His earliest memories were of his mother, sitting on the porch in the middle of the night. He'd wake up sometimes to the sound of her sobs, and hear the slam of the screen door to signal her exit. Sam never woke up – Sam could sleep deeper than a hibernating bear. And that was before Frank moved in, before his family twisted from something sad and pure to something dark and horrible.
One of those nights, when he was seven, he got up. The stairs creaked, but he didn't bother being cautious. He was old enough to sense the gravity of the situation, and yet young enough to keep asking questions. So he slunk down the creaky old stairs and out the rusty door and into his mother's tearstained lap.
"Jim, honey, what are you doing out here? Go back to bed!" she murmured, sniffing. He shook his head, and she let him hug her, childish warmth a comfort even in the balmy summer night. It was beautifully clear, the moon bright and the stars brilliant.
"Why do you do it?" he asked after some time. "Why come down here when everyone's asleep?"
"Because when I feel sad and think of your father, I want to look at the stars."
"What does dad have to do with stars?"
She closed her eyes. "Everything, Jim honey. That's where I met him, and where I left him."
Jim knew without ever having been explicitly informed that his father died for some grand reason somewhere far away in the sky, and that he himself had been born there. When he was even younger, he used to think he was made of stardust.
"Left him? I thought he left you."
"I guess it could be either way, sweetie," she choked, voice thick with a new batch of tears. Jim frowned in concern and edged a bit off her lap. "But it doesn't matter," she continued, between oncoming sobs. "He's dead, and sometimes I feel dead too. Hell, the stars could be dead above us and we'd be looking at corpses in the sky, which is all he is anymore. And sometimes I think I can't do this anymore, baby." Tears fell quickly and she gasped and Jim swallowed hard, forcing himself not to follow suit. She took a few shuddering breaths and gulped. "Forget I said any of that, hon, and go back to bed. I'm fine. Go on, good night!"
"Sleep tight," he whispered as he crept into the house.
A final sniff, and then, "I love you, Jim."
"I love you too, mama."
And it was a long time before either said the same again.
His sheets had gone cold and so had his heart. Corpses in the sky, he chanted, trying to change the words so they didn't hold such emptiness, such horror and grief. He had no concept of either by himself – sadness for his father was only something he filtered from his mother. Sam would never say anything about George, and Jim knew nothing of the man other than he was very brave, according to everyone when they learned of his parentage.
Jim fell asleep without hearing the screen door again, and when he awoke, it was dawn and she was already at work.
And so another few weeks slunk by and now, when he heard the door in the night, he didn't get up. The stars could be dead above us and we'd be looking at corpses in the sky. Was that all his father was? A corpse in the sky? That couldn't be, no, his father was brave and turned to star dust and he ought to be proud that his father was a great man. But his mother thought her husband was a corpse in the sky and every night he fell asleep imagining grinning Halloween skeletons in the stars, and he began to dread bedtime.