Sean feigns surprise when Claire asks if he and Daniel want to stay the night. He tells her it's cool, they are going to a nearby campground, so then she insists they stay, like he expected she would. Daniel also seems on board for it, and they spend the evening playing board games with their grandparents while Sean feels like an AP Bio student who only passed because he swiped the answers to the test.
The television is on in the living room, so they hear the evening news sign off, signaling that it is waaay past Stephen's bed time, which is when they finally call it a night. Sean and Daniel grab their backpacks from the car, and Claire leads the boys upstairs to the small guest room where they stayed five years and another lifetime ago.
"Do you boys need anything?" Claire asks as they set their backpacks on the floor.
"I think I'm good," Sean yawns, the long days of travel finally catching up with him. "Daniel, how about you?"
"I'm fine," Daniel says, looking around the room. It's just a bed, a side table, and a small desk. The walls are wood paneling from, like, the 1970s or something. Sean isn't sure the room ever got used before they showed up.
"So I have a small request, if you don't mind," Claire says, fidgeting with her hands. "I would like to say a little prayer with you. Your mother made it very clear to me once that your father was not religious, so it is okay if you say no, but it would mean a lot to me after all this time."
Sean aggressively doesn't believe in God. He didn't before his dad got shot, and, after everything turned to shit, it was easier to accept that no one was in control of the universe than to believe that there was some cruel, puppet master in the sky. He glances at Daniel, who was much more open to God—even after Lisbeth's cult—but he's a little wide-eyed here; Sean isn't sure what his brother believes in this timeline. But Claire has been so nice, and it's a dumb hill to die on, so Sean says, "Sure."
Claire smiles like she's been handed new crocheting needles (or whatever it is old people get excited about).
His grandmother's hand feels soft as Sean takes it; his brother's feels oddly cool. But Sean bows his head, and Claire says a simple prayer, thanking the Lord for bringing her grandsons back to her and asking him to look over Sean and Daniel and to help them find what they are looking for.
It's not a very long prayer. But it's just long enough that Sean finds himself caught in his own thoughts and saying his own. Hey, God or whatever is out there. . . I feel stupid even 'talking' like this . . . but I know I'm messing with some pretty big things. All I want is for my family to be safe and for me to be part of my brother's life. I don't . . . I don't understand why that is so much to ask. Please don't punish me for this, okay? I don't know if you're paying a lot of attention, but I've kind of been through a lot. Like, I look at that other life, and I have no idea how I woke up in the morning. I think I've paid back every bad thing I've ever done, so please don't punish me for loving my dad and my brother and trying to find my mom, okay? Please, God?
He says please over and over again in his head, and, suddenly he realizes how tightly he's squeezing his eyes shut and how tightly he's holding his brother and grandmother's hands. When he opens his eyes, Daniel is studying him like he's an alien, but Claire still has her head bowed. She's already finished her prayer, so Sean quickly says, "Amen."
"Yeah, amen," Daniel says, his eyes still on Sean.
Claire again asks if they need anything, and they assure her they don't. She hugs them both and tells them one more time how good it is to see them, and then she goes to her own room at the end of the hall.
Daniel has a dazed look in his eyes as they slowly scan the room.
"Hey, bro, did you have a good time with Claire and Stephen?" Sean asks.
"Hmm?" Daniel says, running his hand over the dresser. "Oh, yeah, I did. They're pretty cool. For old people. Hey, do you remember if—is this Karen's room?"
Daniel asked this in the other life, too. Sean shakes his head and sighs. "I'm afraid not, bro. Her room was the one by the bathroom. I asked Claire if she would let you see it, but she said no. It's hard for her to talk about Mom."
"Oh," Daniel says. "It's whatever, I guess."
He doesn't actually sound like it's 'whatever,' though.
Sean goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth and do a pre-bedtime piss, and as he exits Daniel comes in with his own toiletries. But instead of going back to the guest room, Sean stops outside the door to what used to be his mom's room.
