Chapter Text
“That boy is out of control!”
Nicholas Soong slammed the kitchen cabinet door after retrieving a mug to prepare his customary evening tea. “If I get one more letter from his principal about how he tears up playground equipment or terrorizes the janitor, I’m going to--!”
“Nicky,” Julia interrupted in a low tone so as not to wake the children. “Maybe Laurence acts out because he isn’t on the same level as his classmates. Just two weeks ago, his teacher informed me that she believes he should be in a more advanced classroom. His mental abilities are accelerating much faster than his peers.” Julia sighed and brushed her forehead lightly with her fingertips. “But then...you would know that if you attended these parent/teacher meetings.”
Soong growled as he filled his cup with his bag of mint tea.
He looked at his wife, whose bottom lip was now set in a stern, straight line.
He emitted an exasperated breath. “Perhaps he needs to change schools.”
“Nicky…" Julia sighed. "We can’t move again. I’m tired of moving! The boys are tired of moving! Billy has had enough traumas and Danny never has time to make friends. We can’t keep—“
“Sweetheart,” Soong appeased her. “Moving is out of the question. This project I’m working on…this is it this time; I feel it!” He pulled her closer and gave her a tender kiss on her forehead. “I just think Laurence…may fare better in a…stricter environment. Something like St. Tiberius.”
Julia looked up at him, her mouth slightly agape in surprise. “The boarding school in Riverside?”
“It’ll be good for him,” Soong assured her. “He’ll be in a closed learning environment with other kids like him. He’ll even learn a trade, something to keep him stable and on his feet in the future.”
“I don’t know, Nicky…” Julia sniffed. “Maybe it would be good, but…he’s just a little boy, and if you would just…not be so hard on him and spend more time with him, then maybe—“
“I’ve tried everything, Julia,” he mumbled as the tea kettle began to whistle. He turned off the stove and rubbed his right temple. “I can’t connect to him. He isn’t right.”
Julia stepped closer behind him and weaved her fingers softly through his unkempt hair. “You can't changed what happened to Billy. No one is to--"
“Don’t you dare!” Soong snarled as he turned to her, making her jump in surprise.
Laurence sat at the top of the stairs, his small hands gripping the cedar pillars of the bannister.
His brow furrowed deeper with contempt at every word, and he knew how Soong would convince his wife with his gruff and conniving ways that placing their problematic son in a private school in the middle of the nowhere would be the perfect idea to fix him.
Laurence’s eyes began to burn and he quietly crept back to his room, shutting the door softly behind him. He turned to climb to the top of the bunk bed, but he was met with the inquisitive eyes of his identical brothers: Danny, who was sitting on the bottom bunk clutching his stuffed, striped cat to his chest; and Billy, whose need for his own bed was crucial as he had recurrent night terrors that made him kick and scream.
“Is everything all right, Laurence?” came Danny’s soft, flat voice.
Laurence sniffed as he trotted to the ladder that led to his bed. “None of your business…” he mumbled as he climbed upwards to his mattress.
“I heard yelling!” Billy shouted emphatically.
Laurence and Danny both shushed their brother loudly, and Billy cowered back under his sheet.
“Shut up, dummy!” Laurence whispered, harshly. “Dad’ll come up here…”
Billy whimpered as Danny got out of his bed and looked up at his brother with a blank expression. “Please do not call him that. You know how it makes him cry.”
Laurence rolled his eyes and plopped onto his side.
Danny then frowned disapprovingly before quickly walking over to Billy’s bed where he proceeded to stroke his shoulder, soothingly. “Do not listen to him,” Danny whispered. “He does not mean it.”
Billy wiped a tear from his cheek and looked at his brother with doleful, blue eyes. “I’m bad, Danny. I heard Mom say my name and Dad yelled at her. I'm bad.”
“You are not,” his brother comforted, smiling. “Go to sleep. We are going to the park tomorrow.”
