Disclaimer - the obvious. I don't own the Summerses or anything else you recognize. I just play merry hell with their lives.

Notes - (1) This is part of my ongoing 'Stars From Home' series. That said, it's chronologically first, so it should make sense even if you haven't read the other stories. (2) Where Scott and Alex grew up is... complicated... I'm not totally sure they would be in Alaska at this point. But they had to be somewhere. (3) Consider this an apology for all the short jokes. (You know who you are.)

Anchorage, Alaska – 1943

I.

Sadness has a way of creeping into a person, settling in muscle and bone—a bit like Ovaltine, really. Only it didn't need to be stirred. And was terrible. Sadness was more like what happened when Ovaltine wasn't stirred, the way it sank, slowly, and settled at the bottom of the glass.

Not that sadness and Ovaltine had much in common, but Scott was allowed to have Ovaltine at lunch and his brother wasn't. The kitchen table had a sort of solemnity to it. The boys had a very different relationship at lunch. There were no toys to fight over, which helped. There was more to it, though, maybe the same good behavior glue stuck between the seats of their pants and their chairs until a grown-up said they were excused.

Still thinking about Ovaltine, Scott picked up his glass carefully, using both hands to steady it. Alex didn't seem to understand that Scott was showing off how completely grown up he was and picked up his own plastic cup. Scott drank and so did Alex. Scott licked milk off his lip and Alex mimicked him.

Scott stuck out his tongue.

Alex stuck out his tongue.

"Boys," Katherine warned, but her tone held nothing but love and affection for her sons. She wasn't really telling them off. She was, however, preemptively stopping a rude noises competition. These things always turned into Alex trying to copy whatever rude noise Scott had learned to make.

"Ales' started it!"

Alex was three years old, so this wasn't a terribly convincing excuse. Oh, he could be a bundle of trouble, but why would any self-respecting almost-six-year-old go copying a three-year-old? But that didn't stop Scott trying the excuse from time to time.

Once, over a year ago, Scott said that and his brother gleefully echoed, "Ale' starreh i'! Ale'! Ale'!" He couldn't exactly say his own name, but he sure knew it. Neither of the boys could manage that word even now, which had led Alex to adapt the word and introduce himself as Aleps.

"Well, I'm ending it," Katherine retorted, unconcerned with who had started it.

Scott picked up his sandwich and watched Alex do the same. Alex didn't chew with his mouth closed, though—and he didn't have Ovaltine. Whenever their mother turned her back for a second, Scott stuck out his tongue. Alex didn't understand the "see? Food!" joke yet, but he appreciated gross stuff.

They didn't know how long they had been at it, mirroring each other bite for bite, until Katherine said, "Hurry up, Scotty. You don't want to go back to school hungry."

It wasn't a threat. If he didn't hurry up, he would run out of time. That was what happened when you dragged your feet. Rather than making him hurry, though, the reminder turned his mouthful of sandwich into cardboard. He chewed and chewed, unable to make himself swallow.

"Mommy ca'ni be excused," Alex didn't ask so much as state.

Katherine looked from him to Scott, who was still grinding away at that same mouthful of food. "Go ahead."

Alex didn't need to be told twice. He slid from his chair and ran as quickly as his little legs would carry him to the next room. A moment later, Katherine and Scott heard 'vroom, vroom' noises as Alex played with his cars.

Scott gulped his milk to try to help him swallow. It didn't work. Instead he coughed and spat onto his plate.

"I'm sorry, Mommy."

She took the plate away. He wasn't going to eat it. After years of changing and washing diapers, Katherine wasn't bothered—well-chewed food had nothing on wholly digested food.

"Mommy?"

"Yes?"

Scott toyed with the edge of the placemat. "My tummy hurts."

She knew what that really meant. His tummy was fine, except maybe for nervousness, but now that lunch was over he wanted to stay home. He didn't want to go back to school. Katherine regarded his bowed head and curled shoulders. Scott had changed so much in the past few weeks. She knew why, but there was nothing she could do to fix it.

"I think your brother would like to play outside," she remarked, "don't you think so?"