He tries the knob. It's locked.
In the other life, he was a real asshole, violating Claire's trust, going through her things until he found a key. He might be able to sneak into their room and find it again in the dark. Or, hey, maybe she left it in a sweater she threw into the hamper again. But, also, he's a bit better at breaking and entering now. Being homeless for so long, hanging out with Finn and Cassidy, and going to jail, he's picked up a few skills he didn't have last time he was here.
He knocks on the bathroom door.
It opens, and Daniel's face is covered with the suds from some kind of acne scrub. "What?" he says, annoyed.
"Hey, I was just thinking . . . if you want to see Mom's old room, I could probably get us in there."
"I thought it was locked. Are you going to break in or something?"
"Maybe. I might be able to sneak the key out of Claire's room. I dunno, don't worry about that part. I just need to know if you want to see Mom's room, so I can figure out how to get in."
"Of course I want to see Mom's room," Daniel says. "But Claire has been real nice to us, feeding us and letting us stay the night. And you're talking about breaking into a room in her house. That's real shitty, dude. That's like tricking your grandmother by praying with her when really you're an atheist, and one of those asshole-atheists too."
"I'm not an asshole-atheist."
"You and Lyla had a YouTube channel in high school where you mocked Christian youth groups!"
"It was about all those weirdo kids who wore those Jesus Says Saving It is Lit shirts! We posted one video that we took down after a week!" Sean pinches the bridge of his nose, calms his voice down. "Look, I was just offering to show you Mom's room since I couldn't talk Claire into it. I thought you'd appreciate it."
Daniel sighs, and some of the soap bubbles slide down his cheeks. "I get that, but, dude . . . I don't want you to do stuff for me that means you sacrifice other things like our grandma's trust, you know?"
Sean nods, but really he feels pretty bad. He wanted to do something nice for his brother, and it didn't work out. He goes back to the guest room, crawls out of his jeans and into bed, and he flips through his phone. His Instagram has picked up a few more followers from a comic he posted before he left Savannah. Toby has sent, like, a dozen snapchats of him, Diego, and Pete in Daytona Beach.
And Sean finds himself typing Mom's number into his phone, which he quickly deletes.
He really thought he could say the right things to Claire to get her to open the bedroom. And, sure, he got her to let them eat and stay the night, but what if something unpredictable happens with Mom? What if she is rocked by her past unexpectedly showing up on her doorstep? Maybe he should text her, give her a heads up. Because what if they get there and Mom—Karen—doesn't want to see them?
He's lost in this thought when he hears Daniel sigh dramatically. "Dude, really?" Daniel says. "Fine. Where are the car keys?"
"Uh, they are in my jeans pocket," Sean says, pointing to where he's set his pants on the chair. "Why do you need the car keys?"
"To get the sleeping bag because I guess I'm sleeping on the floor," Daniel says, and the keys jingle from his fingers. "I get it. I'm the little brother. But I thought we would flip a coin or something instead of you just taking the bed."
"Dude, why can't we share it?" Sean says. "I'm not trying to take anything from you."
"Yeah right. Do you remember what happened last time we shared a bed? It was that ski trip to Colorado. We got into a kind-of for-real fight at 1:00 in the morning, Dad yelled a lot, and I slept in his bed the rest of the trip."
"Fine!" Sean says, rolling out of bed. He's wearing a t-shirt and boxer shorts, but he slides his socked feet into his skate shoes. "I will go get the sleeping bag. I will sleep on the floor. It's not a big deal." After sleeping under bridges and on prison cots, his grandparents' carpet is practically a luxurious mattress, and if it keeps him from having a fight with his brother, it's worth the stiff neck and back pain. He reaches for the car keys.
Daniel pulls them away. "No, it's fine," Daniel sighs. "We can share. I . . . overreacted."
"You sure it's okay?"
