Hope collapsed every morning at six a.m.: Sleepers, arise! Jay began to see Dad’s siren as the opening punch of a boxing match, Mitt Gardiner versus his life. Dad didn’t want the house, not really. He didn’t want the family, not always. Only Jay, by bad luck the only other balls-haver in the house, was doomed to join Dad’s fight, to be brought up as a first mate on a ship headed straight for the rocks.