That meant an evening trying to rinse all the mud out of the boys' hair for Katherine, keeping Alex from squirming away by singing something soothing. They thrived on outdoors and messiness. Plus they would be out of the way, giving her plenty of time for other chores—and although he was only five, she trusted Scott to look out for his brother. He knew to stay in the yard and scream as loud as he could if anything went wrong.

Nothing went wrong. The boys came inside with a few new scrapes and bruises, sopping wet because they hadn't stopped playing just for a little rain.

In spite of the incident at lunchtime, the day had been pleasant. Alex was always delightful. Well, Alex was always a handful, but he was a cheery, giggling three-year-old and impossible not to love. Scott was far too serious and reluctant to let Katherine out of his sight, but still her favorite helper around the house. (There was little competition: Alex was more about making messes than cleaning them up.)

For a while, a very long while for two small boys, this had been their entire family. They were used to their father being home now, but used to him being away, too, so neither of them thought much of his arriving home late.

Katherine didn't think much of it, either, when she saw the grease on his fingers.

"How's your other wife?" she teased.

Chris never would have married Katherine, never would have fallen for her, if he didn't appreciate those jokes. "She's not as beautiful as you and gives me problems in spades, but I still love her."

"Hmm, that so."

"Then again, she'll always let me inside her."

"Christopher!" Katherine chided softly, with a significant glance at the children. She wouldn't have said anything, but for the way his hands moved lower on her hips. "Later."

"Katherine Anne Summers, you are a temptress."

"Mm, and isn't that why you love me?"

She turned the conversation backed to the airstrip.

Christopher Summers was proud of his plane, a painstakingly modified Whittle patent. He could travel from Anchorage to Juneau and back in a single day, weather allowing, which is more than most people could manage, and he insisted that when Alaska became a state that would be the capital.

Katherine told him that was absolutely absurd, because it was one thing in a territory, but surely a state, an actual member of the U.S. of A., would either move the capital or find a way to make the city accessible by road.

That debate was settled when Christopher dragged a third party into the argument by tossing him into the air and asking, "Juneau's the capital of Alaska forever, isn't it, Scotty?"

"Yes!" because, of course, no one is more objective than a five-year-old responding to his father's enthusiasm.

This isn't a story about Alaska.

"What's the capital of Alaska?"

"Juneau!"

It's not really about planes, either.

"Because Daddy says so, eh?"

A solemn nod and, "Also Miss Jones."

This is a story about school—among other things.

Scott couldn't see his mother's face throughout this exchange and likely would not have understood her reactions, but that was the remark that truly ended the argument. Christopher might have cajoled his son's agreement, but he had been put in his place by the reminder that he had a smidge less authority than a kindergarten teacher.

However, the mention reminded her of something. "Christopher." Her tone said more than the word itself, enough that his expression shifted to match his wife's request for a serious conversation.

Scott squirmed until his father set him down. He was midway through an important game, anyway, and one of his soldiers was already being chewed by a giant drool monster.

"Gimme my toy," Scott ordered. Then, when Katherine cleared her throat meaningfully, "Please gimme my toy."

Alex went right on chewing, murmuring a, "No's'mine."

Scott addressed his soldiers: "We gotta rescue your friend!"

Meanwhile, Katherine explained, "Scott's having some problems at school."

"He'll be fine. Right, Scott?"

Scott nodded. He didn't look up from his toys: they were soldiers on a very important mission that required absolute concentration.

"See?"

"He won't be fine. I can barely get him out of bed in the morning. Chris, he wouldn't go back to school after lunch."

"Wouldn't?" Chris had spent less time with the boys than Katherine. Even when he was home, she was the mother. She raised the children. That didn't stop him loving them, but gave him a very different perspective: who lost a battle of wills with a five-year-old?

"Couldn't," she amended.

Meanwhile, nearer the floor, the soldiers launched an air assault. As toy planes circled his head, Alex giggled. The spit-drenched soldier fell onto the carpet as the drool monster himself grabbed for the airplanes.

"So tell him he stays at school or when his father gets home—"

"This isn't—he's just a baby—"

"No, you baby him. Maybe that's the problem."

"I don't think that's the problem."

"Then tell me what is, because I'm not hearing it."

Alex caught one of the airplanes. Scott was bigger, but not quite strong enough to resist as Alex put everything into hauling one of his hands down.

