Since Claude was an only child, he pretty much owned the second floor. His bedroom door was cracked open, the bathroom door closed. Might as well wait in his room. I’d spent a good part of my childhood in there, relaxing on his nubby blue quilt hand-sewn by Mrs. Ziegler, staring at his movie posters—Carrie, Rocky, Jaws, Monty Python and the Holy Grail—so many times I could see them with my eyes shut. I had his door halfway open before I’d realized I’d made a mistake, that he wasn’t in the bathroom but was in fact sitting on his bed, his back to me. He looked over, made a gargling sound when he
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