Soundtrack: 'Saints out of sailors' - Flannelgraph

{Cary}

Tru was banging around in the kitchen as Cary packed his things and tidied the room. He remade the guest bed neat and tight, and when he turned in the door to look back, the room looked just as it had when he'd come. He ducked his head. He wasn't taking anything for granted—Tru didn't owe him anything. It wasn't free to put a roof over his head and food in front of him. If she changed her mind about him coming back...well, everything he'd experienced before warned him not to be surprised.

Tru's look was fierce when he came out with his backpack slung over his shoulder. "Coffee, sweetheart?" she asked gruffly.

He shook his head. His stomach was already knotted with anxiety, and adrenaline had him buzzing and alert. Twenty-five hours until he appeared in court and faced down his father.

She nodded, thumping the blackened pot off the burner. "Got something for you." She pulled a faded shoebox off the top of the fridge, tugging the elastic off to lift the lid. She rummaged inside it, carefully lifting layers of photos and yellowed letters while muttering to herself. "Here." She drew something from deep in the box and held it out to him.

Cary took the glossy paper in his fingers as carefully as if it might dissolve on contact. There was a dark-eyed baby with ringlets and chubby wrists, laughing at the person behind the camera. He caught his breath. "This is Renae." He had no pictures of his sister, no memory of her features. It had never occurred to him that photos of her might still exist.

She eyed him. "Th'other is you."

The boy in the photo was all knees and elbows, smiling anxiously while he held onto the baby trying to climb out of his lap.

"Your momma musta' took that before I come. I never met the child."

He raised his eyes to her, speechless.

"Keep that," she said, her bushy eyebrows lowering. "Means more to you than it does to me. I got my treasures." She handled the shoebox gently as she secured the elastic back around it and tucked it back up on the fridge.

He ducked his head, afraid his burning eyes might give him away, drawing out his wallet and folding Renae with the picture of Liam he kept there. He stroked his thumb over his brother's face. He could do this. Even if he never saw his brother again, speaking up in this trial was the best thing he could do for him. Liam was going to have the good life he deserved.

"I ain't coming," Tru said flatly. "I hope you know it's not 'cause I don't care for you. They're dead to me, is all. That's just how it is."

Cary nodded, avoiding her face, but taking in the spare kitchen with the sun coming through the south window. She'd made her safe place and her peace as best as she could. He hoped he could do the same.

She nodded shortly and stumped out of the house without a hug or a backward glance, but he thought her haste had as much to do with her unwillingness to shed a tear in front of him as anything. The feeling was mutual.

His phone rang just as he slammed the trunk of his car. He picked it up, expecting from the caller ID to hear Jon's voice. "'Lo."

It was Mel. "Cary, is that you? I thought you might be travelling today and I wanted to hear from you. Do you need a place to stay?"

Her warm interest scattered his thoughts, and he stood still, eyes on the trees, wrapping his arm against his chest. "No." It sounded short and he didn't mean to hurt her. He had no idea what Pete would have told her—maybe nothing. "I'm staying the night at the shelter. In court tomorrow, then back here when it's over." He wasn't explaining or making excuses to cover for Pete—that wasn't his job anymore.

There was the briefest of silences. "Do you have what you need to wear tomorrow? You left that good sweater behind, and the button-down shirt with cuffs."

"They're Pete's," he said, his voice roughening. And he was pretty sure the shirt was wrecked after he'd sweated and bled and crawled under a car in the church parking lot wearing it. He hadn't given any thought to what he would wear to court, and he definitely didn't have the money to buy something suitable. The cost of gas for the trip alone was going to clean him out. "I'll find something."

"I'll just press the shirt and bring them to you," she said, like this was the most natural thing in the world for her to do for him. "What time do you think you'll arrive?"

He lifted his shoulders, feeling a weight lifting off with the knowledge that she was taking care of this for him. "I'm leaving now. Couple of stops. Six hours?"

Her voice softened. "I'm looking forward to seeing you. Drive safe, Cary."

