Chapter Text
In many ways, July of 1969 is an eventful time for America.
Anti-war protests are taking place in campuses across the country, the first U.S. troop withdrawals are being made from Vietnam, and Apollo 11 is lifting off from Cape Kennedy, to land on the Moon.
“That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
For Pete Mitchell, a charming nine-year-old, with a talent for attracting trouble, and a winsome smile that allows him to get away with most of his mischief, none of these matter as much as his father leaving for deployment.
On the day of his departure, Duke Mitchell tells his son to take care of his wife, “You make sure she eats right and don’t give her too much trouble, you hear me Petey?”
Pete hears him loud and clear. He knows his mother is frail and poorly, she’s been that way since she suffered from a bout of tuberculosis as a kid. Even now, she’s holding onto the porch railing with a white knuckled grip, and has that face on—where she’s trying very hard not to cry, but it shows. He takes her hand in his much smaller palm, lifts his chin, and gives his father a look that he can only hope inspires confidence. “Yessir! I promise I will.”
The tall man, already dressed in his service khakis lets loose an amused laugh, lips curling in a playful smile. He extends his arm, “I have something for you, go on, close your eyes.” Pete partially complies, peering out at his dad’s palm from behind his half-shut eyes.
His father gently presses a miniature model of an F4 Phantom into Pete’s open palm, and his eyes fly open in surprise. “This is the jet that you fly, isn’t it daddy?!” he proudly exclaims.
Duke Mitchell finally picks up his only child in his arms, breathes in his sweet scent, and murmurs into his soft hair, “You bet it is, darlin’!”
“When I grow up, I’m going to fly a jet just like this,” Pete whispers, still looking at his new toy.
And in the naïve, trusting way of most children, who only see exactly what their parents what them to, Pete doesn’t catch the wary look Mabel and Duke exchange over his bent head.
There are no omega fighter pilots in the U.S. military, or in any military in the world, for that matter. (There are no omegas enrolled at any of the universities, across the country, they cannot be.) But, Duke Mitchell believes there’s no need to crush the dreams of a nine-year-old boy so early in life, so they’re all going along with the ruse; after all, Pete has plenty of time to grow up.
The sun rises across the horizon, and it casts a golden halo around Lieutenant Mitchell’s head, as he swings his son into the air and catches him in his arms; the boy dissolves into a fit of giggles.
“Golly kid, you’re flying already, not a jet in sight!” he says with a bright smile. And Pete locks his arms behind his neck, rolls his eyes, and whispers, as if sharing a grand secret: “You’re being silly again, daddy.”
“What can I do, baby? I’m a fool for you,” his father murmurs, pressing a fond kiss to his forehead.
And that’s the last memory Pete has of his father.
It’s two weeks before Christmas, when a uniformed man comes knocking on their door. He takes off his hat before entering the house and somehow, even before he’s had a chance to say a single word, Pete knows something is very wrong.
The man tells them that his father was shot down over enemy lines, his plane went missing, and a third of his squadron was taken out on that mission. They weren’t even able to retrieve a body. Pete’s mother seems to be in shock, sitting on the couch with her face paled beyond anything he thought humanly possible, but he can’t bring himself to comfort her in that moment. He runs into his room, hot tears running down his flushed cheeks.
There’s a hot lump of coal lodged in his throat, slowly and steadily choking him, and Pete realizes that he can barely breathe.
The model of the F4 Phantom that he has lovingly displayed on his study table, stares down at him. He hasn’t seen his father in eighteen months, cannot remember the exact shade of blue of his eyes, the curve of his smile, or the low rumble of his laugh.
All Pete can remember in that moment, is his last promise to him. “I’ll take care of her daddy, don’t worry, wherever you are, fair winds and following seas,” he whispers into the still emptiness of his room.
(The emptiness remains with Pete—a constant, heavy companion—for years to come.)
They lower an empty casket into the cold frozen ground, a week later. His mother is handed a folded flag, and she breaks down crying, as she throws the first fistful of soil into the hollow grave.
