Lay Me Down

1. Enough.

{Cary}

Cary spent a lot of time hidden beside the neighbour's trash bins because he couldn't go in. His mother never spared the garbage cans a glance as she slid an elegant leg out of the driver's seat and stepped out of the car. From his hiding place beside the bins, Cary counted the 13 steps to the front door and tried to make out her face in the failing light as she flipped through her keys.

Was she happy now? Was she angry? Was she a scraped shell going through the motions like he was? His hiding place across the street was too far away, and she was too practiced at deceiving for him to tell. All he knew was she kept going to work, and that she had changed the locks.

Once she was inside, Cary watched the lights turn on and off through the windows, imagining the scenes inside. It was just his mother, his brother and the nanny now in a giant, hollow house. He had trouble picturing dinner time. Was the massive dining-room table set for one, or did she still set for two, as if his father might come home any moment? Did she watch television while she ate, the newscasters filling the silence with urgent monologue while her silverware scraped her plate? He couldn't imagine how his mother was coping with life alone.

He was barely coping himself, trying to put the pieces back together in a house full of someone else's family.

He watched his old home until the lit square of his little brother's window went dark, then unfolded himself from the concrete and used the heavy plastic trash bin to pull himself to his feet. He walked to the bus stop as the street lights blinked on and rode the bus with his ears plugged full of music until it sighed to a stop on Jon's street.

If he was lucky, dinner would be over and Jon's sisters would already be in bed so he could go in unnoticed. Two weeks ago, Jon's father, Pete, had picked him up from a shelter like an abandoned stray. If he could have made himself weightless and invisible for Jon's family, he would have. They had a fraction of what his parents had, and they took him in, dividing their small house and meager groceries still more for him. If he couldn't find something for supper in the dumpsters behind the school, he went to sleep on Jon's floor, balled up in a nest of blankets with his fist pressed against his empty stomach. His body was healing and for however long this lasted, he didn't have to be afraid. That was enough.

{Pete}

In the first few days of Cary's stay, Pete White hadn't asked him any questions about where he had been or what he had been doing. Cary caught the bus early in the morning and didn't return until after dark. He slipped into the house, leaving his shoes at the bottom of the closet and taking his backpack and jacket to Jon's room. Pete's own children left their shoes scattered all over the entryway and dropped their coats and backpacks haphazardly wherever they shed them. Pete checked the bag of bread on the counter and the salami in the fridge. They were going through them twice as fast, so he guessed Cary packed a lunch in the morning when Jon did. At least he was eating something.

Jon came home from school on the bus before supper, the way he always did. He told his dad he didn't know where Cary went.

Two weeks later, Pete listened to Cary come in, closing the front door with a soft thump and heading to Jon's room. He heard Jon speaking—something light that might have been a greeting. He didn't hear Cary say anything at all. He looked at the page of his book, open on his lap, without seeing the words. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard Cary speak.

His wife turned over in the bed next to him, setting her hand on his calf under the blankets. "Has he told you where he goes?"

Pete shook his head.

Her eyes were dark with concern. "I don't like to see a boy that age not eating. Peter, he hardly speaks. He's hardly here."

Pete shut his book and rubbed his face. "What am I supposed to do?" he asked softly. "I can't...go near him without making him flinch. I'm everything he's afraid of."