"Jason, I thought you were going to have Jeremy help me with the supplies I brought. He just ran past me and said you told him to go play."
"I was, and I did," Jason replied. "I changed my mind. You got a problem with that?"
Joshua blinked at his older brother. "Well, no," he finally said. "Only that you'd told me I'd have help."
"Grab one or two of the other men to help you. Whatever you need."
"Okay. What are you reading?"
"A paper Jeremy wrote."
"His Christmas composition? Is it good or bad?"
"Damned if I know." Jason put the paper on top of the other school papers he'd collected.
"What grade did it get?"
"Eighty-eight. He got points off for using was when it should be were, mostly."
"No asides?"
Jason laughed "Would it be a Jeremy paper without them?"
Josh shrugged. "I'd have to wonder."
Jason looked at his blond brother, and thought of how quickly he had matured in the last years. Just shy of fifteen now, when he put on his business face, Josh could pass for eighteen. That was why Josh had gone for the supplies this time, and had done so successfully.
"What are you looking at me like that for?"
"Regretting the child you weren't able to be."
"Is that why you told Jeremy to go play? Because I wasn't? Or didn't? Heck, I've never wanted to be a kid. Not since –"
"Not since Mom died?" Jason finished the sentence for him.
"I was gonna say, since I started school, but that's close enough. What about you?"
"Sometimes I wonder how I'd be different if I hadn't become a mother at your age."
"For what it's worth, I don't think it would make much of a difference. As the oldest, you always had to be – older."
"Let's go, I'll help you get things put away." Jason strode from the tent, and Josh hurried after him.
"Thanks. Don't you thinkmJeremy should be growing up more? Not being quite so much a little kid?"
"Just a kid, not so little anymore. He's ten, Josh. Not twelve or thirteen. Let him play." They had reached the supply wagon and Jason began unloading.
"That's what Mom and Da always said about him being their baby. If they'd let him be more his own age, maybe he wouldn't –" Josh stopped.
"Stutter? Maybe. But maybe not. That's pretty young, to lose a mother."
"So is nine or ten, and so is sixteen." Josh was neatly sorting and stacking what Jason was handing him.
"You've got a point there. The rest of this stuff has to go to the storage sheds."
"Okay."
The brothers, with their horse and wagon, walked along the new road amiably. They finished the unloading and took care of the horse and wagon in silence.
It wasn't until they re-entered the camp that Jason spoke again. They stopped to get coffee.
"Joshua, if you were asked about your best or worst Christmas, what would you say?"
"Wow. Is that what the paper was about?"
"Not exactly, but close enough. It made me think."
"Isn't that my job?" Josh joked, but he could see Jason was serious.
They sat down.
"I don't know, exactly," Josh finally answered him. "Off the top, I'd say the last Christmas with Da was the best, and the first one after Mom was the worst, but–"
"But–?" Jason encouraged.
"Well, that one after Mom – it was bad, but it was good, too."
"How was that nightmare any good?"
"Well, it – it changed things. It made everything – all of us – different. Better somehow."
"How?"
"I don't know how to explain. Why is it so important to you?"
Jaason leaned back, and took up the school paper he'd been reading earlier and handed it to Josh.
Josh scanned it quickly, then started over again reading it slowly. "Well, that little– !" He looked up at Jason. "He doesn't even know he knows some of this stuff, does he?"
"I don't think so. It's really interesting, at least to me, that you have the same worst/best reaction to that same – event. I've never seen any good in it. I certainly wasn't a hero that day."
"Jeremy thinks you're a hero if you give him a handkerchief to wipe his nose. Or smile at him."
"No need to exaggerate. Someday he'll figure out I'm as human as you."
"Ha." Josh rolled his eyes." That'll probably make him think even more of you. Dumb kid."
Jason shifted uneasily. Josh was probably right about that. That was one of the burdens from that day.
"He really doesn't know, does he?"
"That you were his magic gift-giver that night? No. Or, if he does, he's never mentioned it." Jason thought that over. "He asked me once if I thought Mom had brought it. I said I didn't think so, and after a while he said he'd bet it was her idea, though."
"What did you say to that?"
"Something vague, like maybe or could be. What could I say? I wanted to end the discussion."
"If he'd known he'd probably have put it in his paper. He almost did anyway."
"As well as describing how Da taught himself how to put together the thing, and even sized it for the boy by playing with him and the pieces."
"And Mom. Mom and Christmas. That was good writing, to put that in his story, because of the way Da was acting. It makes it almost understandable."
"That it does."
"I wonder how many points he got off for 'satted'?
"What? Oh, that. I don't know."
"She circled it but didn't say what she was taking off."
"Mm."
"Why do you feel so bad about that Christmas? You saved it for us, and even better, after that public prayer, Da started being better. Even the times he just sat and stared was better than all the yelling and hitting and stuff."
"It wasn't right. Good lord, Jeremy was already suffering from my high-flown prayers."
"What wasn't right? Besides you not being able to get Jeremy his toy, because I know that wasn't right. That's why I got it. And I think Da yanking us away from home probably had more to do with Jeremy's – problem."
"The public prayer part. That doesn't set well with me. I said what I said about Mom, because I was so angry with Da – I wanted to hurt him. I wanted him to see Mom with her hands on her hips scowling at him and giving him a good tongue-lashing for the way he was treating you boys."
Josh considered. "I don't see anything wrong with that."
"I shouldn't have shamed him publicly."
"It's not like he ever listened any other time."
"That was my excuse. But sometimes I think I see her scowling at me – me – with her hands on her hips and giving me the tongue-lashing. I don't think she'd have been happy with me."
"What was she saying to you, or don't you remember?"
"Something about manipulating god into doing my will by using him as a proxy, or something like that. I don't know, but I hope I never have to do anything like that again."
"Pretty sure Mama and god will both understand if you do it to help others like you were doing that day."
Jason nodded. "Maybe. I hope. But it will be better to not do it. The thing is, when I get angry –"
Josh laughed. "You don't have to tell me, brother."
"No, I don't suppose I do."