"Mommy! MOMMY!"

Katherine had seen her son pick up a cookie, brush off spider webs, and eat it. Apparently he was a bit pickier when it was his hand in somebody else's mouth and the last conflict anyone needed right now was between Scott's fist and Alex's teeth.

"Alex, let go of your brother, sweetheart."

Katherine held Alex, so Christopher crouched close to Scott and said, "You can make it through school all day tomorrow. That's what big boys do."

Scott paused in wiping off his hand and his toy biplane to give his father an impatient look. He had only recently learned it, the look children give to adults who think they make sense but clearly have no idea about anything.

Once more, his five-year-old logic ended a debate.

"That's what Mommy says to Ales' about using the potty."

Scott had mostly left incoherent toddler chatter behind him, but he still struggled with the 'x' sound. Christopher and Katherine agreed on the name Alexander; Christopher doubted that decision more and more every time he heard his firstborn lisp out 'Alice'.

II.

For Katherine, this situation was becoming normal: she woke up to the sound of screaming.

"Chris, shh."

She had learned not to wake him. That didn't help. The next day, he wouldn't know anything about it—he never did—but at least tonight he was in bed. She hated it, all of it, she hated the suffering, but at least when he tensed and twitched like this there was no chance of the boys noticing.

She did not turn on the light. That might wake him—probably wouldn't, but might—just stroked his hair.

"It's all right, my love."

Maybe it helped. Maybe it didn't. She petted him and sang familiar, gentle songs in the dark.

It was 1943. The only thing Katherine found even vaguely helpful were some of the poems. They were difficult to come by, but at least told her that others had been through this. Articles in papers and magazines only implied it by reminding women of their role.

"…you'll never know, dear, how much I love you…"

He wouldn't, either. Katherine had accepted that she couldn't keep this from their oldest. His eyes were too big. But Chris didn't seem aware of the nightmares the following morning and as long as she could help it, he would remain unaware.

Down the hall, softly, Alex asked, "Scott?"

"I'm awake," Scott confirmed. He wondered how Alex heard him over the howls from down the hall and the pounding of his heart.

Maybe it was easier for Alex. He only thought it was a monster. Sometimes, during the day, he offered theories: the monster lived in the pipes under the sink, the monster ate his socks, the monster had six eyes and a thousand billion legs…

A different sort of monster pushed back the covers and snuggled against Scott. This was the drooly sort of monster that kicked at night and wet the bed.

"S'okay. I'll protect you."

"Don' let the monster get me."

"I won't," Scott promised.

It was important that Alex not know the truth, Scott understood that. Alex wouldn't notice his mother's red eyes tomorrow like Scott would; after the worst nights, never saw the bruises. Their mommy explained it: Daddy was fighting his own monsters.

Scott was five. He wasn't stupid. But he couldn't separate the two in his mind.

III.

By Sunday evening, the nightmare was at the back of everyone's mind, unmentioned as always. The week had been difficult for other reasons, too, including two more early days because Scott was crying at school and one day Katherine knew he didn't really have a tummy ache but didn't have the heart to force him back.

Now Scott curled up in bed and hugged his teddy bear. Across the room lay Alex in his crib, in what used to be Scott's crib before Alex was born. It all did—and Scott didn't mind. It was okay with him to have their bedroom, their dresser, their blocks even though Alex mostly drooled on them or knocked them over just like everything else.

But Scott wanted the mobile.

He hugged the bear tighter. He liked the mobile. It was birds making a lazy circle above the crib, shifting even from the slight breeze. And Alex wouldn't miss it. Alex was sleeping.

Scott slipped out of bed and padded to the crib. He hadn't slept in a crib when he was three years old. He had a little brother.

Alex sighed and squirmed.

"Shh, stay asleep!"

Scott climbed up onto the side of the crib. He needed his brother to stay asleep just a little while longer…

"Scott?" His mother stood in the doorway.

He slipped off the crib. "Wasn't doin' anything."

Katherine reached for his hand. She walked him back to bed and switched on the lamp, all the while saying nothing of his pouting silence. It was one of those things parents could do but Scott never could, the way she smoothed out the covers and tucked them around him.