Pete hears the church bells toll in the frigid air behind him, and absently thinks that he can feel the reverberations in his very soul.
(He doesn’t cry though, he cannot, he has a promise to keep.)
They don’t really have other family—no grandparents, or aunts and uncles, or cousins—so it’s just the two of them, Pete and Mabel Mitchell, against the world.
He does his best, cleans up after himself, packs his own lunch, gets good grades in school.
He grows, and learns, and stumbles, and rights himself, tries his hardest to be the boy his father would’ve wanted him to be.
He helps his mother with the dishes and the cooking, even gets a part time job cutting grass around the neighborhood, to earn some extra pocket money.
But it’s painfully obvious, that none of it ever quite manages to make up for the absence of his father.
—
Mabel Mitchell’s health deteriorates rapidly in the two years that follow her husband’s death.
The acrimony that follows Duke Mitchell’s demise, takes its toll on her. It starts a few months after the funeral, when a man who works at the Department of Defense comes to enquire about Duke’s state of mind before he went off for deployment, whether there were any inconsistencies in his behavior. And then, it slowly comes out—the story they’re spinning—that her husband was a coward, that he betrayed his country and his brothers-in-arms, that he was a traitor who messed up.
The investigators eventually stop visiting when it becomes apparent that Duke Mitchell’s ailing widow and omega son have no information that they’d be able to share. And on January 27th, 1973 President Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam.
The Paris Peace Accords are signed and the war that has plagued the country and the world, for many years comes to an end. Two months later, beleaguered soldiers and POWs return to their families among heartfelt, tearful reunions.
It’s around this time, that Mabel is diagnosed with leukemia. She reads and re-reads her reports, spends enough hours in white sterile rooms with enough consultants, to know that the odds are stacked, staggeringly against her favor.
They give her six months to ‘get her affairs in order’, so to speak. And the world moves ahead, while a different kind of war rages on, for Mabel.
There’s something about death, imminent death, that puts life in perspective—your own, and that of your loved ones. Mabel Mitchell only has one person left, her only child, and she tries to shelter her son as much as she can.
By the age of thirteen he’s already lost one parent, and is well on his way to losing another. But she cannot let him know that… not yet.
An open letter lies innocuously on her writing desk, next to the pot of ink, and the Yogi Bear paperweight her husband had jokingly bought her at a county fair, many years ago. It had been an inside-joke, one of many they shared as two young people who’d fallen irrevocably in love under less-than-ideal circumstances, and never looked back. Having grown up in an orphanage, Mabel hadn’t really had the luxury of watching telly as a child. Which is why, when her husband gifted her a television set as one of the many wedding gifts he bought her, she’d been utterly fascinated by the magic of cartoons—and Yogi Bear, in particular.
They’d met at Pensacola: Duke, a student aviator undergoing flight indoctrination, and Mabel, a runaway omega from an orphanage on the Upper West Side, working double shifts at the local dive bar, with a fake name and a fake age, in order to make ends meet.
She remembers feeling, at that time, that Duke was just yet another thing she wasn’t supposed to covet, couldn’t even dream of reaching.
And he claims, he’d fallen in love with her at first sight.
As such things usually go, they’d bonded and married against his family’s, and her own, expectations. He’d been promptly cut-off by his parents without a single penny, and the birth of an omega son, seven months later, had done nothing to redeem the errant couple in their eyes.
Mabel knows poverty like the back of her hand: the gnaw of hunger, the bite of a cold house you can’t hope to pay to heat, the drudgery of working three jobs to keep yourself afloat. And while Duke has left a sizable sum of money for them—enough that her son shouldn’t ever have to experience dearth, the way she did—she’s wise enough to know that money alone, doesn’t ensure the safety of a lone omega child in this world.
Which brings her back to the letter she’s received from one Commander Kazansky, the former X.O. of the squadron her husband flew with.
