{Cary}

Cary borrowed a dress shirt and a dark sweater from Pete and brushed his hair back from his face the way his mom liked. He had nicked himself shaving and leaned over the sink, pressing his fingers to the cut under the corner of his jaw. He could feel his heart racing along under his fingertips and his face was white under its tan in the mirror. He reviewed all the things she had said on Sunday, trying to guess how this was going to go.

He tried not to hope. He tried not to imagine her smiling at him. He steeled himself for her to be stiff and cold, taking him for a token birthday dinner to appease her sense of what a mother should do.

He hung onto the sink and shut his eyes, trying to pray. He didn't have words for how frightening it was to feel hopeful like this, so he just stood there trying to send that to Jesus and breathe in some kind of peace from the steamy bathroom air.

Pete dropped him off at the restaurant on the way to a meeting. "You all right?" he asked, lifting his eyebrows in concern.

Cary nodded, his hands sweating.

"You're sure she can drop you back home? My meeting isn't done until 9."

Cary nodded again. "See you tonight," he said in a dry voice.

She was late. He couldn't sit still at the table, so he was pacing with his hands stuffed in his pockets when the patio door opened. Beverly was in a light summer dress, and he didn't think it was his imagination that her face lit up to see him. She crossed the patio, standing on tiptoe to kiss both his cheeks. "Happy birthday, Cary."

The smell of her perfume filled his nose and he blinked, his eyes stinging. "Thanks, Mom," he whispered.

Her eyes kept glancing at him over her menu, and he tried to smile. "How's Liam?"

"Growing every day," she said lightly. "Just as he should be."

The reminder stung. He had missed so much—and he was going to keep missing so much of his brother's life.

"What will you order?" she asked.

Cary opened his menu and tried to make sense of the items on the page. "The usual, I guess."

"Not the half order, I guess," Beverly said.

Cary closed his menu. She'd missed some things too. "No."

"Were you working today?"

He nodded, and she cupped her chin in her hand, looking openly at him. "Tell me about what you do."

"It's pretty boring. Just—putting shingles on people's roofs."

"Like the work you did with—Mr. White. Framing." There was the barest hitch when she said his name.

Cary ducked his head. "Yes. That's how I got the job—someone in his church needed a guy and Pete—Mr. White—told him I would be good."

She was still smiling at him, lifting her eyebrows. "And you were."

His ears got hot. There were years of history behind them when he had been anything but good. "Working on it."

There was a gap in conversation and he fished for safe questions he could ask. "And you? Is work going good for you?"

"It is. I can focus on my clients in a way—I wasn't free to before." He met her eyes and saw the person he had always hoped was in there, a woman who knew exactly what was going on, even if she would say nothing about it. "Since Phillippa came to help," she finished.

The waitress came to take their order and saved them from further conversation.

When she was gone, Beverly said lightly, "I think I'm going back to school." She glanced sideways at him, taking a sip of her glass of wine.

Cary's eyebrows lifted. His father had always been the one studying. "What will you take?"

"Psychology." She hesitated. "I'm interested in counselling."

He paused, his water glass halfway to his mouth, not sure he'd heard that right. She could only touch his eyes for a second, folding and unfolding her fingers on the tablecloth. "I've been seeing someone. A counsellor. And that is really helping. Even though it's as pleasant as going to the dentist some weeks."

Hope lurched in his chest and he looked aside, gulping his water to wet his dry mouth.

"Do you see someone?" she asked.

He set his glass down with unsteady hands. "Yes. Someone from the school. She makes me draw stuff and talk about it."

She searched his face and he found himself holding still. There was a lot behind them and having her sitting there across from him was stirring up memories he'd kept at a distance for months. She was warm and smiling tonight—more like a real person than he'd ever known her to be. He couldn't forget how quickly a cold front could move in and freeze him out.

Her smile was a little shaky. "I hope we can move on."

He ducked his head. Were they just going to leave it behind without talking about it? Was that how they moved on?

"I brought you a birthday present." She pulled out a small box, topped with a sparkly bow, and pushed it across the table.

Something clinked inside it when he picked it up. He lifted the lid: a pair of identical keys lay on a bed of tissue paper. He looked up, frowning at her.

She was clasping her hands in front of her chest while she watched his expression. "It's second-hand—I hope you don't mind. I parked it in front of... your home. The White's."

The keys were stamped with an 'H.' "You got me a car?" He said stupidly.