His fingers were cold as he thumbed the end of the call and rubbed his knuckles into his chest. He hadn't expected to hear from Mel again at all—not after Pete had pulled out of the yard, his face so tight with rage that he couldn't look at Cary. The sound of her voice had shaken him more than he'd expected, ringing him with desire he couldn't allow himself to put into words. He had to move on like it was over.

His stomach was electric with anxiety by the time he passed the outskirts of the city. He didn't go directly to the shelter; instead he turned south on the freeway, the pulsing traffic carrying him into his old neighbourhood. He slowed in front of the house, his chest squeezing tightly, and then pulled over to park and get out.

There was a "For Sale" sign on the groomed green lawn, just like the photo from the real estate listing. The windows of the second story were dark and blank—but he needed to be sure. He found the gap in the six-foot hedge and shoved through it, branches tearing his face and clothing. He kept his hood up as he hurried to the foot of the massive tree that lifted its elegant branches above the roof of the house.

Jumping, he caught the first branch with ease, taller now than he'd been the last time he'd taken this route. He wove his way through the highway of limbs, some still scuffed and scarred by the passage of his boots; leaves shook and dropped under the weight of his passage. The distance between the last branch and the roof wasn't as great as he remembered, and he made the jump easily, catching himself with his hands spread on the rough shingles, then scrambling up the incline.

He cupped his hands around his face to look in his window. The room was empty—even more empty than it had been when he'd lived there. He swallowed. Of course it would be; he'd been gone for almost half a year. Ducking low, he edged along the roof to the next window. He knelt to look in Liam's room, the glass cool against his forehead.

It was also empty. He craned his neck to look in the corners where the crib had been with the coordinated change table and dresser. The walls were bare, the carpet striped with the recent pass of a vacuum cleaner. Cary's breath fogged the glass as he considered, for one wild moment, breaking the pane and dropping inside to tear through the whole house and see every empty room he'd bled and suffered in.

Turning away and dropping onto the sill, he looked blankly down the incline to the smooth lawn below. His fists clenched, and he jerked his elbows back against the glass, the hollow boom-boom sounding like the laboured beat of his own heart. Numbly, he let his boots skid to the edge of the roof and over, just catching his fall with a jerk against his shoulders as his hands gripped the lip of the rain gutter. His legs swung in the empty air, and then he opened his fingers and dropped. The last time he'd made such a hasty retreat he'd broken his leg—but he didn't give a damn just now any more than he had then.

His feet sank and slipped in the dirt of the flowerbed and he rolled out and picked himself up, unharmed. He jogged over the lawn, shoved through the hedge and threw himself back into his car before the home security system could bring the cops down on him.

He drove blindly through residential streets, blowing stop signs and school zones before he realized he was a danger to everyone on the road. He pulled over and parked jerkily. His body was heaving like he was in the ocean getting slammed by breakers. He covered his face with his hands, tasting salt on his lips. She was really gone. If he knew his mother, he might never see her or his brother again.

He dragged his sleeve over his face, drawing a breath right to the bottom of his aching chest, and then another. The whole night sky swung around the North Star, but Beverly had never been the bright point he could find his way by. She was like a hail of space dust, sparking bright across his vision and then gone. Maybe there wasn't anything other than himself that he could count on now.

When he finally pulled up to the yellow-brick emergency shelter, Cary was hollow and numb. It was just suppertime, but he was ready to roll into a bunk—if he could settle his stomach enough to sleep. He pulled himself out of the car and limped to the main door, finding that adrenaline had concealed from him that he had turned his ankle when he had fallen off the roof.

The entrance was small and dark, cluttered with chairs, and he didn't immediately see the person bowed in one of them until they said his name. "Cary."

Cary shied back, gripping the door handle behind him. Rigid and trembling, he watched Pete sideways as the other man unfolded from the chair.

"Mel sent you these." Pete's voice was soft. He held a folded dress shirt and sweater between his hands. "She wonders if you need a pair of dress pants? And if you might reconsider and stay the night with us." The last words ran together with the rest, and Pete's mouth was crooked as he held his eyes.