"Mommy, I don't feel good."

"You don't?"

"Nuh-uh."

She brushed his hair back and rested her palm against his forehead. "You don't feel hot, love."

"But my tummy hurts."

Katherine loved her children. To her, they were perfect. She tried to have the same enthusiasm and wonder with Alex that she had experienced with Scott, to be as amazed by his first steps and words and the way his tiny chest rose and fell when he slept.

As miraculous as these things had seemed and as special as her boys were to her, Scott was as sly as most children his age: she saw through him like a plate glass window still sparkling from its latest wash.

"Are the other children mean to you?"

Scott shrugged. "No…" The others were all right. Some of them teased him for having to go home early so much, but mostly they were friendly.

"Then what's the matter?"

Another shrug.

"You have to go to school," she murmured, stroking his hair. "It's good for you. You'll learn about reading and writing and how to be a good American."

For a while, Scott didn't answer. He wanted to be a good American, though he was indifferent to reading and writing.

"How come Daddy went to The War?"

He said it with capitalization, as though it were the name of something rather than a specific one in many. Although he did not understand this, Scott was right. He didn't know what the Japanese army did in Nanking, nor what the Germans did to their own citizens and to the millions of others in Europe who failed to meet their ideals. He didn't know what Chris saw in Burma.

Katherine knew, a little, so she hesitated to answer. She couldn't tell her son the truth. One day, yes, he would learn, but not now. Not when he needed the nightlight to keep the monsters at bay (or rather, "Ales' is scareda th' da'k") and had been petrified the time she took him to the circus. One giggling clown reduced him to a howling mess.

He would never sleep again if she explained mass murder.

Instead, she simplified, "Because war is what happens when the good guys have to stop the bad guys."

That was not a lie, either.

Scott considered for a moment. "Isn't Daddy the good guys anymore?"

"Of course he is."

"How come he isn't fighting the bad guys?"

This time Katherine did not simplify. She did not precisely lie, either, just said something irrelevant. "He loves you and Alex, and wants to be here with you." Which was completely true. Christopher Summers loved his wife and sons, but that was the reason he had gone to war, not the reason he came home.

He went to fight because that's what a good man does, because he wanted his boys growing up to know that good could triumph over 'living, breathing evil', as he phrased it. He came home because a piece of shrapnel lodged in his knee, and even removed it left him with a limp and pain in the cold.

"When is he going away again?"

"He isn't. He's going to stay here now, with us."

"I don't like when Daddy drinks."

Katherine was used to strange questions. A person needed to be, raising two small children. How come grass is green? Why can't medicine taste not-yucky? What's the biggest number? Where do boogers come from? Honestly, she was prepared for 'where do babies come from' but Scott was more concerned with that.

She was ready for surprising questions. Sometimes the obvious statements threw her.

"The war was hard for him. Daddy's the good guys, remember? So we have to be patient and always remind him that we love him."

Scott hugged his bear and said nothing.

"Scott?"

"He doesn't like me."

"That's not true."

"He doesn't like me 'cause I leave my toys out."

"That's not true."

"I try to put them away!"

"Shh, shh. I know, baby, and your daddy does like you. Always and always. He loves you more than you can possibly know."

"What if I come home from school an' you're gone?" he asked.

"Is that why you don't stay in school?" Katherine asked, surprised.

Men who fought in wars were heroes. Katherine knew that and more than knowing, she believed it. She loved Chris. She respected him for what he had done. But there were conflicts. When one has little more than wishes in the greater scheme of things, what could she wish for? That Chris hadn't been injured and was still so far away and in danger? That he had never gone to fight in that stupid, stupid war because he came home someone else? That he wasn't home because it was so hard?

It was, too. Having Chris home was hard and the pieces of the war he carried with him were more than her boys should ever have to bear. When kindergarten meant getting Scott away from his father a few hours a day, Katherine had been relieved.

Apparently Scott did not feel the same way.

She stroked his hair, realizing it could do with a trim. "Where would I go without you?"

He shrugged.

"Nowhere, that's where, silly."

"What if Daddy didn't want me to come home anymore? An' the house went somewhere else? An' I couldn't find you? What if I forgot about you an' everyone was here, but I couldn't… if something happened, and… 'cause I couldn't remember!"