She laughed a little at his shock. "Isn't that what every teenage boy wants for his sixteenth birthday?"

He was momentarily speechless, trying to picture the car that went with these keys. "Thank you," he said a little breathlessly.

"There's another key I want to give you." She dropped her eyes, a flicker of anxiety in her face. "If you're willing." She drew it out and set it on the table with a muffled 'click.' This key was plain brass, flat, no logo. He didn't recognize it. Her wide grey eyes met his, searching his face. "I want our family back. Together."

Cary's stomach dropped and he withdrew his fingers from the box on the table, and the house key lying beside it. They'd had this conversation before, on this exact patio. It was possible she didn't choose to remember.

"I want you to come home." She firmed her chin. "Maybe... just for a weekend at first. It's taken me some time, but I know now. You are—you are my son. You and Liam are my family. My only family now."

Cary sat frozen, eyes on her face, looking for the trick. "What about him?" Neither of them needed to say his name.

She gave her head a small shake, moving a strand of hair out of her eyes to tuck behind her ear. "Just us."

His breath slowly squeezed out of him. He had wanted to hear this for so long. He was about to say 'yes' when she spoke again, softly.

"No trial."

His shoulders found his ears and he bit the inside of his mouth. Of course there were conditions.

"Please just—let it go. I'm asking—" Her eyes pleaded with him. "Settle this out of court. Then he's out of our life. We move on. Please." She took a breath and moved the house key across the table cloth, next to his water glass.

He gripped his fingers together under the table. "I can't." His voice cracked at the end. "I can't stop the trial."

She reached across the table towards him. "Please Ciar-Cary. I can't face it. It's the only thing I'll ask and I'll give you anything—whatever you need."

He was shaking his head blindly.

"Are you really so angry at your father that you want this?" Her voice snapped with some of its old chill. "A trial will ruin him—can't you just let him go? Isn't that what a minister like Pete would say, to forgive? We will never see him again, I promise you." She set her hand on her chest, like she was making a vow.

Cary's breathing was jerky and he held his hands up like she had a gun pointed at his chest. "It's not up to me. The police have pictures now—of all the scars and... bruises from the last time and... it's a crime." His voice crackled like glass. "To do that. To a minor. Even if I say—I'm fine now, I don't care—they're still going to take him to court. I can't—I can't stop it. I've tried." Tears dropped hot from his eyes and he said the words for the hundredth time. "I'm sorry."

She got abruptly to her feet and he tipped his head back to look at her, tears sliding down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry," she said shortly. "Doesn't really cover it, does it?"

He flinched his face away from her, looking down at the keys lying on the gleaming white table cloth.

"Well. I'm sorry I brought it up and spoiled our dinner." She scooped up the house key and dropped it into her purse without looking at him. "I should have known what you would say." 

She snapped open her pocketbook with shaking fingers and dropped a hundred dollar bill on the table. "I would like to stay." Her voice was thin. "But recently I have been finding social settings difficult. You would call it...being triggered." She closed her eyes for a moment; he could feel the rise of her panic just watching her try to breathe. He got clumsily to his feet, wishing he could put his arms around her and make that better. She stepped back and turned away. "Goodbye, Ciaran. Please let me know if you reconsider."

He watched her go, all the colour of the patio and the setting sun draining away until he was left, numb, in a world of grey. The waitress arrived, her arms laden with plates of food, and she glanced around the patio. "Did your mother go to the washroom?"

His tears were gone—he was dry as a stone. Cary hid his face, giving the answer she expected. "Yes."

She set the steaming plates of food on the empty table and left him alone on the patio with a chipper, "Happy Birthday! Enjoy your meal!"

{Kadee}

She was surprised how much better she felt after talking with Cary. His non-response made the situation feel smaller, like a bundle of pixels on a social media site wasn't really a big deal. It would blow over. She managed to have a normal dinner hour with her parents and was cleaning out her closet for a complete re-org when her phone bleeped.

<can u pick me up>

Kadee blinked at the contact name—Cary had actually texted her. That was a first. <yes where?>

He sent her an address and she put it into her map app. <there in 15> She stuck her phone in her pocket and pulled her hair out of the messy pony she'd been wearing on top of her head, finger-combing it to frame her face out of habit, as if he hadn't already seen her a mess today.

