Lay Me Down

22. Raise the dead.

{Cary}

Cary woke up feeling so light that he could have floated up to bump against the ceiling of his tiny room. The smell of food cooking made his stomach rumble to life, and he was up and across the floor before he realized his head had lifted off his shoulders and was turning lazy somersaults in the air. A laugh bubbled up, and he steadied himself against the door for a second, catching his breath. When was the last time he'd eaten something and kept it down? When was the last time he'd felt like laughing?

His eyes fell on the piece of carpet where Jesus had opened him and cut out that thing—that part of himself he had hated and feared for as long as he could remember. Was that a stain on the carpet haloing the spot where he had bled out and died?

He touched his throat and held that picture in his mind so that if Jesus was looking at him right now, he would know Cary remembered. Life for a life.

He went down the hall to the kitchen, feeling with every step that he might bound forward like someone walking on the moon. The house seemed quiet with half the White family missing. He could hear the rumble of Pete's voice, and then Bea's lighter voice brimming with laughter. Cary hesitated in the hallway, shifting so he could see Pete's shoulder and the back of his head as he stood at the stove. The thing Pete knew about him now was open between them, as fresh and raw as a wound. Maybe what Split-lip had done had changed the kind of person Cary was from now on—please God, let that be true—but the guilt of Renae's death still belonged to him, and Pete knew it. Pete wouldn't have any reason to think Cary had changed. He couldn't see inside to know what Split-lip had done—if it had been real.

Cary's stomach growled and pulled him to the doorway.

Pete gave him a small smile over his shoulder. "Morning."

Cary kept his toes back from the line of kitchen linoleum. "Can I get something to eat?" he asked in a low voice.

"Daddy's making us pancakes," Bea said.

"Pull up a chair," Pete said. "Good news from the hospital—Mel and Jon are coming home in half an hour. Pancakes for everyone."

Pete's shoulders and arms were relaxed, and his face was happy. Cary's tension loosened a little, and he edged into the kitchen. "Just cereal. I'll—I'll get it."

Pete swept him with a look, his eyebrows lifted. "Sit at the table, son. Cereal won't fill the hole I see you have in your middle."

Cary met his eyes, heat rising in his face at the word son, which wasn't right for Pete to use on him. But Pete's gaze didn't waver, and he nudged his chin at an empty chair. It was not the kind of look Cary wanted to disobey. He sat across the table from Bea.

"Plans for the day?" Pete asked, turning two steaming pancakes onto a plate and setting it in front of him.

Cary shook his head, digging in. Whatever Pete decided—that was his plan for the day. He inhaled the first two pancakes, and there were two more on his plate when he was done. He slowed down to feel the fullness of his stomach and taste the way Pete's pancakes were fluffy and nutmeggy and perfect. He sighed, closing his eyes while he chewed. He had a lot of "thank yous" on the inside.

Bea was eating her pancake bare, holding it daintily in her fingers. "Did you have good dreams or bad dreams or no dreams, Cary?" she asked.

He darted a glance at Pete before answering. He was putting the eggs back in the fridge like he didn't think Cary needed watching with his little daughter right there across the table from him.

"No dreams," he said, since that was the safest answer he could give Bea. He was pretty sure she had been in his dreams. They had been running through the ravine, and he had been carrying her on his back, labouring up the long hill, trying to get out.

"That's my favourite," Bea said. "I like no dreams." She looked up over his head, her face creasing. "I had bad dreams. You were in them."

Cary felt Pete's eyes on the top of his head, and he wanted to hold still and say nothing until this was over. He smoothed his sweating hands over his knees. "Sorry, Bea, if I scared you last night." The words felt as slow as syrup.

She bit her lip, looking down. "I got scared you weren't okay, so I went to your room and saw you sleepin', and then I wasn't scared. Then I had a good sleep with no dreams."

Cary lifted his eyes to her face, struck by the picture of her standing beside his bed, stocky and small in her pyjamas. He could have knocked her across the room before knowing it was her.

"Honey Bee," Pete said slowly. "You shouldn't go into Cary's room at night. Sleeping time is private time."

"But Daddy, it was a really real dream. I was scared." She glanced at Cary, rubbing her hands over her arms. "I needed to see if he was okay."

Pete's forehead wrinkled, looking at her with the fist holding the spatula propped beside him on the counter. He didn't look at Cary at all, like he didn't know what to do with him there.

Cary put his eyes on the window, where the morning light was making the frame of the garage pink and gold. He heard Pete say, far away, Sweetheart, when you get scared in the night, just come to me or Mom.

He rubbed his fingertips over the ridges on his palms, looking inside himself for the part that had made him afraid to be near Bea before—the part of him that was dangerous. All he found was a soft feeling he didn't have a word for. He wasn't afraid of his hands anymore. He had used that hard, violent thing to protect himself for so long that it had almost mastered him—and now it was gone. Cary didn't know what that made him now, but he had a scary feeling that if it came down to him or Bea, he would roll over and let himself be crushed before he would harm her.

He got up from the table while they were still talking and went to put on his running shoes.