As Billy’s face brightened with a similar grin, Laurence mumbled, “He’ll just sit in the damn dirt and probably try to eat worms or something.”
Billy gasped and giggled. “Laurence! That's a bad word. Haha! 'Damn.'”
Danny scolded, “Do not repeat that. He is trying to get you into trouble.”
“It’ll be a damn good change,” Laurence grumbled again, “having someone else take the blame.”
Danny looked up at his despondent brother’s reclined body outlined tightly by his thin bed sheet. He turned back to Billy, saying, “Good night, brother.”
“Hee hee. Laurence. You're funny.”
Danny shushed him once more and, with his stuffed cat still clutched closely to him, he climbed up the ladder to Laurence’s bed. Danny laid next him, his curious eyes trying search those of his miserable brother.
Laurence only returned Danny’s look with a harsh glare. “Go away, nerd,” he commanded, simply.
Danny didn’t budge, but just scooted closer to him. “What is the matter?” he asked in a hushed voice.
Laurence bit his tongue so the tears in his eyes wouldn't fall onto his cheeks. However, one escaped and spattered onto his bed spread as he curled up into a tighter ball.
“Dad hates me,” he moaned lightly in a choked voice.
Danny’s mouth fell open in surprise and he instantly sat up, moved even closer to Laurence, and placed a comforting hand on his back. “Father does not hate you,” he promised, matter-of-factually.
“He does!” he moaned louder. “He hates me! He wants to send me away to another school!”
“Mother would not allow that.” Danny wasn't sure if he believed his own words as he also knew how convincing Soong could be with her.
“She was thinking about it just now, too,” Laurence explained to him as he sat up and crossed his arms. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his legs as more tears fell onto the bed. “It’s because I’m smarter. I’m smarter than those dumb kids in our class, Danny. Dad doesn't want another smart kid.”
“Why would he not want that?” Danny asked, tilting his head curiously.
“Because…he has you…” Laurence replied as he raised his hateful eyes to him. “You’re his favorite; you always have been. Because you’re good…” He paused and sniffed loudly. “And I’m…not right…”
He suddenly plopped back onto his side, facing away from his brother, and sobbed into his pillow.
Danny didn’t know what to tell him. He recognized that Laurence was quite mischievous, willful, but also very intelligent. Why would their father want to send him away for being the individual that he was?
If anything, their father should be proud that he had two brilliant sons since the accident had left Billy with dysfunctional cognitive skills. Billy had once loved to read, and he read volumes of books on biology and medicine. Most of the medical books Julia bought him were too advanced even for his level of reading, but he still pored over them, cover to cover, marveling over the medical diagrams of skin cells, brain tissue, and heart valves.
It all changed instantly. He now had to be assisted with most of the basic tasks. He only spoke in short sentences, and had a tendency to repeat himself or tell the same story over and over like it was new every time. Their mother no longer worked with their father because she had to take care of Billy and keep an eye on him while Danny and Laurence went to school.
Danny was now the pride and joy of the Soong family while Laurence felt disregard and neglect.
He realized just how lonely his brother was.
He carefully placed his stuffed cat at the foot of the bed before laying next to Laurence and putting his forehead between his shoulder blades. He felt his brother’s body tremble as his crying subsided, and Danny carefully reached out and stroked Laurence’s shaggy, black hair.
“Do not be sad,” he whispered to him. “Everything will work out all right.”
Laurence resisted rolling his eyes again at his naïve brother’s conviction, and instead allowed him to continue stroking the dark locks on his head.
The measured strokes were matching in length and pressure, and he knew that Danny was mentally counting the number of times his fingertips touched his brother’s scalp.
Danny always did things like this. Counting. He was always counting. Counting the steps it took to get from the front door to their bedroom. Counting the seconds it took for the coffee pot to brew in the morning. Danny always seemed to be lacking in emotional reactions, but if any of his counting happened to be off, he would begin to heave, thinking that he had missed a step or a drop of coffee.
