Lay Me Down

7. Make-believe.

{Cary}

Cary's mother cried in the principal's office. She said she didn't know what to do with Ciaran. She said Ciaran needed mental help. She said she was so hurt and shocked and betrayed and what did she ever do to deserve a son who treated her like this?

Cary kept his mouth shut, looking out the window at the parking lot. His hands were closed; he could feel the sting and throb of his arm under the bandage the nurse had applied. He didn't speak. He'd answered their questions already.

His mother's face changed when they got in the car to go home. Her tears dried up and she tapped her manicured fingers on the wheel. "I'm not happy with you, Ciaran," she said flatly.

Cary watched the road trailing behind them in the side mirror. Cutting had left him as numb and distant as one of the passers-by on the sidewalk, and he cared about as much as they did about what happened in this glass-and-metal box on the road back to his father's house.

"We were happy," Beverly said. "When Liam was born ... your father had never been more happy. But you couldn't be glad. I think you hate the baby. I think this all started when Liam was born."

He made a small noise of disbelief, turning to look at her.

The line of her profile was sharp as a knife. "There are places I can send you, Ciaran. Boarding schools for children who can't be troubled to fit, like you. I will not let anything happen to Liam. If I have to, I'll choose him over you."

He didn't remember everything. But some things remained with him with a clarity that cut him to the bone: memories of being a child, when she had put her arms around him and stroked his hair to go to sleep. His voice was tight. "I would choose him too. Over me."

Her eyebrows arched in surprise. "He speaks."

He curled his shoulders, pressing his thumb over the cuts under the gauze wrapping his arm. She wanted to change the story, but this one mattered to him too much. "You should know that already. He beat the shit out of me because I wouldn't give Liam to him. I had a bruise right on my face." He looked for some flicker of recognition in her expression.

She frowned. "You were in a fight. You got that bruise in a fight at school."

"No—mom." It was hard to breathe. The land masses of his memory shifted, sliding alongside each other like continents, and he didn't know where to put his weight anymore, and when he might drop into some terrifying pocket where the abuse was so vivid he looked for the marks on his skin afterward. He pressed the heel of his hand over the cuts, hard enough to hurt—just enough hurt to keep him here. "There was no school that day. We were together all day. I didn't have a bruise. Remember? We went out to get an old movie."

She bumped over the curb and pulled into their open garage. It seemed as if there was a shadow of his father's car beside them in the garage still, dark and silent.

Cary's voice flattened out. "When we got back, he was home. He hit you." He brushed the back of his hand over his cheek. She didn't move, staring forward with her hand on the key. "You wanted to go to church the next morning. Good Friday. You left Liam with me. You put makeup on the bruise on your face, and you went out. That's when it happened." He braced his feet against the floor of the car and dug his hand against the cuts. The pain was barely enough.

"He found me when I was making Liam a bottle in the kitchen. He hit me. Because I wouldn't give Liam to him when he was like that. I had Liam in my arms, and he picked up a stool, and he hit me with that. He was so ..." He caught his breath. "Fuck." He fisted the tears out of his eyes, angry with himself for crying. "I went to the shelter with a bruise on my face and broken ribs. We told them that story, that I was in a fight at school. But that's not what happened. You know it's not."