THE CHANGE

Jason let himself into the house quietly. If the boys were asleep, he didn't want to wake them. When they were awake they looked at him when he came in like this. Just – looked. They made him feel guilty.

He was drinking too much too often, but not like Da had. He didn't get angry and violent at home when he overdrank. As if he could ever hurt either of them, after all this time.

They should know that.

Of course, none of them had expected Da to go that way either.

"Oh, hell," he said, sitting down and taking off his boots. If he kept thinking like this, he wasn't going to be able to sleep again, and that was the whole reason why some nights he had a few. It turned the worries off in his mind.

Maybe he should have fought that last loudmouth instead of walking away. He almost always slept well after a good fight. As long as it wasn't with his brothers. He'd never do them that way.

He dropped the boot he'd been holding and was instantly rewarded by – uh, reminded of – his brothers stirring in their beds. One of them twanged. Jeremy was probably sleeping with his guitar again. He wasn't sleeping easily these nights either.

None of them were.

Who would have thought that Da had provided so much structure to their days, when he'd been fading away for months, and, for the last weeks, had been bed-bound? They had thought they were working around him, learning to survive without his constant presence.

Now that he was gone, though, it seemed like just the opposite had happened. They had somehow made themselves more dependent on him, to the point where it was hard to come home when they could be bothered to leave.

And that was another thing. The town thought the boys should be back in school. At least that Jeremy should be, and he probably should, but Jason couldn't see that helping with anything. Hadn't the child been through enough? Hadn't they all?

Something had to change here.

Jason jerked off the other boot and placed it quietly on the floor before getting into his bed.

He was going to have to make some decisions, and no matter what he decided, someone was going to tell him he'd made the wrong one.

Damnitall.

The bedded guitar twanged in agreement.

The boys were awake before him. Josh was fussing at Jeremy, and burning eggs at the same time. Hard to tell what Jeremy was doing, as he was mostly humming or singing quietly. Possibly toasting bread? Coffee was almost ready, Jason could smell it. The not too badly burned eggs were being plated.

In another minute, he heard the rattling of the table being set and the coffee poured out. Three times. That was his signal to get up.

He threw off his covers and sat up. "Good morning, brothers."

Josh slanted a glance his way. "Is it?"

"If you mean does my head ache and am I seeing straight, no and yes.I told you I was going to do better, didn't I?"

"Uh-huh."

Jeremy brought a plate of toasted bread to the table. At least that wasn't burnt.

Jason seated himself at the table and the three of them dawdled over their breakfast, washing it down with some fine tasting coffee. They ate silently, getting the meal finished before it could get cold. Burned and cold was a really bad combination, as they'd learned from experience. The same experience that allowed them to eat almost anything.

"Well, boys. Are we ready to make some changes?"

"Going home?" Jeremy asked.

Josh playfully smacked the boy's head, and refilled the coffee cups. He answered Jason. "You keep asking us, and then we keep staying here."

Jason nodded. "I do. I'm sorry. I'm trying to keep us in the town's good opinion, and I'm afraid no matter what I do, someone isn't going to like it. We've already discussed the problems that could come from that."

"But if we go home, to the m-mountain, we'll be okay."

"For a while," Jason agreed. "I have to start rebuilding our business. And build it better. It's going to have to keep us all."

"Forever 'n' ever?" Jeremy asked.

"Well, yes."

"I'm in favor of that," Josh agreed. "Have you talked to the men?"

"They are ready to get back to work."

"Do we have any orders?"

"At the moment, no. But I'm sure they'll come in as word gets around. In the meantime, we'll be working ahead, and what we did get done over the winter is becoming nicely seasoned."

"Are we going to work with Stempel?"

"That will be up to him. And our customers. There are other mills, should we need them."

"Have you talked to any of them?"

"Well, no, because I haven't been sure when we'd get back to work."

Josh muttered something about costs and pricing.

Jason ignored that. His brother had a different approach to business, that was all. Might be a problem in a couple/few more years, but it might not. If he, Jason, were right and the business was succeeding, Josh couldn't say he was doing it all wrong, now could he?

He could, but would he. What was that saying? Nothing succeeds like success?

