9. Will and Me (cont.)

Best of all he made an entrance tunnel to keep out the cold. We sat inside on the snow-packed ground, surprisingly warm, watching the light leak through the snow blocks. My brother, I thought, could do anything.

Once we had an argument, though, about whether he would be any worse at ballet than I was at basketball. I said I could play a little basketball, that he couldn’t do the most elementary moves in ballet. He didn’t accept my argument. Besides, basketball was important. Ballet was foolish. So it didn’t matter that he couldn’t do ballet. Arguments had a way of shifting out from under me like that when Will had hold of them.

We played outside on winter days until our woolen snow pants were soaked through. Then we went inside and climbed up on the tall radiator in the kitchen to get warm ourselves. We sat there talking to Mom, the smell of wet wool filling the kitchen, until suddenly the heat of the radiator made the water in our pants sizzle, and we leapt off onto the floor, holding out butts, our tender legs. We never learned not to warm ourselves that way, though.

Will and I played pool on his miniature pool table, caroms on a carom board, war with cards. We played Canasta, too. I went for the surprise of hidden Canastas; he was in there for the long haul, racking up point after point on the patterned rug. I couldn’t touch him in games like chess that are all mental endurance and didn’t try, but given the way the luck of the draw evened things out, we were pretty well matched in Canasta.