There was one issue still to be dealt with, Jason thought, pacing. Or was there? He couldn't quite make up his mind.

"What is wrong with you?" Josh demanded, looking up from the ledgers spread out on the table.

"Trying to decide what to do about something. Or if I should."

"That's clear as mud." Josh closed the books and capped the ink. "Let's go outside. At least out there if you make a path all the walking will have been for something."

"Oh, I don't think the town needs any more paths – at least not until we have a few more buildings." Jason followed Josh to the porch.

"We're working on that. Aren't we?"

"I hope so." Jason leaned against a post on the porch and frowned in the direction of the square. "Do you think Stempel was right when he said we should have been down here replacing the dock instead of just repairing it?"

"No."

Jason smiled. "You sound so sure."

"We did our share after the storm. More than our share."

"We could have done more."

"So could Stempel. He thinks we should have done the work so he'd only have half the costs to pay."

"You're probably right about that. But we'll benefit as much as he from a longer, stronger dock."

"Mm."

"Yeah, you hadn't thought of that, had you?"

"No, not really. Jason, right now, I can think of at least three things we SHOULD be doing. None of them to benefit Aaron Stempel. Except working, maybe. We took some time for ourselves. We needed it. Time just to be ourselves, just the Bolt brothers,brothering. Not Bolt Brothers, Incorporated. Not Seattle's Civil Volunteers. You can't say it hasn't worked for us. We've worked out new cut sites, marked a few trees, started advertising for men, and buying provisions for a base camp starting Monday. THAT should make Stempel as happy as we are. If anything can."

"Brother, I don't think anything can make anyone as happy as we've been."

"Well then."

"With one exception."

Josh looked at him.

Jason nodded at Jeremy, who was running up the street with a kite and a crowd of (4) children running after him (when they weren't admiring the high-climbing kite.)

"He looks happy enough to me."

"That's what I'm trying to decide."

"At the risk of sounding like him, Huh?"

Jason was looking at their brother, watching him run and laugh. It looked like his torso was starting to catch up with his legs that had sprouted so crazily mid-year, and he was, predictably, thoroughly muddied. The knees of his trousers, and the front of his shirt were as dirty as they were wet, and he had streaks on his face and in his hair.

He saw his brothers outside, waved, and handed off the spool to the kite to a brother-sister pair and trotted over to them. "When's the last time you flied a kite, Jason?"

"Probably a couple of years," he admitted, with a laugh. "Are you wanting to make a contest of it?"

Jeremy's whole face lit up. "Are you?"

"I'll have to build one first. Better give me a couple hours."

"What ab-bout you, Josh?"

"No thanks. I quit playing in the mud years ago, and I'm keeping it that way."

"Then you can b-be the judge."

Josh grinned. "Now that I can do! When and where?"

They settled that, with Jeremy generously allowing Jason the whole night to make his kite, until Josh pointed out that the children were losing control of Jeremy's and sent him, yelping, to rescue it.

"Looks more than happy to me," Josh said.

Jason laughed, watching Jeremy run back down the street with the children. "I never thought we'd ever see him so at ease."

"Not in the middle of town," Josh agreed. "So what's got you walking the floor?"

"That one specific nightmare of his. It worries me."

"If he has it again, you can do something then, maybe. Do you really want to bring that –" he nodded toward Jeremy "down. Let him be happy."

"You're right. I know. Last year, Ms. Amelia told me to watch for something haunting him. She said he was finally finding safety and security, and the things that had destroyed that for him wouldn't easily loosen their grip. He's had that nightmare more in this last year than in the five years before."

"Ms. Amelia was an old lady, and probably getting a bit –"

"No. She wasn't. Not when she was telling me that."

"A lot of the things that – did that – and for all of us, not just him – can't be undone. Mom and Da will still be dead, and Jeremy will still have grown up being mocked for stuttering or being completely silent."

"I know that. It isn't about undoing. It's about understanding."

"What do you think that will make different?"

"I think, sometimes," Jason sighed. "What if it cures him?"

"I ain't sick," Jeremy said, coming around from the back. (He'd had to put his kite away, and wipe off some of the mud.) "Am I?"

"No, not sick exactly."

"You'd t-tell m-me, if I was sick?"

"Yes."

Jeremy considered that, hopping from one foot to the other. "P-promise?"

"I promise."

"Then what are you t-talking about?"

"What makes you think we were talking about you?"

Jeremy grinned. "B'cause when I asked w-was I s-sick, you d-didn't say you wasn't t-talking 'bout me."

Jason threw back his head and laughed his big booming laugh. "Clever little fella, ain'tcha?" He put his hands on Jeremy's shoulders and walked him to the door, opening it for him. "Get out of those clothes and into something clean, and we'll go get some supper."

"Oh, boy, you don't have to tell me t-twice!" Jeremy slammed the door in Jason's face.