Cary's head jerked, his nostrils flaring. The room felt small and cramped with Pete standing there and his own wide shoulders filling the doorway. He kept his fingers clenched around the door handle to keep himself from making trouble here. "Does she know why I won't?"

At that, Pete closed his eyes. "Please...please let me apologize." As Cary's eyes adjusted to the light, he could see the deep lines of exhaustion in Pete's expression. "You weren't wrong to try to speak up for Jon." The other man took a breath, his lips trembling. "I know that now. I was wrong to dismiss you. I never, never should have laid hands on you in anger. I can't tell you how that moment has haunted me—" Pete's voice cracked and he brushed his hand over the side of his face, looking aside.

Cary went still, watching him. His body was vibrating with tension, telling him to stay small or get the hell out, like it had hundreds of times before with his own father in the room.

Carefully, Pete laid the clothes on a chair like an offering. "I am sorry. I came because you deserved to hear me say that to your face." His voice was low and unsteady. "If you're ever—in need of anything, I hope you know you can call us."

He could not in any way process Pete White standing in the shelter entryway, saying sorry to him. Cary edged to the side so he could get out the door. He popped the bar and held it open for Pete to leave, without looking at him.

There was a moment of silence, then the rustle of Pete's jacket as he zipped it and moved to the door. He stopped in the slice of daylight, half-turning his bearded face to Cary. "Please tell me you heard me, Cary. I want you to have this apology: from the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry."

The sunlight made his eyes smart. "I heard you," he said roughly. "You never broke nothing. It's fine."

Pete's face rippled with something like despair. "I broke your trust. Maybe that didn't matter to you—maybe I don't matter to you—but you matter, very much, to me."

Cary could barely look at him from the corner of his eye. Pete's bearded chin lifted, his face washed in light. The other man nodded, recognizing the conversation was over. "Always will."

The door sighed shut behind him.

Cary sagged against the wall, scrubbing his hands over his face. His body prickled like a dead limb coming back to life. He gathered the pile of clothing automatically, holding it against his chest and knocking once on the door to the shelter office.

A woman's voice said, "Come in," and when he did, she swivelled in her desk chair and smiled, her eyebrows raising in a question. "Are you here for an intake?"

He nodded, easing into a worn padded chair across from her. The smell of turkey fat and disinfectant mingled in the air, and he put his eyes on the concrete rec room on the other side of the window. Empty—the other residents would be scraping up to the long tables in the dining hall for whatever meal the turkey smell was about. "Ciaran Douglas." The old name came out flat, and she tapped through her screen a few moments before he added, "Cary."

"Oh." She turned back to him, genuine warmth in her smile like they knew each other—like anyone here would have a reason to smile like that at him. "Did your dad find you?"

He stared back at her, frozen.

"He was just here, waiting. He's been waiting for hours."

He ducked his head. She meant Pete. "That's not my dad." The words were more broken than he thought they would be. Faintly he caught a whiff of clean laundry smell, and he drew the bundle of clothes closer to his face, almost not daring to breathe more of that in. Always will.

She turned back to the screen, pushing up her glasses. "Oh, sorry, I was just going by what he said. You know, we don't see many parents come looking for their kids. It seemed like he really missed you." She glanced back, narrowing her eyes as she noted the trace of the bruise above his eye. "Of course, I could be wrong. If there's a reason you don't want to go back, there's a bed for you here."

Cary closed his eyes, taking a deep gulp of air. What did Pete's "sorry" mean, anyway? He replayed their conversation. Not "Nothing happened—it's fine." Not "It's your fault—you did this." Not "It doesn't matter—your hurt and fear aren't important." He'd counted on Pete to be steady, and Pete had let him down. But this "sorry" meant Pete was being as honest about that failure as Cary had always believed he was.

Pete wasn't perfect. Cary couldn't trust him to be perfect—and they both knew it. Maybe he could adjust for that. Maybe that was enough to still find his way.

Cary dug his boots into the floor. "Maybe I'll just...go look for him."

Her smile was back. "Sure. We're here if you need us."

Cary got to his feet, hugging Pete's church clothes to his chest, and left.