"Yeah. I assumed you were being a jerk, and you're not. I'm sorry." Daniel sets the keys on the desk. "Just don't put your cold feet on me."
"Dude, your feet are way colder than mine. And you are always putting them on me."
"You literally sleep in socks. Who does that?"
"Because I know my feet get cold! The socks make them warmer. You just have your toes all out there losing heat and becoming other people's problem," Sean says, and the kid actually smiles a little.
Sean rolls back into bed, and Daniel zips his toiletries into the backpack Sean bought him. But when Daniel drapes his jeans over the chair, the bottle of Tylenol falls out of the pocket. He picks it up quickly, tries to shove it into his bag without Sean seeing.
"So," Sean says, sitting up on his elbow. "What's up with the bottle of pills?"
"It's just Tylenol," Daniel says. "It's not like it's Adderall or something. I don't do drugs like my stoner older brother."
"I get that," Sean says, trying not to let the stoner dig get to him. "But why does a sixteen-year-old boy carry it around in his pocket?"
"I just get headaches sometimes," Daniel says. "It's not a big deal."
"How often is sometimes?"
"Like a few times a week. It's nothing to freak out about, okay?"
Except it's totally something to freak out about. Eventually, Daniel was able to lift tons with a wave of his hand, and all of that energy could be pressure-cooking his brain, and when it comes out . . .
Sean shudders.
Daniel crawls into bed, which creaks under his weight. Daniel may be scrawny, but he's man-sized now; there is much less room than when he was nine. He rolls onto his side to turn off the light, and his ice-cube feet have no place to go except Sean's shins.
And as they settle into the pillows and darkness, Sean almost rolls over to drape his arm over his brother but stops himself. Not just because they're "not close" but because Daniel is sixteen. Sometimes Sean forgets that. Being in prison and missing so much means that, in some ways, Daniel is forever frozen as a ten-year-old kid in his mind.
But there's an unease in Sean. An itch that he can't scratch. It's the Tylenol Daniel carries, and the conversation with Max. It's the worrying about his mom and whatever has happened to Chris. And there was the panic that seized him when he passed the gas station this morning. It's like a feeling he had when he was a kid, when he knew the monsters under his bed weren't real, but that worry that they could grab him wouldn't go away.
"Do you remember when Dad let us watch The Ring?" Sean asks.
"Oh man," Daniel says. "I was, like, five, and I think I'm still scarred from it. I slept in your room for a full week."
"I was pretty scared of that movie too. Having you there helped me sleep better." Sean chuckles, and then, in a raspy whisper, says, "Seven days!"
"God, that's still so creepy," Daniel says. "You totally did that shit to me as a kid, and it freaked me out."
"That wasn't cool of me," Sean says. "You know, you got brave after the sixth night and were going to sleep in your room. I might have whispered 'seven days' to you all afternoon so I wouldn't have to spend night seven alone."
"Dude, you asshole!" Daniel laughs, hitting him in the side.
"I was scared," Sean laughs. "And I was, like, eleven or twelve and 'too big' to admit I was scared of a dumb movie."
Suddenly there's a long silence. "You know," Daniel says quietly, "sometimes when I get scared, like really scared—not, like, about monsters or anything but, like, hard life stuff—I'll ask Dad to tell me one of his stories, like the ones he told us before bed when we were little. Do you think that's dumb?"
"Nah, it's not dumb. It's cool. I do that too."
"His stories always made me feel better when I was little. They still do."
"Me too."
"Sometimes they got scary. But I liked how no matter how bad things got in his stories, in the end, everything always worked out okay."
"I know, enano. I liked that too."
# # #
Long after their conversation stops and Sean's breathing changes, Daniel is still awake. He stares through the darkness at the ceiling in the house of his grandparents-he-just-met, and everything feels weird. There's the stuff back home with Noah that he can't shake. But there's also the weirdness of his brother, who is someone who prays with their grandmother, seems legitimately caring . . . but will also break into locked rooms of people who trust him. And all those questions about his mom's leaving seem to echo in this house she grew up in.
