yakima and the white house. The white house halfway down the block and across the street from the corner lot with the green two-story house and the great big tree that grew up to the second story of the big corner house. The great big tree that was the perfect climbing tree because its branches started low enough to the ground so I could reach my arms around the lowest branch and pull myself up into the first fork of its trunk, at least I could when I was five and could cross the street with Bobby to the big corner lot.

One time I climbed that tree, climbed it so high, put my arms around the low branch, lifted my legs up and wrapped them around the branch, pulled myself over onto the top, scraping my arms and legs a little on the bark, scraping the undersides of my arms. The tree trunk so sturdy where I leaned my back when I rested after I sat on the top of the branch, the tree trunk was part of the things that always were. I stood up on the branch wrapping my arms around the tree trunk, then reached up for another branch. I stepped on a knob of the tree, then another branch. This was the day I climbed very high. The branches were closer together towards the top but some of them were not so strong so I just rested my foot on the part of the branch right next to the trunk to keep my foot from slipping and used my hands to pull myself up.

Bobby came into the corner lot. I watched him from the high branch. He walked from the sidewalk, over the tiny hill and under my tree, then started over to the sawed off tree trunk. The top of Bobby's head was round and smooth, fuzzy crew cut, and his T-shirt was a patch of white. Bobby stopped at the tree trunk and turned slowly around, all the way around looking.

"Bobby, " I said, "Bobby, I'm up here." I wanted him to see me so far up.

Bobby walked back under the big tree and tilted his chin up, looked at the lower branches of the tree, tilted more to see higher up, still not high enough. Bobby's eyes opened wider when he finally looked high enough to see me so far up, but Bobby just said, "Mama wants us home for lunch now."

I started to come down. I looked down, and it was so far. I couldn't see the next place to put my foot. I said, "I don't remember how to get down."

"Mama wants us now." Bobby tipped his head back so his face was almost flat on top of his white T-shirt. Bobby walked around the tree. "Ok," he said, "around the trunk, just a little to the right, move your right toe down there."

Holding tight around the trunk I moved my right foot from the safe branch and stretched it out to the right feeling with my toe.

Bobby said, "Down just a little. Okay, just a little further down."

My toe found the knob.

"Ok," Bobby said. "Move your left arm down to the branch on your left."

I did it.

Bobby said, "Now you can reach the next branch with your left foot."

In the middle of moving to find the branch I remembered how to get down the tree, at least my arms and legs remembered. My arms and legs knew where to go next.

Bobby said, "Ok, .."

I said, "I can do it now."

Bobby said, "Just step.."

I said, "I know how."

When we got home Mama asked what took us so long and Bobby told her. Mama said I wasn't allowed to climb that tree anymore.

But I kept right on climbing that tree.

Bobby never told.

These are the things that always were: Mama, Daddy, Bobby, Lindsay, Andy, Yakima, the white house, the big tree on the corner lot, my body remembering how to climb down the big tree and Bobby never telling.

The white house was part of the things that always were, and the new kitchen that Daddy built. Daddy added the new kitchen and a bedroom to the white house. Then you could run from the kitchen, to the dining room which used to be the kitchen, to the living room, to the hall, past two of the three bedrooms, to the bathroom, then out the new bathroom door to the kitchen again. We didn't do that when Mama was there. Just when Daddy was alone with us, like one evening while Mama worked the evening shift at a grocery store in Walla Walla. Daddy cooked us hamburgers and the hamburgers smelled so good and I was so hungry, waiting for Daddy's hamburgers. Bobby and I chased through the house, around and around again. Bobby had left his bow from his bow and arrow set, wedged between the bathtub and the toilet, so every time on my way around I jumped over the bow. Except one time I forgot to jump. That time I tripped on the bow, fell forward and hit my chin on the bathtub.

We were out of big Band-Aids, so Daddy put little ones on my chin, the blood seeping out from the little Band-Aids, so Daddy put more little Band-Aids on my chin, about 10 or 15 little Band-Aids. All the little Band-Aids on my chin moving up and down while I ate the hamburger that Daddy made that tasted so good.

Then Mama came home and yelled at Daddy and took me to the emergency room at the hospital.

These are the things that always were: Mama, Daddy, Bobby, Lindsay, Andy, Yakima, the white house, the big tree on the corner lot, running through the house when Mama wasn't there and Daddy putting all the little Band-Aids on my chin and Mama yelling at Daddy about all the little Band-Aids.

The white picket fence, the new kitchen that Daddy built, the back porch and the swing set and slide and sandbox that Daddy made, and how we all rode out to the sandworks to pick up the sand to pour in the sandbox, in the black car with the running board, the black car that was part of the things that always were.

Sand in the sandbox. Sand on the beach in the summer where we went for vacation. Bobby and I built sandcastles and tunnels on the beach. The wet sand clung to our arms, got under our fingernails.

You have to stick in your arm as far as you can to make a proper tunnel, and the other person digs from the other side 'til that moment when you break through, a finger hole first, then, if you stretch as far as you can, and he stretches, you can clasp each other's hand. My hand. Bobby's hand. The tunnel is finished then, or it collapses.

These are the things that always were: Mama, Daddy, Bobby, Lindsay, Andy, Yakima, the white house, the big tree on the corner lot, Mama yelling at Daddy, the black car with the running board, the sand, Bobby's hand, my hand.