{Jon}

Jon rode the bus to Cary's house in silence. Cary swayed with the turns, leaning on his knees. Watching buildings pass, Jon felt as if grief had stretched him as tight and thin as a guitar string. The bus turned into a residential subdivision and strip malls gave way to houses, each one bigger than the last. Cary reached across to pull the cord. Startled, Jon got up and followed him off the bus. The house in front of them was set back on its own loop of road. Behind the gated drive, huge elms shaded the house's face.

"You live here?" Jon couldn't help asking.

Cary punched the gate code into the security box on the wall. He gave the house a look, with no appreciation in his face. "Yuh."

Jon trailed up the drive behind Cary's shoulder, staying close to the hedge as if he might need to leap in for cover at a moment's notice. Cary didn't use the double front doors with the steps marching half-way up the house. Instead, he led Jon around to a sheltered side entrance, took a key out of his jacket pocket and let them into what appeared to be a boot room. Utility shelves lined the walls, and hooks held out-of-season coats and hats.

Cary stood still a moment, listening, before peeling his jacket off. He balled it up small, stashing it inside the shoe bench under the coat hooks. He looked at Jon, who was still standing in the doorway.

"You can come in."

Jon stepped inside and followed Cary down the hall. He couldn't help staring. Cary's house was nothing like what he had expected. The walls went up and up, gleaming white and hung with real paintings, not prints: blocks and lines of color in dark, massive frames. At the end of the hallway, suspended above the tile floor was an enormous glass sculpture, throwing shards of light against the high walls and sweeping staircase. Glancing into the rooms that opened off the hallway, Jon saw the strong shapes of modern furniture and more glass on display. Everything was as immaculate as a show home.

A well-dressed woman tapped down the hall towards them. Her blond hair was swept back from her face, emphasizing her astonishing cheekbones and large gray eyes.

"Ciaran, you're home." She smiled and put her arms around him.

Cary held still for her embrace, his hands closed at his sides. She pulled back, her nose wrinkling. "You reek of cigarettes."

"I'll change," Cary said. Her eyes went over his shoulder to find Jon. "Mom, I asked a friend over to work on some homework."

She spared Jon a smile, getting her coat from the hall closet. "Your father will be home in an hour. I'm stepping out for a few minutes."

"Liam?" Cary said.

"He's sleeping."

Cary nodded.

"Nice to meet you, Jon." She swept out the door. The thump of it closing made the chandelier above them shiver and scatter light over their faces.

"My room is upstairs," Cary said.

Cary was stiff and slow going up the stairs. Jon opened his mouth to ask if he was okay, then shut it again, looking away. He was sure Cary didn't often have friends over after school. Never on a day like this. So what was he doing here?

He talked to make the whole thing seem normal, but what came out of his mouth was mostly nonsense. "So are your parents artists or millionaires or what? This place is amazing."

Cary said, "Grandpa Douglas' money." He put a hand on a door, swinging it open. "This is my brother's room."

Jon saw the edge of a crib, curtains with giraffes in blue bow ties. He felt Cary watching him as he leaned around the door. Cary's brother was curled in his crib, asleep with one fist clenched against his cheek. His blue cap had slipped over his eyes so only his parted lips were visible.

"He's okay?" Jon asked.

"Yup." Cary's face was fierce.

Jon followed Cary down the hall. Cary's bedroom was as big as everything else in the house, but it seemed empty: a neatly made up bed sat against one wall, and a desk stood beside the door. Jon could see the stripes where the vacuum cleaner had crossed back and forth over the rug. There were no posters or pictures, just a flatscreen TV mounted across from the bed. There was a laptop folded on the desk, an MP3 player in a cradle with speakers on the nightstand and a handheld DVD player on a shelf above the desk. To Jon's inexperienced eye, everything looked expensive and brand new.

"That's a lot of gear," he said.

"My mom buys me that stuff." Cary leaned a hand on his desk and pulled open the drawer. "This is for us." He passed Jon a roll of drawings and straightened with effort.

Jon slid the drawings out and spread them on the floor. They were pattern pieces for the walls and roof of their house, on heavyweight paper and to scale. "Jeez Cary, you've done everything." He leafed through the drawings, taking in the detail around the windows, and the bricks drawn onto the outer walls.

"We still need to assemble them." Cary was at the sink in the bathroom adjoining his room. He shook a couple pills into his palm, then ducked his head to drink from his hands and wash his face.

"That'll take no time at all," Jon said.

Cary closed the door most of the way to change behind it. "You did all the work on the drafts," he said. "It's fair."

"Like hell it is," Jon said, glancing up. He lost his breath. He could see Cary's back in the mirror. His skin was solid bruises, moving with his shoulders as he pulled a shirt over his head.

Jon nailed his eyeballs to the drawings on the floor. He lifted one sheet of paper, then another.

Cary came out in a clean sweater, his dark hair pulled back from his pale face. He was frowning, but his mouth looked like it might smile. "What do you want me to do—tear them up and start again? They're done. Enjoy your free ride."

Jon's laugh was strangled. "Yeah right."

They both became aware of the sound of a baby crying at the same time.

"Just a sec." Cary disappeared out the door.

Jon sat back on his heels, covering his eyes. He really wanted to get out of this house. He heard Cary speaking in a soft voice he had never heard him use before: "I'm here, don't cry. Ready to wake up? "

The thing Jon had taken for a walkie-talkie on top of the desk was a baby monitor. Jon got up and snapped it off, embarrassed to be eavesdropping on Cary.