But it's also that he spent his first Saturday night as a sixteen-year-old by playing board games with his grandparents and brother, and it was the best Saturday he has had in a long time.
Just as Daniel is finally about to drift off to sleep, Sean suddenly twitches, that way someone does when dreaming. But then Sean does it again, more violently. Then Sean whimpers.
Daniel flashes back to Christmas, how panicked he felt when Sean had the nightmare he wouldn't wake up from.
And then Sean's whimpering turns to pleading. It's hard to make out what he's saying, but it sounds like he's begging someone to let him go.
"Sean?" Daniel sits up, sets his hand on his brother's chest. Sean's heart is beating fast. "Hey, bro, you're dreaming."
"Where's my brother?" Sean says, voice cracking.
"Hey, man, I'm here. Wake up, okay?"
"Please don't hurt me," Sean says, and he's crying. He's actually crying in his sleep. "I—I didn't do anything."
It's really freaky, and Daniel leans with both hands on his brother, shaking him, trying to pull him out of this nightmare. Finally, Sean gasps like he's emerging from the ocean, and he sits up. There is very little light from the moon outside, but Daniel can see the outline of his brother, looking around, trying to figure out where he is. Sean stares at his wrists, slowly moves them apart from each other. Finally, Sean sighs, sort of pats Daniel on the back and says, "Sorry, bro, I had a bad dream."
"No shit," Daniel says. "Sean, how often do you have these 'bad dreams'?"
"It's just a nightmare. Don't make a big deal about it," Sean says, lying back down.
"It's not just one nightmare, dude. You had one over Christmas, and it was really scary. And this morning by Arcadia Bay—I woke up, and you had stopped the car, and you looked like you were about to throw up or something."
"I just needed some air. Don't worry about it."
But Daniel is worrying about it. He kind of worries about everything these days. And even though he and Sean aren't close, Sean is still his big brother, still his family. Dad's right. Something is wrong. And there was that weird thing Sean said at Arcadia Bay about the Trolley Problem. Daniel got pissed because he thought Sean was talking about Noah, but now he wonders if it was about something else.
"You know, if you're scared, you should just say you're scared. It's okay to ask for help. You don't have to act like you're tough then whisper like a creepy little girl until your little brother gets scared with you."
Sean's quiet for a long moment. "I'm fine, enano. Go back to sleep."
Except Daniel wasn't asleep, and he's even further from it than he was before. He lies back down, tosses and turns, then realizes he needs to pee.
The bathroom tile is cold against Daniel's feet, and he can't stop his worry for his brother. He flushes the toilet, washes his hands, and when he steps outside, he notices the room beside the bathroom is open.
Shit, he thinks, Sean has broken into our mother's room, that fucking idiot.
There's the dull, yellow glow of some light on inside the room. Daniel carefully pokes his head inside, and . . . it looks like an old bedroom. There's a bunch of old boxes. A desk. And sitting on the bed, in her nightgown is Claire.
"Hello, Daniel," she says. "I couldn't sleep."
"Me neither," Daniel says, leaning on the doorway. It feels somehow rude to look around when Claire wanted to keep this hidden, especially with her sitting here, so he ends up looking at his feet. Which, Sean's right—they are cold. "Something on your mind?"
Claire slides over on the bed and pats the spot beside her, so he sits down.
Maybe Mom sat next to Claire like this when she was sixteen.
"You boys being here has stirred up a lot of old memories," Claire says. "I have thought so often about reaching out to you—every April 11, in particular—but I was always afraid I would anger your father or push you away like I did your mother. You and Sean, you turned out to be good kids. It makes me sad that I missed so much."
"It makes me sad, too," Daniel says, picking at his thumb. "If you had called or sent a card, I think it would have been fine. You and Stephen are cool."
"Thank you," Claire chuckles, but then she sighs. "All of this makes me even angrier at your mother for choosing to leave you two."
