HIDING - every scar has a story

15. If he could carry it.

{Cary}

Cary couldn't fall asleep that night. Liam was home. He listened to the sound of his brother crying and his parents talking and walking back and forth in the hall. He could feel tension in the air like a thread about to snap. Finally he pulled the blanket off his bed and climbed out his window.

It was quiet on the roof—nothing but wind in the leaves and the distant hush of traffic. He lay stretched under the star pricked sky, looking up. He thought of the man, arms stretched out on a cross as he died.

From the way Jon was so unused to hurt, Cary had expected a Jesus with no marks on him. Cary could have watched that Jesus live his perfect life and float up to the clouds without feeling anything. A God like that had nothing to do with him.

The image of Jesus carrying that massive hunk of wood on his bloody back glowed hot and red behind his eyes. How could he have chosen that? Why would he?

Cary heard a disturbance in the house. He dropped back through his window and crouched in his darkened room, listening. The baby was crying again. Light footsteps went up the hall and in a moment the crying stopped. Cary crept to Liam's room and pushed open the door.

His mother was in the rocking chair giving Liam a bottle. The shadows under her eyes were so dark they looked like bruises.

"Do you want me to feed him?" Cary asked.

Her eyes closed as she nodded. "You were never this difficult."

Cary carefully took Liam into his arms. Liam gave a squawk as the bottle nipple popped out. Cary nudged the bottle back into his mouth. "It's okay, here you go."

Beverly got to her feet with difficulty. "Don't forget to burp him or he'll just wake up again."

"Okay," Cary said. "Go back to bed mom. Have a good sleep."

She turned in the doorway, a pale shape in her housecoat. "Be careful around your father tomorrow. You know how he gets when he's stressed."

Cary watched her go, his chest tightening. He looked back down at his brother, trying to draw a breath. Liam had his eyes open, frowning as he sucked. Cary found a smile.

"Hey. Why the frowny face?" Liam's eyes tracked up to Cary's face, sucking more intently. Cary touched the crease in Liam's forehead with a finger. "Your bottle is here. I'm here. You're safe."

Liam ate until he fell back asleep, milk dribbling from his mouth. Cary put him on his shoulder and rubbed his tiny back up and down, up and down. Liam burped and sighed. His breath was warm on Cary's neck.

The realization grew on him gradually, looming up in the dark. There was a thing he could do to keep Liam safe. If he was strong enough to pick it up and carry it.

He laid Liam, sleeping, in his crib, then went downstairs to his father's study. Books—his father's most precious belongings—lined the walls. He lit a fire in the grate, listening for movement in the hall. When the fire was hot, Cary pulled a stack of leather-bound volumes off his father's bookshelf and threw them on the fire. When they didn't burn fast enough, he used the poker to flip them open so the greedy flames could lick the pages.

He checked that the flue was open in the fireplace and crept back upstairs and into his bed, leaving the books to burn. He was shaking. He buried his face in his pillow. Seven hours until his father went into his study to get ready for school. Maybe fifteen if his briefcase was still in the car and he just went straight to the university. Then, if it was enough, the tension would snap and leave the air in the house loose and easy again.

Cary laid awake a long time before getting up and helping himself to his mother's sleeping pills. Then he slept like a dead man. 

678 words.