Their mother was always there to quell his fears, and she would do things like brew another pot of coffee so that he could start over. In fact, Laurence couldn’t say how many cups of coffee had been washed away down the sink drain because Danny would have a panic attack. One would think that their father would be upset at how wasteful his child was acting all for the sake of some mental compulsion.
Laurence frowned at the thought of his father. He used to have all of Soong’s attention. He would sit in his father’s lap and watch him sketch out miraculous mechanical designs of vast machines that floated in the air and on the water. Soong would take him to his job sites and show how his designs were being built, and Laurence was even allowed a few times to sit at the controls and pretend to be flying into space or sailing toward an enemy ship.
Then, the accident happened.
The boys were riding their bicycles down their street one hot afternoon when Laurence playfully rammed into Billy, making him fall off his bike and onto the sticky blacktop. “Stop it! I'll tell Dad!” Billy had cried out at him.
Danny stopped his bike and watched them argue. It was then that Danny saw the car that was speeding toward them. “Laurence! Billy!”
His cry got their attention and they both looked back at the car. Laurence was able to jump out of the way, and he lay in the grass, his face hidden as he heard a dull thump. Thinking his bicycle had been trashed, he slowly raised his eyes to find Billy on his back in the road, his arms contorted strangely over his torso, several feet from the front of the car.
Laurence ran over to him as Danny ran into the house, shouting for their parents. Billy’s left leg was broken, and Laurence swallowed back the bile that was rising in his throat as he glanced at the bone that was protruding through his skin.
He gazed down at his brother's pale face. “Billy?” he said, carefully shaking him by the shoulder. “Wake up…Billy.”
He continued to stare at his brother, not sure whether he was dead or just unconscious. He was brought out of his trance by his mother’s horrified shrieking. “My baby!” Her voice rang in his ears.
Their father was now running out to the street as the driver tried to explain to him that he didn’t even see the child.
Soong ignored him and slid onto his knees next to Laurence. He carefully lifted Billy and cradled his head, and Laurence could see the blood pouring from the back of his brother’s skull and through his father’s callused fingers.
“Oh, God, no!” Soong moaned. “My boy! My beautiful boy!” He put his forehead against Billy’s and sobbed, but he soon turned a dark scowl in Laurence’s direction. “Why didn’t you pull him out of the way!?” he growled angrily.
Laurence was being gently led out of the street by Julia as the ambulance skidded to a stop several feet away. Not even the blare of the sirens could shroud his father’s vile words:
“This is your fault.”
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Laurence slowly opened his eyes as he awoke from his heavy doze to still feel fingertips running through his hair. He looked up to see that his father had climbed onto the ladder to gaze at his sleeping boys, and he gave Laurence a small smile as he stopped caressing his hair and swept a thumb across his son’s wet cheek.
Laurence looked over his shoulder to find that Danny had curled up behind him and was hugging his stuffed cat once more as he slept soundly. He looked back at Soong. “Dad?” he whimpered. “Please don’t send me away.”
Soong smirked uncomfortably and opened his mouth to speak, but Laurence interrupted, saying, “I can be better. I can be good. Everything can be fixed, Dad. You told me that once. Everything broken can be fixed.”
His father bit his lip and shook his head. “No, Laurence. It can’t. I’ve given you so many chances.” He took a deep breath and looked away, mumbling, "I don't have the time anymore.”
Laurence watched as his father climbed down the ladder and walked over to Billy’s bed. He watched as Soong swept a tuft of dark hair away from a prominent dull scar just behind Billy’s left temple. Soong bent down and kissed his son on the cheek and walked to the door, shutting it behind him without giving Laurence another glance.
Danny twitched in his sleep and Laurence turned to him, sneering and grabbing his cat from his arms. He threw it at Billy’s face, making him yelp in shock but not waking him.
Laurence climbed down the ladder and lay in Danny’s bed on the bottom bunk.
He curled into a ball once more and closed his eyes tightly as he tried to block out the muffled sound of his mother’s crying coming from the master bedroom.