"Longing…rusted…furnace…daybreak…seventeen…"

I stand in the doorway and say the words. I try to say them confidently, but my voice shakes a little bit. Uncle Bucky flinches, blinks, but otherwise doesn't move or say anything. He just watches me.

"Benign…nine…homecoming…"

"What on earth are you talking about?" Mama comes out of the kitchen. "Stop bothering your Uncle Bucky. You can play later. You know he needs a nap when he first gets here." She glares at me, but not too strictly.

"It's all right, Sarah," he answers, sitting up on the sofa. I watch, scared, wondering if he's going to tell her. "Just excited to see me." He gives me a very pointed look, but he doesn't rat me out.

"Go finish your math," Mama says, motioning for me to go back to my room. I go as fast as I can, not wanting to look back and see how mad Uncle Bucky probably is.

As soon as I get back to our room, AJ shuts the door behind me. "I told you not to try it!"

"Nothing happened," I answer, aggravated. This isn't true, of course. I sense that Uncle Bucky is closer to actual anger than I have ever seen him, and I'm more than regretting the choice, not that I would tell AJ that.

"Why'd you even look something like that up?" AJ asks. "Uncle Sam told us about everything."

"Uncle Sam told us some things," I correct. "I just wanted to know what he left out."

Truthfully, I hadn't found much. Nothing much came up in my searches, kind of like how even the info about Uncle Sam is pretty limited on the Internet because somebody clears it up all the time. But I'd found this weird blog and done Google translate on it. It had a picture of Uncle Bucky with long hair and the words.

AJ rolls his eyes. "Did he react?"

"A little," I answer.

"You're lucky he didn't tell Mom, then," AJ says.

I keep thinking about that, all through dinner. Mom, AJ, and Uncle Bucky are talking and having a good time like normal, but I feel like I'm practically choking on my shepherd's pie. If Uncle Bucky has decided not to tell my mom, that means he's planning to handle it himself, and I have absolutely no idea what that means. Not the first time I haven't thought something through before I did it. I'm kind of bad about that; just ask my brother. Something about finding those words and saying them had felt wrong before I did it and even more wrong while I was doing it, but I'd kept it up. I had wanted to hurt him. The combination of nerves and guilt isn't exactly conducive to eating. I'm lucky my mama doesn't say anything even though I only eat half of my dinner; she's too distracted because she's enjoying herself.

"Hey, Sarah, if it's okay with you, I'd like to take Cass onto the boat tonight for some one-on-one time." I'm putting my dishes into the sink when the calmly-uttered words freeze my blood.

"Um, sure, if his homework is done," she answers. I wish for all the world that she had some reason to say no. "Did you finish everything, baby?"

"Yes, ma'am," I answer. I consider lying for a split second and saying I have more to do, but that's too risky; she's likely to check, and AJ knows I'm done.

"Don't worry, kiddo, we'll do something fun before I leave," I hear Uncle Bucky cheering AJ up, like he's missing something awesome that we're going to do instead of my impending doom.

"That's okay, Dad."

I see red. I stay turned toward the sink, but I clench my hands at my sides. I want to scream, but I can't. I breathe deeply, the way the therapist taught me a long time ago.

"Hey, Cass, you ready to go?" Uncle Bucky's voice is neutral—normal. I snap back from anger to worry. I don't want to follow him out, but I can't think of a reason not to.

"Be good," Mama says to me. "Have him back before ten," she says to my uncle. "He needs his sleep for school."

"Got it," Uncle Bucky says, leading the way outside.

—

Neither of us says anything until we get onto the boat. Uncle Bucky is as calm as ever, and he doesn't seem like he's going to kill me or anything. He sits down and motions for me to sit down, too.

"I don't bite, kid," he says, seeing me hesitate.

"Are you—mad?" I ask. I feel stupid asking; of course he's mad. But I never know when to keep my mouth shut, and I'm scared.

"Nope," he answers. "I was a little bit mad back at the house, but I'm not mad now. And, Cass? You gotta know, even if I'm mad, I wouldn't ever hurt you or AJ or your mom, okay? You never have to be afraid of me."

"O-okay," I answer, finally sitting down, as far from him as the small seating will allow.

The sun is starting to go down, and I just stare out at it. I haven't felt this bad in a long time, and Uncle Bucky doesn't move fast. He just lets it sit for a couple of minutes. I figure if he's not talking, I'm definitely not talking.

"So, where did you get those words?" he finally asks.

"Found them on the Internet," I say honestly. It doesn't seem like lying would be helpful, and, like I already said before, I'm really bad at that anyway.

"What do you think they mean?" he asks.

