Lay Me Down

3. Belong.

{Pete}

Pete was padding to the kitchen to make his first pot of coffee when the scene in the family room stopped him short. His girls were absorbed in their cartoons like they usually were before he got up to make breakfast—what was unusual was Cary's presence with them on the couch. The boy was curled on his side with his hand over his face. Bea was wrapped in her blanket, leaning against his stomach. Tabby was sitting beside his feet, crowded against the couch arm.

"Is Cary asleep?" Pete asked.

Tabitha frowned over at Cary's face. "Yeah. He's taking up the whole couch."

Bea patted Cary's hair gently, like he was a particularly large dog she had adopted. "Cary had bad dreams."

"Ah." Pete studied them a moment longer, checking where Cary had his hands and whether his girls were relaxed with him there. Cary had his free arm crossed against his chest and that hand tucked under his body. It looked like the girls had just fit themselves onto the couch wherever they could find space while he slept. Bea gave her dad a smile over her shoulder, and he smiled back and left them undisturbed.

Jon came in while Pete was waiting for the coffee to percolate. He gave his father a tired "Hey."

"How'd you sleep?" Pete asked.

Jon shrugged, not looking at him as he poured his cereal. "Good. I thought when I woke up that meant Cary didn't have any more bad dreams after the first one."

Pete pulled the girls' toast out of the toaster, and then spread honey and peanut butter on each slice. "He wakes you up?"

Jon's laugh had no humour in it. "Oh, yeah. Then I wake him up. You seriously didn't hear him?"

"I heard him," Pete said. Eighteen years of being a father had made him a light sleeper, attuned to every shift and sound in his children's rooms. Cary's cries had woken him from a sound sleep. He had lain awake in bed, praying into the dark because he was afraid to go near Cary when the nightmares had their claws in. He didn't want to be one more scary thing in the room. "I'm glad you were there for him."

"I thought he would be better," Jon said into his bowl of milk and o's. "Once he got safe with us."

"It's only been two weeks," Pete said. "You can't erase the years Cary had before this in just a couple days."

"You think they can be erased?" Jon met his eyes. He looked older than his 15 years.

"I think they can be healed," Pete said.

Jon closed his eyes, letting out his breath. "Right. I just thought—Jesus would heal them faster."

Pete's laugh was short and soft. He still felt the ache where the seams of his own scars lay, under his skin. "That's not really how it works, Jon."

"It's completely unfair—you know that, right?" Jon asked evenly. "That he got what he got, and I got you."

Pete could have looked for hours at his son the way he seemed now, whole and strong, with a light coming off his face even in the midst of all this heaviness. "I know," Pete said.

Jon nodded and got up to put his bowl in the sink. "We just have math and choir this morning. Can you call the school? This is the third night he didn't sleep."

So Pete made the call and got his children fed, dressed, and off to school with lunches and snacks in their backpacks. Bea carefully tucked the blankets back around Cary before she left. Cary didn't stir, and his deep, even breaths made Pete hope he was sleeping dreamlessly.