They’ve been in regular correspondence since that ill fated Christmas of nineteen-seventy, when his letter expressing his deepest condolences reached her. Joseph Kazansky is a distinguished officer. He’s been flying since he was an ensign during the Korean War, where he shot down four MiGs and was awarded the Navy Cross for his efforts. He’s happily married to his childhood sweetheart and they have a married daughter, and a younger son.
All this she knows, because her husband told her as much, in the days leading up to his final deployment. He had been glad to know that he was going to serve with a good man.
What exactly Commander Kazansky got up-to during the Vietnam War, she doesn’t know, but she can say with the honed instincts of a mother, that he wasn’t involved in the foul play that followed her husband’s death. Mabel hasn’t known many good men in her life, which is why she can recognize one, when she sees him. Commander Joseph Kazansky is a good man.
He won’t reveal classified information to her, he’s too much of a patriot for that, even if it is related to what he describes as ‘one of the gravest injustices he’s seen during his naval career’. But Mabel’s long made peace with the fact that she will never know what exactly went down on the day her husband died.
It doesn’t matter as much to her anymore… she has her son to think about—in whose smile and beaming eyes, her husband lives on.
When she had told him about her diagnosis, Commander Kazansky had been devastated. He’d been adamant, wanting to help in any way he could, and Mabel had thought long and hard about the decision she made.
In the end, her motherly instinct had won: she’d seen the sacrifices she’d have to make, the sacrifices Pete would have to make, and she’d accepted them, with a heavy heart, on behalf of both of them.
She’d pictured Pete, three, four, five years from now, being tossed from one foster home to the next, his cheeks sunken and pale, his eyes glossed over with the hurt and grief and pain that accompanies knowing no-one wants you, and no-one really cares. And then, she’d thought of a random state-appointed guardian, taking a considering look at her son, and making a self-serving, mercenary decision on his behalf—marrying him off to the first alpha who brought with him a good deal.
In one of the many, identical homes that dot the suburban landscape, she’d seen Pete, her only child, trapped in the daily drudgery of a domestic life, with a cruel alpha who didn’t allow him to leave the house without permission, or got too drunk and beat him black and blue, or slapped him for talking back, or forced him to bear a child too young. And Mabel knew, without a shadow of doubt, what she had to do.
It’s definitely old-fashioned, the arrangement she had proposed; and she remembers being surprised by the prompt, affirmative response the Commander had given, with an accompanying photo of a serious-looking boy in a muddy jersey, holding a championship trophy in his firm grip.
A life of fulfilling domestic duties was a given for any omega, but that doesn’t mean it had to be bad. Pete could be happy, yes, he would find happiness with a family like the Kazanskys. They’d agreed to look after all of his needs, allow him to attend high-school—all the way till the end (reassured her that there’s no way they’d ever consider the prospect of Pete dropping out—their own daughter had even attended a whole term at a finishing school), proposed to add a clause to the contract that explicitly stated that Pete wouldn’t get bonded until he turned eighteen—despite the prevalent social norm of getting omegas bonded after their first heat. At the end of the day, what truly convinced Mabel, reassured her that the decisions she was making for her son's life were sound, was the warmth she saw reflected in Tom Kazansky’s steady, blue eyes, looking up at her from the photo. They were kind, perceptive eyes, that saw the world for exactly what it was… and in them, Mabel saw a person who’d look after her son, safeguard his inner goodness and timid naïveté.
They made it easier for Mabel to see a good future for Pete: a loving husband who would cherish him (who would never even raise his voice at him, much less a hand), a beautiful home somewhere near the sea, where he could start his own family, two or maybe even three children, who’d make him very proud and very happy, a comfortable life devoid of strife or grief or pain.
She knows things could’ve ended up much worse, as surely as she is aware, that her darling son would probably go on a hunger-strike if he found out what she has planned.
Pete is going to be angry with her one day, when he finds out what she has done.
All Mabel can hope for is that when her son is grown, he’ll realize, she did the best she could, with the hand she was dealt in life.
