"J-jason?" Jeremy was seated at the table, watching his oldest brother.
"Hmm?"
"D-do you like shaving?"
Josh snorted from where he was washing the breakfast dishes. Jeremy and his questions!
Jason paused mid-stroke. "Well, I like it better than not shaving."
"Why? How d-do you know?"
"Beards are itchy. And I tried it, once."
"H-how come I d-don't know?"
Jason paused again. "It was during the Bad Times."
"I don't remember, either." Josh joined the conversation.
Jason waved the razor at them. "May I finish?"
His brothers laughed.
Jason wasn't fooled. When Jeremy started with his questions –. He began a mental countdown as he finished and reached for a towel. 4, 3, 2, 1.
"How come you shave ev'ry d-day, and Josh ev'ry w-week?"
"That's an easy one. Two reasons. One, Josh is younger. Two, he's blond. It's not as obvious when he needs to."
"Unless he's in the sunl-light and his f-face is all s-sparkly."
Josh flicked Jeremy with Jason's towel.
"And, I don't know if it matters, but, three, we let Josh start earlier then he might have otherwise."
"For Da? B-because he d-didn't like he wouldn't."
"Speak English," Josh ordered.
"Because he was regretting that he wouldn't see it happen and it was so close, yes."
"H-how d-did you know?"
"Because he was growing taller and acting differently, mostly. Moved different, too. Some of it is hard to explain. Do you want details?"
Jeremy looked away and shook his head.
Josh thumped Jeremy on the head, and Jason looked relieved.
"Any more questions?"
Jeremy shook his head again. "But d-do you LIKE it?"
"It's not a question of liking or not. It's a choice that has to be made frequently. Shave or don't shave? Every man decides for himself, as often as he needs to."
"Sounds b-boring."
Jason laughed.
/
Jeremy was dreaming.
It wasn't like his usual dreams. He was watching things happen, instead of them being happening to him. He hoped that meant he could remember it better, and that if it was scary, it was story-scary, not getting-him scary.
He could remember stories.
He was in bed. It was night. The light in the cabin – their town cabin – was glowy and blurred. There was frost on the window, and it had been snowing since noon.
Da was sitting in his chair reading.
Josh was in the upper bunk. Maybe he was asleep.
Jason wasn't anywhere.
Da had made him go away forever ago.
Because Jason told him he wasn't going to let him keep treating the boys that way; that they were children. That they weren't – a big word – re-possible? That they needed somebody to be that word FOR them, and if Da wasn't going to do it, then he'd have to.
Then Da roared up out of his chair and was yelling at Jason who yelled right back. They had been nose-to-nose, Jason and Da, when Josh suddenly put a pillow over Jeremy's face and pulled the covers up over both their heads and held on tight to the younger boy.
There had been more yelling, so loud it was only sounds, big sounds, but not words. That happened sometimes when Da and Jason yelled at each other. Jason shouldn't yell at Da so much; he was still his Da, too.
Then there was a smacking sound, and then there were hitting sounds, and the very little boy tried to see and wanted to cry. Josh wouldn't let him. Josh holded him down tight and whispered. "Don't. Make. A. Sound. Don't. Even. Move."
So he didn't.
But Josh couldn't make him not cry, and under the cover, under the muffling pillow, tears ran silently and unstoppably down his face.
When the fighting noises kept on, and there wasn't any more hollering, Josh put his head under the pillow, and he was crying, too.
After a while, it got quiet.
Somebody was putting on boots, getting a coat, opening the door.
Josh and Jeremy held their breaths.
The door was slammed shut, and Da yelled "An', dinna be coming back until you remember your place in this family, an' it takes ye twenny years. I'll not have ye!"
The door was slammed again, and finally firmly shut, and the angry man went to his desk and took out his bottle and took a calming drink. (That's what he called it. The boys had their doubts.) "You'd best be sleeping," he said curtly to the unmoving lump that was his younger sons, "or you'll be the next ones out. D'ye hear me?"
Josh's hand covered the dream Jeremy's mouth and nose so his whimper wouldn't be heard.
The dreaming Jeremy woke himself with that same whimper.
He sat up and his bed and looked across to Jason's bed.
Jason was there. His eyes were open. He smiled.
Jeremy heaved a gigantic sigh and laid back down.
It was now again, and Jason was here. He could sleep and be safe.