Cary returned a few minutes later with his brother in his arms and a bottle in one hand. He settled on his bed, cradling Liam to feed him. Liam had a shock of black hair standing up on his head like a blackbird wing. His blue eyes were focused on Cary's face as he sucked intently.

"So this is your brother."

Cary nodded.

Jon couldn't keep his mouth from running. "Thirteen years—that's a big gap. There's seven years between me and Tabby but... there was supposed to be another baby in-between us."

"Was there?" Cary glanced at him from the corner of his eye.

"No." Jon shifted. "Not after my brother got sick." He didn't know why he was talking about this.

Cary frowned. "I'm sorry."

"I don't remember him." Which was easier than the truth. He could never forget the hole where Judah was supposed to be.

He watched Cary settle Liam on his shoulder to pat his back after the bottle was done. He'd never seen Cary look so... human. All the regular stuff was in his face: first he looked tired and worried, and then with his cheek against Liam's, he looked almost happy.

Cary looked at Jon with that open face. "Do you want to hold him?"

What else could he do? Jon took the baby carefully, one hand cupping Liam's head like he remembered from when Bea was born. The guitar string in his chest tightened, ringing wordlessly. He watched Liam fight his drooping eyelids and knew that if he were Cary, he would do anything—anything—for his baby brother to fall asleep like this, safe.

A door slammed shut on the main floor. Cary pivoted toward the sound as if he could see through walls.

"Your mom?" Jon asked.

There were footsteps treading up the stairs. A man's deep voice called, "Beverly?"

Jon's arms tightened around the baby. Liam squirmed and chirped in protest.

Cary put out his hands, snapping his fingers. "Give him to me."

Jon handed Liam over, sweating all over his body. Cary glared at him. "Smile Jon," he said.

The door swung open, and Conall Douglas stepped into the room. He seemed bigger in this enclosed space than he had in the school hallway. He swept a look around and frowned. "Where is your mother?"

Cary held out the baby. "She had an appointment, father."

Conall took Liam out of his arms and his eyes raked over Cary's face like a searchlight. "You should not be left alone with him."

The hairs on Jon's neck stood up. Cary turned, his face blank as stone. "Father, this is Jon White. We have a school project together."

Jon's face ached he was smiling so hard. "Hello, Mr. Douglas." He put out his hand without thinking, conditioned by hundreds of mornings in his father's church. Cary's father tucked Liam into the crook of one arm to give Jon's hand a firm shake. The corner of his mouth twisted with amusement.

"Jon, I believe I met your father at the school the other day."

"Oh?" Jon couldn't keep worry out of his voice.

"He was quite eloquent in the defence of my boy." Conall's mouth was still twisted, and Jon couldn't tell what it meant. "I'm grateful Ciaran has friends who can be a good influence on him."

Conall frowned back at Cary. "Tell me about your project." When Cary said nothing, Conall swung his gaze back to Jon.

Jon felt like he was pinned in the headlights of an oncoming car. "It's for drafting class. We're building a model for drafting class."

Mr. Douglas' eyebrows lifted. "Interesting. And how do you find working with someone who is nearly incapable of speech? Or is that not a requirement of drafting class?"

Jon thought it was supposed to be a joke, at Cary's expense. He made himself smile back at Cary's father, his fists stuffed into his jeans pockets. "I guess I wouldn't know about that, sir. I picked Cary as my partner because he's the best in our class."

Conall laughed. "Shrewd boy. Are you joining us for supper, Jon?"

"No, thank you, sir." Jon did not look at Cary. This massive house was the last place on earth he wanted to be right now. "We were just finishing up."

"I need you downstairs in fifteen." Conall said to Cary, and left carrying Liam asleep against his chest.

When the door shut, Cary knelt carefully and rolled up the drawings on the floor. He stuck them in a cardboard tube and capped it, handing it over to Jon. There was nothing in his face.

"Are you in trouble because I was here?" Jon asked, low.

Cary shook his head. "You were good. He likes you."

"He doesn't like you?"

Cary lifted his shoulders.

Jon yanked the backpack zipper closed around the tube of drawings. "I'm sorry." It was a totally inadequate thing to say. "Care—Cary—if there's anything I can do..."

Cary turned away. His voice was dry and soft: "Keep your mouth shut."

Jon shut his mouth and nodded. He turned to go. "He's beautiful." He looked back at Cary. "Your brother."

Cary met his eyes. His silence said everything.

*So a question I'm often asked is... where did this story come from? Are Cary and Jon based on real people?

The less personal answer I often give is: I've worked with a lot of teenagers over the years and Jon and Cary are full of bits of their stories: from kids struggling in church settings, to kids in homeless shelters and group homes. Some of those kids are my first readers, and they tell me how Cary or Jon would been feeling right now, how they would respond, after I read them a fresh chapter.

The real personal answer  is: when I was 15 my best friend came out to me about the abuse she experienced in her mom's house. She was a cutter before cutting was a thing. It kinda broke me - I'm a lot like Jon White in this story: I was always safe and loved in my home growing up. I wrestled for years with the realization that everyone doesn't get to have what I took for granted.

There's a prayer Pete and Mel pray for their kids, for God to spread his tent of peace and love over them, and that's the prayer I've prayed for my kids for years. I feel like the work of my life is to keep the sides of my family tent open for anyone to come in and find love and safety who maybe didn't get that in their birth family.

And I tell these stories for readers to feel like they're home whenever they turn the page and find themselves at the dinner table with the Whites. In so many ways, we make the family we're going to journey with into adulthood - we gather to ourselves the good friends and parents we need along the way, some of them in fiction and some of them online, and some of them if we're lucky in our schools and neighbourhoods.

Praying for peace and love to shelter you today, lovelies. *

2344 words.