She gets to work, formulating a reply to the Kazanskys’ request for an official visit next month, a set date to get their papers in order.
—
Pete is wearing his nicest shirt with a starched high collar that scratches his neck, along with a carefully-pressed pair of slacks, and he’s decidedly displeased about it.
It’s a Saturday, the one day they keep the community pool open only for kids below fifteen, so that mixed groups of friends can go swimming together, and he cannot believe he’s being made to miss out on that for this.
Peering up from under his lashes, Pete sneaks another glance at the boy he’s being forced to entertain, as their parents converse in the living room. A fresh wave of irritation swells in his chest. He hasn’t offered any words beyond the perfunctory, “Hello, I’m Tom Kazansky, pleased to meet you.”
Boring grown-up words, spoken in the presence of the grown-ups, surely to keep up some façade of politeness, lest he get into trouble with them.
Suck up, Pete thinks derisively. If he doesn’t like something, he never shies away from making his feelings known about it.
Just because Tom Kazansky is fifteen-years-old, it doesn’t mean he’s too cool for him.
What Pete cannot for the life of him understand, is why Tom seems to be so upset, when he’s the one ruining the entire day with his sudden visit. He’s tried to play nice: shown him his comic books, and toys, and movie posters, even the track medals he’d won at school. He’d imagined Tom would say something like: Wow, you’re so cool, you must be the fastest kid in the entire state.
Instead, all Tom had done was give him a polite hum of praise, and an off-handed: “Your shirt has come untucked from behind.”
Cheeks aflame, Pete had hurriedly taken him out to the backyard, as he made a pointed attempt to not fix his shirt.
Screw it, he thinks. He’s done babysitting this grump, Tom can be as dour as he wants, all by himself in the backyard. Pete is going to salvage the remains of his afternoon.
Bolstered by this sudden decision, he takes a running start at the wooden fence surrounding their yard and scales it quickly. He’s straddling the fence, about to swing his other leg over when he hears an incredulous voice hiss at him, “What do you think you’re doing?!”
So, now he wants to talk?
“I am going to go enjoy the rest of my afternoon, Kazansky, you can sit there and continue observing your vow of silence!”
“Are you crazy? Get off that fence, it’s dangerous!”
“Oh but you see,” Pete yells joyously, finally jumping off, “I am dangerous!”
He drops on the concrete pavement with a thud, and feels his knees burn in protest.
Getting up with a groan, all he can do is hope that he hasn’t torn anything—he’d never hear the end of it, if he has. Pete’s wiping the dust off his pants, when he spots a lean figure vault across the barrier he has just crossed. Tom makes a steady landing in front of him and looks barely ruffled, the clean lines of his blazer, in place.
It isn’t fair how some people get to be tall, Pete thinks as he straightens up quickly, but Tom catches onto the movement.
“You fell, didn’t you?” he asks, with a look that definitely says I told you so. “I hope you didn’t hurt yourself, come-on, let’s go back inside, your mom can take a look at you,” he says, walking back in the direction of their porch.
Yeah, that’s not happening.
“You can go back inside, I’m going out!” Pete says, taking-off in the opposite direction. It’s a Saturday, he refuses to be cooped up at home with dour Kazansky, and his dour face, and his strange accent that he can barely understand.
“Are you for real? Come back here! Pete!”
Tom’s protestations are lost to the wind, as Pete turns the corner, his sneakers making squeaking sounds on the tough concrete.
The summer sun is warm on his face and a sudden gust of wind blows his sweaty bangs off his forehead. His right knee burns in a way that tells him he’s scraped it up badly but for now, it doesn’t matter.
The neat rows of houses that populate their neighbourhood, give way to fields of sunflowers and wild grass.
Pete’s stumbling down a golden grassy slope when he sees the destination of his impromptu excursion rise up, in front of him.
There’s a wide chattering river that courses through the grassy field. Flat topped rocks jut out through its blue depths, their mossy surfaces providing dubious footholds for any potential crossers.
