And the sky was Robin's egg blue...

Our backyard swing was an old tire from Dad's rusty pickup. He called the truck the Red Rocket, always with a half grin and a sly wink. Red was a little joke between the two of us, because, you see, Old Red maxed out at about forty miles an hour, on a good day, with the wind at her back and a full tank of gas.

Dad never let Robin in on our little joke, nor did he push him quite as high on the worn Firestone. I remember clinging to the tire desperately with my sun-browned, freckled arms, shrieking with glee as he swung me through the pockets of sunlight that had filtered down through the canopy of spiky maple leaves. I remember kicking my feet out, my bare, grass-stained toes flirting with the rays of light. I remember taking over for Dad as I watched him retreat into the house to read the paper or do whatever dads did when they didn't want to push their sons on the swing anymore and as I pushed, Robin would kick his dangling legs back and forth and he’d turn and humor me with a small smile. I remember running at the tire swing and pushing as hard as any little sister could, but after a few solid pushes and a few solider encounters with the hard, packed dirt below the swing, I'd get as worn-out as Dad’s old pickup and we'd both collapse at the base of the tall maple. Robin hardly spoke to me in those lazy moments, but by the defeat in his eyes, I knew he was wondering why Dad didn't grin at him or help him soar as high on the swing.

I remember Robin trying to touch the sky, grasping for the blue and white that always escaped his fingers when he tried to capture a handful. He longed for those puffs of white so much that when dad would push me, I'd try to bring him back some of the wispy delight, but it always dribbled from my hands like water.

I remember when Robin's baseball crashed through the kitchen window and summer stickball games came to an end. One by one, Robin's friends disappeared from the makeshift diamond, home to adoring parents and an afternoon television program. Then later, when school had started up, Robin got a check minus in multiplication, and Dad gave him a good thumping. Come to think of it, he probably gave him a good thumping after the broken window too.

Once I broke one of Dad's Sinatra records and got sent to bed without dessert and then without dinner when I got a minus in spelling.

Back when that minus in spelling actually mattered, I never understood why Dad always regarded Robin with such a stern, guarded expression, but when he looked into Robin's sun-speckled face, he must have seen his nine year old self, freckles and all, staring straight back at him. But he didn't see all I saw when I looked at my brother. Dad would never let himself see how wonderful and smart and share-your-milk-and-cookies nice Robin was. Only I saw that. Dad would only see himself, his own faults that had yet to be awakened in his son.
Robin never got the chance to fly and dally about in the clouds.

That's all I could think of as I took over pushing my own son on that same tire swing, further worn by age, the rope twisted and starting to fray. That's all I could think about as I watched Robin retreat into the house to read the paper or do whatever uncles do when the sight of the black Firestone twirling through the scattered rays of sun made him remember. I watched as the door banged shut behind my brother, his wings too weak to fly and spirit broken like the old Red Rocket that lay, now abandoned, in the backyard.