"What about school?" Josh asked.

"We already decided not for the summer, didn't we? Or did I misunderstand something?"

"It's not exactly summer yet."

"Y-you said prob'ly. Not for sure. And-and-and – will that b-be okay?"

"It will be okay with some, and not with others. You let me worry about that part of it." Jason pulled the boy closer.

"Do you know how to do that? Josh spouted off. "Worry, I mean?"

"More than you know, brother. More than you know."

Josh rolled his eyes.

Jeremy tugged Jason's sleeve. "When? Now? T-today?"

"I don't think it will be today. We have to pack, get and order supplies, and get this place cleaned up."

"It's jus' clothes, an' books,'n' papers. That ain't so bad."

"Then why haven't you cleaned it up?" Josh demanded.

"Boys. We don't live like this, and never have. Not when we were kids, not when we came here, not when we're in camp, not when we're at our cabin. Clothes do not belong thrown on chairs, nor books tossed on tables. When's the last time the floor's been swept?"

"That's your job," Josh pointed out. "We've been doing the dishes and cooking and stuff."

Jason thought that over before answering. "You're right. We've all gotten lazy or careless. We're all making excuses for each other, and that's one reason we have to have a change of scene. We need to adjust our perspective. We may have been orphaned, but we're not alone."

"Are you a orphan, too? I thought orphans was j-just childrens." Jeremy was clearing the table. He wasn't going to waste time talking when he could be doing. Town might not be so bad as he'd thought it was, but the mountain would always be his choice.

"An orphan is anyone who is parentless."

"In the Bible, orphans are anyone without a father," Josh observed. "A man to take care of them. We got you."

"And I have you. But it's not going to take much of anything for some do-gooder to try and take that away from us. We've got to do better."

"All of us?"

"Yes, all three of us."

"I'd like to point out that we ain't – aren't – the ones leaving books everywhere. Dang you, Jeremy!"

Jeremy laughed. He also took away the coffee cups.

Jason watched him cross the room. "Joshua, I think we're being shown up."

"You have to think of it as him showing off," Josh joked. "Hey, kid, I'll do the dishes if you make the beds."

"No."

Josh laughed. "Okay, I'll do the beds."

Jason stood up.
"I'll do the beds. You take care of the paper stuff, Josh. You can make better sense of what's what than I can. If we keep at it like this, we'll be heading home by lunch."

They didn't make that goal, which had been more of a pep talk anyway. Jason insisted the place be cleaned, scrubbed, shined, and fresh. He called it spring cleaning.

The boys called it an awful lot of awful work.

But they did it, all the while making sure that no one was having to do more work than the other. They stopped for coffee (and to heat more water) a few times, but it was still nearly dark when they finished.

"Too late to head out tonight," Jason said, looking around. "Too early in the season and no moon. We'll have to wait until morning. Need to take supplies with us, anyway, and order more."

"It'll get messed up again when we make supper."

"And go to b-bed."

"We'd have to do it all all over again tomorrow."

"An' we'll n-never get there."

"We won't have to do it all tomorrow. Dishes, bed, wipe off, sweep, mop, leave. No walls, no windows, unless one of you presses your face and fingers against the glass," (Josh snorted.) "no scrubbing."

"But we'll have to do it two times, supper 'n' breakfast."

"N-not the b-beds. We'll only have to m-make them when w-we get up."

"Shut up, you."

"Joshua!"

"I wasn't serious."

"We could jus' have some kinda b-bread an' eat it out on the p-porch.N-no crumbs or dishes."

Jason smiled. "Getting hungry, are we?"

"Uh-huh."

"Work us all day, whattaya expect?"

"You, I don't know if you're hungry or if you're being you. A little of both, probably. Let's go buy some supper." Jason walked out the door and down the street.

After a moment, his confused brothers ran after him.

An hour and a half later he was tucking his well-fed brothers (yes, even Joshua) into a bed in one of Lottie's rooms. "If you two start kicking like you used to, I'm going to kick you both." He pulled up a chair and propped his feet on the edge of the bed.

"We're not babies," both boys said.

"Good. Now shut up and go to sleep. Tomorrow we'll be back home on our mountain."

"Good."