"I—don't know," I answer, realizing how dumb I sound. "I just saw them on a page with your picture, and it said they were bad words to say to you."

"So you decided to try saying them." He leans back against the boat and shakes his head. "What did you think was gonna happen?"

I shake my head, still not meeting his eyes. "Don't know."

"But you were hoping to push my buttons," he says. I don't answer, but it's not like I could deny it anyway. It's obvious. He doesn't sound that upset or anything, so I finally dare to look over. He forces eye contact for a second. "You have no idea what that stuff means, and I didn't want you to know, but now I'm going to tell you."

"Okay," I say, really quietly, because it seems like I'm supposed to answer.

"A long time ago," he says, "before your mom and your Uncle Sam were born, I was a soldier. You know about that. I fought in World War II with Captain America, the first one. He was my best friend. But something happened to me—I got captured by bad guys. I told you before, that's how my arm turned out like this. I didn't tell you the brain part."

I listen, my hands pressed onto my knees. There's a tense feeling, like Uncle Bucky really doesn't like talking about this.

"They—did something to me. They made it so if they said certain words, I had to do anything they wanted. They weren't good guys, so they made me do a lot of bad stuff for a really long time, and I didn't have any choice. I just had to do it, because they made me, even though I hated it."

The words. I put my head down.

"After a long time, my friends helped me," he continues, "and I got better. I can hear those words now, and nothing happens. You should know, though, that it wouldn't have worked anyway. Those words weren't in English."

"Oh," I say, because I have no idea what to say. "I—used Google translate on the page."

He laughs. "Oh, kid, you have no idea."

"I didn't know," I say quickly. "I didn't know what they meant. I just—I thought it would—"

"Push my buttons? Tick me off?" he supplies.

"I guess," I answer, really quietly.

"You know," he says, "I'm kind of glad to find out you're not an angel. I kind of wondered that about you and your brother a few times."

"I'm not a bad kid!" I can hear my dad's voice in my head, telling me to be good for my mama, not to give her any trouble, and I can see her crying when AJ and I fight because she thinks she's not doing a good job.

Uncle Bucky reaches over and pulls me closer. "I know that, Cass. You're a good son to your mom, and you take care of your brother. So what made you want to tick me off? Did you want to see what I would do?"

He's got his arm around me, so I feel a little bit better. But I really, really don't want to answer. I don't want to tell him about the red I see when AJ calls him "Dad."

"See, I think I maybe figured something out," he continues, "but you gotta tell me if I'm warm or not. Back a couple of visits ago, your brother did something. Am I getting warm?"

"Warm," I answer, looking away from him but glad his big arm is anchoring me anyway.

"He started calling me something different sometimes, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Back at the house today, before we left, he called me 'Dad,' and I get the impression you're not into that. Warmer?"

"Hot," I answer, tense in his hold.

"I get it," he answers, "but this wasn't the way to handle it."

"I know," I say, my voice wobbly. I feel like I'm going to start crying, and I really, really hate that.

"You know," Uncle Bucky continues patiently, "nobody is ever going to take your dad's place. No matter what AJ calls me, it's not going to change anything. Your father will always be your father. You could've just talked this out with me. I can handle it if you're upset. You didn't have to do something to get my attention." If he'd gotten mad, I could have gotten mad back, but he was just calm, and he talked in that slow way, and it made me feel like the worst kid ever.

"I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry," I say, and then I cry. I always cry when I feel this bad. My mama says it's because I have a good conscience, and that means I can't get away with doing bad stuff.

Uncle Bucky already has his arm around me, so he just pulls me a little closer until I'm crying into the front of his shirt. "It's okay," he says. "I forgive you."

"I didn't mean to be like those bad guys," I hiccup.

"You're not," he says, his hand warm against the back of my head. "You could never be."

My brother told me about how Uncle Bucky helped him when he had a nightmare. I kind of figured that was AJ's thing; he's really big on hugging and stuff. But now, with Uncle Bucky's arm around me, I start to kind of get it. It feels good—kind of like when I used to mess up and my dad would forgive me. I've never been as good at staying out of trouble as AJ.

"So what are we going to do about what AJ calls me?" Uncle Bucky asks after a while, when I'm calmer and just leaning on him. "We've got to get a way to deal with it that doesn't involve you being mad at me or your brother."

"No, it's okay," I say, realizing right then that it is. "I don't feel mad any more."

Uncle Bucky pulls me up to look into my face. "Cass, it's okay if you never want to call me that. That can be AJ's and my thing. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," I answer.

The funny thing is, as he wipes my face and keeps me close until the sun sets, I start thinking. I start thinking that maybe, as long as he knows he's not taking my dad's place, I might call him that some day after all. I might even want to.