Pete takes a moment to gather his breath. He couldn’t have been stationary for more than ten seconds when another figure comes running down the slope.
Tom’s hair have turned a burnished gold in the afternoon sun, and his blue eyes narrow in consternation as he takes in the sight of his crouched figure, still breathing deeply.
“You’re a piece of work you know that, right?” he says as he adjusts the blazer that he’s folded and is now carrying in the crook of his arm.
“Why did you follow me?” Pete gasps out, two spots of color high on his cheeks, breaths coming out in short, labored puffs. It’s annoying how Tom is barely winded by his run—strangely admirable, yes, but mostly annoying.
“What was I supposed to tell our parents when they came out to look for us? Yes, Mrs Mitchell, your son was right here, till he decided to jump off your backyard fence, skinned his knees cause he couldn’t quite manage the landing, and ran away! I just stood there and let it all happen, you see, I figured there wouldn’t be any horrible people who’d want to kidnap wayward thirteen-year-old omegas, in your charming little town.”
“My landing was absolutely perfect, I’ll have you know and I’m fully capable of taking care of myself!” Pete says, face burning in vexation. You little know-it-all, just ‘cause you’re older, and taller, and faster, that doesn’t mean you’re in-charge of me.
“Sure, I’ll believe you. Now, come-on let’s head home,” Tom says, with a supercilious tilt of one brow.
And Pete has had enough of this annoyingly-tall, self absorbed, absolute nuisance of a boy, who’s done nothing but snip at him, or ignore him, all day. He runs down the rest of the slope, and jumps across the first few rocks that emerge from the river.
Securing his footing on the stone, he glances back at Tom, who’s now looking at him with a mix of annoyance and worry.
“Please, for Christ’s sake, get back here before you crack your big head open.”
“Trust me, Kazansky, I got this, I’ll get from this foothold to the next in a single hop, I won gold for long jump on field day, you see!”
Pete’s now at the very centre of the river where the rocks are much farther apart; the next one is easily six feet away. Before, Tom can get another word in edgewise, he swings his right knee and left arm upward and takes off. He doesn’t account for the fact that he has no running start and more importantly, forgets his dominant knee is banged up.
A sharp pain shoot up his leg, as his body swings forward and he knows he won’t make it till the next rock, but it’s too late; his momentum propels him directly into the water.
It’s surprisingly cold, is Pete’s first thought, as he falls into the frigid embrace of the stream. The funny thing is, that he never actually got to complete his swimming lessons. It doesn’t matter anyway, his right leg has cramped completely, the muscles refusing to move.
So there isn’t much he can do, except thrash around in the freezing cold, as he sinks into the murky depths of the river. His nose is burning and he wonders distantly, can people tell if you’re crying, underwater? And then, he thinks: if he manages to survive this, his mother is going to kill him.
A strong arm grabs him around his waist, and he feels a tugging sensation, as he’s deftly pulled above the surface.
Breathing in a lungful of air, with a huge gasp, Pete feels his head go fuzzy with exertion. Tom begins to swim to the grassy bank, swift strokes cutting through the water, his arm now vice-like around Pete’s waist.
They reach the shore and the older boy swings him around to lift him onto the riverbank. He then follows him ashore, dripping water onto the warm grass, as he kneels in front of him.
“Can you breathe, it doesn’t hurt anywhere, does it?” he asks, encircling his fingers around Pete’s wrist, as if to reassure himself of his pulse.
Cold water drips down Pete’s hair, into his eyes, his nose, his lips, and he gives Tom a dazed nod of affirmation, raising a trembling hand to push his hair back from his forehead. And somehow, that one tiny motion, is enough for Tom’s expression to change from that of pinched worry, to baffled rage.
“You don’t even know how to swim!” he yells. “You would’ve drowned, actually drowned, what were you thinking?”