"Where do you get these ideas?"

Scott didn't answer. Instead he pulled the covers up over his head.

Katherine pulled the covers down. "Scott, enough."

"What if you went to The War?"

"Mommies don't go to wars."

"Daddy went away an' he's different now."

Different. True enough. Scott was much shyer of his father now and it wasn't only because Chris had been gone for so long.

"Will you sing me a song?"

"If I sing you a song, will you go to sleep right after?"

Scott nodded solemnly.

"All right."

IV.

The following afternoon, Scott sat in front of school, waiting for his mother. He swung his foot and watched the plastic aglet bounce. He didn't look at the road. As long as he didn't look, maybe his mommy was there. Maybe she was just a few feet away, and he only didn't know because he didn't see her.

As his shoelace spun, he murmured the song she sang to him at bedtime: "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…"

Even though he'd pointed out that she had Alex, too, and he was lots more like sunshine. He was blond, like the sun is, like the sun would be if it was a person. And he laughed and smiled and never made their parents look at each other in that tight, disagreeable way.

Scott didn't understand a lot, but he knew his parents weren't happy about him—when skies were grey, blue, or anywhere in between.

He thought about checking the road and instead stared hard at his shoes. People stopped loving. Scott wished he didn't know that, but he knew his daddy was different. And one day… one day no one would come…

"Scott!"

A tiny sunshine missile tackled him.

"We seed a spi'er!" Alex announced and burst into giggles.

Their mother traded a few words with the school secretary, thanking her for waiting with Scott. A three-year-old, especially one so energetic, made time move differently.

"Saw," Scott corrected Alex.

"We sawed a spi'er," Alex corrected, "an' i'uz so big!"

He held his hands up, fingers spread wide. With three-year-old sized hands, there were actually spiders that size and even larger. The one in the house had not been so big.

"Come along, boys."

Scott wanted to run over to her, cling to her leg and cry. A part of him felt happy to see her, but another part felt scared. She chose to bring him home for lunch. What if—in a few hours—what if she decided not to…

He took one of her hands and Alex took the other, babbling happily about the spider they saw.

As she did every day, Katherine sat the boys down for lunch. She pretended not to notice some of their milder antics. As long as nobody cried and sandwiches were eaten, she was happy. While the boys ate, she grabbed a few seconds alone to look at a photo of—had that really been her?—of her and Chris on their wedding day. (And, if she was being honest, the first signs of Scott growing inside her.)

This wasn't the life she imagined for herself. Keeping a house was hard, but she didn't mind that, didn't mind the two boys like a couple of freight trains at play. It was the war she hated, all that pain tracked home caked on someone's shoes.

Only a few seconds, then she swallowed, wiped her face, and went to smile at her babies.

"Look, Mommy, I ate all'a'th' apple!"

Scott sighed.

Alex definitely had not eaten all of his apple and probably received coaching—ate-not-eated.

"Good for you, love."

"Ca'ni be excused?"

"Yes, you may."

It was just Katherine and Scott then. He didn't ask to be excused. The alternative of staying put was too appealing.

She slipped into the chair beside him and set a parcel on the table.

Scott reached for it. "What's this?"

"It looks an awful lot like a present."

"It's not my birthday."

Katherine swallowed a laugh. She remembered quite well the day Scott was born!

He tore the plain brown paper away. Inside was a square of hardy plastic, a picture frame containing a photo of Katherine, Chris, and Scott. He had been young when the picture was taken and did not remember it. Chris had been younger, too. They all had, by a decade at least.

"You can put it in your knapsack," she suggested, "take it to school. Wherever you go, I'll be with you. I'll never leave you and you'll never forget me."

She let that sink in, watched his tiny fingers touch the edges of the frame. From the other room, they heard train noises and Alex's wolfish rendition of a train whistle.

"Do you understand me?"

He nodded.

"No more tummy aches."

Another nod.

"Good. Then let's get you back to school."

"Mommy? Will you say it?"

She didn't need to ask what. It was there in his eyes, wide and sad and imploring.

"I do. All the time."

"Please?"

She kissed his forehead. "I love you, Sunshine."

The End