"I don't really know anything about her," Daniel says. "I think it hurt Dad to talk about her, and Sean hated her guts until recently. I don't know what changed."
"You can look around, if you want," Claire says.
"You sure?"
She nods. Assures him that it's okay. He finds a notebook of some of his mom's poems on her desk—so she was a kind of artist, like Sean. There's a stuffed bear that reminds him of his own childhood stuffed rabbit. And some old compact disks and a chest with random things like a pair of roller blades.
Claire says that his mom was always into poetry and that even as a child she was a free spirit. Claire and Stephen thought their daughter was crazy when she started dating Esteban Diaz, but she was truly in love with him, even if things ended the way that they did.
"So my mom and dad were happy together?" Daniel asks.
"For a little while," Claire says.
Daniel sighs and sits down on the bed with his chin in his hands. "I thought this would feel different," Daniel says. "Being in my mom's room. She's always been built up as this kind of big figure in my head."
"I'm afraid she was just a person," Claire says, and he feels her hand on his back. "And a very flawed person at that."
Daniel chews on his lip. It takes him a bit to work up to his next question. "Do you know why my mom left?"
"The short answer is that I don't," Claire says quietly. "We exchanged a couple of letters and a phone call, but it was a long, long time ago. Last time we talked, she needed money, but she wouldn't take it from us. All of her reasons she gave were about needing to be true to herself or some selfish crap like that. I didn't really get it."
"I see," Daniel says. He moves his thumb to his mouth, chews on the skin near his knuckle. "Do you think . . . did she leave because of me?"
"Why in the world would you ask that?"
"I dunno." He wipes at his eye. His grandmother doesn't say anything, so he can't stop himself from going on. "It's just—she loved Dad, right? And when it was just her, Dad, and Sean, everything seemed to be fine. Like, I've seen pictures. Sean always acted like he hated Mom, but it sure looks like they went camping together and did lots of awesome stuff when he was a kid. But the moment little Daniel came along, Karen just couldn't get out of our lives fast enough. And it's like, hey, what changed? And it just seems obvious that it's me. That I ruined everything."
He sniffles, rubs his face with the back of his hand. He tries really hard, but he still blubbers in the dark.
It's hard admitting that your mom didn't love you. It's hard admitting you are the reason your dad and brother went through so much pain.
Claire's hand rests on his bare knee. "You do not blame yourself for your mother's choices, do you hear me?" she says. "Your mom is the one that is missing out by not being part of your life. You are a sweet, wonderful, special young man. It is one-hundred percent her loss and her mistake. You did not ruin anything."
"I guess," Daniel sighs. He doesn't feel "sweet," "wonderful," or "special." He feels like a fuck up who ruins his friendships and makes people leave him.
"No, not 'I guess.' I want to hear you say it back to me that you did not ruin anything."
"I didn't ruin anything," Daniel says.
And then his grandmother hugs him surprisingly tightly for an old woman, so tightly that he barely shakes as he holds back the tears against her shoulder.
# # #
When Daniel gets back to the guest room, Sean is asleep. Daniel carefully crawls into bed, then lies there for a while, still unable to drift off.
Then Sean starts whimpering again. Another nightmare. The second one tonight.
"Dude, Sean," Daniel says, feeling drained. "You have to wake up."
The frightened noises pick up. Sean sounds like a puppy being kicked.
Daniel shoves him, but instead of waking up, Sean rolls over and drapes an arm over Daniel's chest.
"Bro, come on," Daniel sighs, and he starts to push his brother off him. Except . . . Sean stops whimpering. His breathing is suddenly deep and peaceful
Daniel rolls his eyes. He's stuck. If he moves Sean, his brother might start having freaky nightmares again. But, also, Daniel is trapped, and this is so annoying and dumb. He can barely move. This is just what he needs, on top of everything else.
He's still thinking about how dumb it is as he falls asleep beneath the shelter of his brother's arm.