Her GPS took her to a little Italian restaurant in old downtown, a classy place at one time, now the brick was crumbling and the awning was faded. Cary wasn't in front; he was in the alley beside the restaurant leaning against the cinderblock wall. The sleeves of his white dress shirt were rolled sloppily up his arms—the cuffs winged open at his elbows and his sweater bunched up around his upper arms. When she tapped the horn he glared at her car, then hid his face, flicking a cigarette to die in the puddle in the rutted alley.

He dropped into her passenger seat, bringing the heavy smell of garlic and cigarettes with him. She wrinkled her nose and left his window open. She couldn't figure out why he needed a ride in the first place. "What happened with your mom? She didn't show?"

"She showed. She left."

She glanced at him—his face was still and colorless as marble, set straight ahead. She pulled away from the curb, feeling the chill rolling off him like she'd cranked the A/C.

"So I guess it... didn't go well then?" she asked tentatively.

He shrugged, flicking his hand like he was shaking off a biting fly. "Should have known it wouldn't. Fucking stupid of me to hope." The last word squeezed and he drove his shoulders back against the seat, digging his heels into the floor of the car.

Kadee exhaled. "Oh. I'm sorry."

"Pretty sure they both wish I was dead," he said flatly. "Instead of opening my mouth like I am."

Kadee bit the inside of her cheek, tasting the sting of that. God, who did Cary even have any more?

All the tension wound up in his stillness suddenly exploded and he attacked her dashboard with his hands and knees and fists, swearing like machine-gun fire. Her glove compartment burst open and Kadee startled, the hair on her neck lifting, swerving into the closest parking lot along the busy thoroughfare. She was afraid to drive with him going off like a bomb next to her.

Cary's face was red and his voice filled the whole car. "Like I fucking want this! Like I want to get up there and open my mouth on all the ugly shit he did! I would take it all back if I could eat every word—all I wanted was for him to stop. Hurting. Us!"

He curled until his face thumped against the dashboard, his ribs heaving in and out. Kadee drew a breath, her fingers over her mouth, her ears still ringing. For a second he had seemed ten-feet tall and terrifying, and then the illusion was gone and he was just ordinary, crumpled and broken.

"Fuck." His voice rasped soft as tearing paper. "I wish he had—killed me down there. He could be tried for murder and I could be. Done. With all. This. Shit." The words dropped heavy as stones.

Kadee swallowed on her tight throat. The side of his face was white as marble now, his lashes quivering against his cheek. She touched the cuff of his shirt winging white against his dark sweater, then set her hand lightly on his back, afraid this was the wrong thing to do. He was solid and warm under his sweater and she didn't want to imagine him cold and dead. "Don't say that, Cary." Her voice was small.

He took a harsh breath, hiding his face with his arms and clasping his hands over the back of his head. He started to cry with deep, hoarse sobs and her stomach dropped. She realized his voice, his everyday voice, sounded like it had been used for screaming so long that it had frayed and broke. She was afraid that Cary was falling apart in her car and she was too incompetent a friend to know what to do to make it better. All she could think of were the things she was good at doing with boys—as if making out with him while he was wrecked like this wasn't just going to mess with him more.

For the first time in months, she prayed. What do I do? God, what do I do to help?

Nothing came to her and she just sat there, kneading her thumb into the muscle under his shoulder blade while he wrestled his tears under control again. When he straightened, drying his face with the sleeve of his shirt, she attempted to close her glove compartment. He silently retrieved the take-out napkins and insurance papers from the floor and their fingers brushed as he replaced them. She closed the latch gently, wishing she dared touch him again. Cary folded his hands into fists and put them under his arms, turning his face to the window.

"I'm taking you home," she said, as she put the car in gear and merged with the flow of traffic again. Her throat ached like she'd been crying too.

He rode in silence, his arms crossed over his chest like a shield.

When she pulled up in front of Jon White's house, he was already opening the door and getting out of the car before she'd put it in park. She caught his arm. "Wait—are you going to be okay tonight?" He pulled his arm free and got out, so she tumbled out her side and ran around the car to catch him. "Cary, wait."

He'd come to a stop on the sidewalk, looking at the car parked just in front of hers. The skin under his eyes was red and puffy, and his mouth was pressed in a thin, hard line. She put herself in front of him, hands on her hips. "Look, I need to know you're going to be okay tonight. That you're staying here. And... not hurting yourself."

He dropped his eyes to her face. "I'm staying here." He ducked his head so his last words were almost lost as he turned to go. "Thanks for getting me. See you tomorrow."