Jeremy spent the morning staring silently out the window, watching the snow. It wasn't nice snow, closer to ice pellets than snow flakes, fine and dry. The wind was blowing them around. Sometimes he thought maybe it wasn't snowing new at all, just blowing old snow around, except old snow was usually wetter.
It was almost as if winter was getting boring, too.
He wandered back to the table where his brothers had been making plans and schedules, for when they could get back to work. They spoke to him, made room for him to look at the plans, and explained some details.
Somehow it got to be starting to get night time, and Jason went out to bring in more wood for the overnight and morning. Josh started 'pulling together a supper' as he cleared the paperwork off the table.
Jeremy went back to the window.
Jason, after a glance at Joshua, went to stand beside Jeremy, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Jeremy shook his head, and shrugged.
"Alright," Jason agreed. "When you're ready…"
Jeremy nodded. He walked away, leaving Jason looking out the window and going to help Josh.
Jason didn't mind. He could see them both in the reflection in the window.
"Talk about what?" Josh asked.
Jeremy shrugged.
"Is it about –" Josh glanced towards Jason "- us?"
Jeremy shook his head.
"It's pretty serious, you haven't talked all day. Are you alright?"
Jeremy nodded, then managed a small smile for Josh and said, "Uh-huh."
"Okay, then," Josh said and handed Jeremy a water pail.
Jeremy laughed and went to get the water for his brother.
Jason watched all that in the window. He smiled, though a bit grimly. Whatever they had been up to, it was reassuring that they were worried about it. He'd give them more time, just a little. Any more than that and he'd probably explode.
Probably what they were worried about.
Jeremy was washing up, getting ready for bed. "Jason?"
"Hmm?" Now they would get to it, maybe.
"D-did you really have a f-fight–" Jeremy raised his fists and punched with them "- w-with D-da?"
That was unexpected. "I did."
"D-did he t-tell you to g-go away an' d-don't come back?"
"More or less."
"And you d-did?"
"I had a job to go to. And, at the time, no home. What else could I have done?"
Jeremy shrugged.
"That was pretty much my thought. It was a good job, a long one, and it paid well. If I had to, when I got back, I could pick up you boys and we could set off somewhere safer for us all. But I needed the pay to be able to do that."
"Oh, yeah, you told us that," Josh recalled. "The next morning in Lottie's, before the team left." He turned to Jeremy. "What made you ask that?"
Jeremy finished what he was doing and came back to the middle of the room. "I th-think I d-dreamed about it."
"Oh. Why?" Josh was curious.
He shrugged and sat down on his bed. "J-jason?"
"Hmm?"
"Are d-dreams and remembries the same thing, or are th-they d-different?"
"Sometimes it's hard to tell."
"Why-why d-do we have d-dreams? What are they?"
"I don't think anyone really knows. Sometimes they seem to be a way to tell ourselves something, maybe something we don't want to think about."
"Or remember," Josh added.
"Th-that's wh-when n h-how they g-get confused?"
"Possibly. Probably."
"N-not alw-ways?"
"No, not always. Sometimes they can be a thought or an idea you had for just a minute, and you think of it again later when you're asleep."
"Why?"
"Well, that's where we get storytellers and artists from. A gift from god, I suppose."
"Huh."
"There are dreams in the Bible," Josh said.
"Skinny c-cows," Jeremy agreed, nodding his head. "Jason, are d-dreams like w-words, then? We c-can have 'em all the t-time, b-but s-sometimes god uses 'em, too?"
"It could be." Jason thought for a moment. He couldn't resist a little mental poke. "And it could be your own conscience trying to make you think about something else you don't want to."
"Huh?"
"Conscience is god, too," Josh pointed out. "It's when you know if you're good or bad, and god's the only one who really knows that."
"So, maybe, if there's anything on your conscience… ," Jason let his words trail off.
Joshua and Jeremy exchanged stricken, guilty looks.
Jason hid his smile. This was fun, and if they were going to torment him with the unknown, he could do the same in return.
Which seemed to be working. Over the next few days, Jason constantly was seeing his brothers in close, quiet, and intense conversations. While talking they would keep looking around to see where he was and what he was doing. If he started getting too close to where they were talking, one of them (usually Josh) would start speaking normally about normal subjects.
Not as entertaining was the fact that Jeremy was, once again, not sleeping well. He seemed to be having the old monster dreams that he couldn't remember when awake. Every now and then, he would shout out "No!" Sometimes that woke him up, but usually did not. He was getting pale and tired looking again.
Jason wondered if starting work would be helpful, but the weather stayed risky. Plus they were waiting for supplies from the San Francisco trip.
While Jason was still dithering and watching his baby brother, Josh started getting his guitar out after Jeremy went to bed.
That relaxed the boy, and he began sleeping better. Still restless in his sleep, but less often and for shorter periods of time. He looked better, but Jason was still – not exactly worried, but concerned.
Josh played, and sometimes sang, the auld songs, the ones Mom and Da had taught them. Jason sometimes hummed or sung along, haunted and happy with the would smile and concentrate on the music alone.
And sometimes Josh composed his own songs – music and words. Several different takes – and different verses – of ballads about someone leaving their loved ones behind as they left home. Some versions were quirky and fun; others were mournful. So far, he hadn't finished any of the songs, so Jason didn't know if there would be a sad or happy ending. Or, maybe, both.
Jason didn't pay much attention at first. There had always been music in their homes most times. Josh had been singing almost as long as he'd been talking, and teaching Jeremy to sing had been Josh's idea of playing with his little brother.
It was then that Josh had learned most of his patience and a lot of his strategizing – teaching a year-old notes and music was no easy chore, and the little one was more than once applauded for hitting the right note when he decided to cry instead of play that anymore.
How Mom would laugh at that, and then give her sonshine plenty of attention after putting the wee one down for a nap. Sometimes she even managed to sing Josh to sleep, too, and then she could have time with her oldest boy.
Jason smiled.
Jeremy sat up in bed. "Wh-what you sm-smilin' at?"
"Memories."
"Whatchoo remembrying?"
Josh stopped playing, curious to hear the answer.
"Josh teaching you to sing. Practically before you could talk."
Jeremy looked puzzled. "That's s-silly. I always knowed – knew how to sing."
"He could la-la-la. He had a good ear for it, as long as it wasn't words."Josh laughed. "Mama tricking me into taking a nap, and I was a big boy! I remember that."
"I d-don't."
'If you could, you'd remember being in diapers, and no one wants to remember that," Josh explained.
Jeremy thought that over. "That's p-probly right." He flattened himself back under the blanket, and was humming softly to himself when he drifted off into sleep.
Jason and Josh looked at one another and smiled. For just a moment, the shared memories had created a taste of that long gone 'home'.
Josh put away his guitar, and Jason turned out the lamp.