And it’s all too much for Pete, who promptly bursts into a flood of tears, that leave warm tracks against his cold face, as his teeth chatter in protest.
Tom immediately breaks off mid-tirade and looks down at him in mild horror. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, it’s all right. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled. You must be cold,” he says, as he slips Pete into the blazer that he’d dumped on the ground in a hurry, to dive in after him.
“Can you walk? It’s getting very late, we really should get back.”
Pete gets up from his sitting position, takes two limping steps forward before his right leg gives out completely. He’s only stopped from falling unceremoniously to the ground, by a quick steadying arm around his shoulder.
Sighing audibly, Tom drops to his knees, with his back facing him, and says in a flat tone, “Get on.”
Pete’s about to refuse, assert that he can walk fine just fine when he adds, “I’m pretty certain an hour has passed since you’ve executed your little disappearing act, they’re definitely looking for us by now, and I don’t think you want to be in any more trouble than you already are.”
It takes him exactly five seconds to make up his mind. Admitting defeat, and climbing onto a stranger’s back is vastly preferable to getting grounded till Christmas.
Tom hoists him up easily, a little too easily, and starts the long walk home. His scent seems to envelop Pete, as they slowly make their way back, ameliorated by the too-big, warm blazer he’s wrapped up in. And although this isn’t the way he wanted to spend his Saturday, Tom doesn’t smell so bad, minty cool with a hint of rain, or earth, or something.
The bright afternoon sky has mellowed into a softer blue and the buzzing of cicadas accompanied by the fatigue of almost drowning, lulls him into a dreamless sleep, his head coming to rest on the older boy’s shoulder.
Pete awakens with a start, to the sound of an anxious shout. He blinks as his eyes refocus and he gets a bearing of his surroundings. They’re at the end of his street, the top of his red tiled roof visible in the distance. He takes in the terrifying view of the Kazanskys, rushing towards him with matching looks of worry on their faces.
It’s with a sudden bolt of mortification that he realises he’s still being carried by their son.
He urgently nudges Tom’s shoulder and Tom startles, turning his head slightly, “Oh, so now you’re awake.”
Pete doesn’t get a chance to ask him what that means, because his mother’s rushing towards him, her slight frame trembling with unshed tears and fury, “Where on God’s green earth were you, Pete Mitchell?”
For a strange, uncomprehending second, Pete wishes Tom would never put him down. That way, he’d never have to face his mother’s fury, yes, he could stay up on these shoulders forever.
“Mabel, it’s okay, look they’re both fine, I’m sure there’s a perfectly innocent explanation for all this,” Tom’s mother says, her pretty blue eyes looking over the two boys with relief.
The thing is, Pete thinks, they’re not completely fine. They’re both still wet, he’s clearly wearing Tom’s blazer, which is too large and definitely too fancy for him, and maybe this would be a good time for Tom to put him down.
His mother has spent enough years with him, to see right through whatever lies he could try to come up with, it’s futile, he’s going to be grounded well into the next year. Nothing but school, and homework, and household chores for Pete, till he turns fourteen. Oh Lord.
“I think it’d be better, if we took this inside,” Joseph Kazansky says, giving both boys a critical once-over.
Tom only puts Pete down when they reach the living room, carefully lowering him onto the couch. His mother bundles them both up in towels and deposits a hot cup of milk in their hands.
Tom tries to decline but a sharp look from his mother, shuts him up quickly.
Mom apologises for not having a change of clothes in his size and the Kazanskys are quick to point out that it’s all right, it’s summer and their son is already, almost completely dry.
It’s surreal, how all three pairs of eyes drift to Pete, at once and his mother is the one to break the silence.
“What happened then, honey,” she inquires, and Pete feels his blood run cold. He’s panicking, trying to find his words, when a voice pipes up next to him, “It was my fault really, Mrs Mitchell, I was getting bored so I asked Pete to show me around town and he agreed.”
And Pete can hardly believe his own ears, he’s staring at Tom, who’s now giving his mother a sorry, bashful smile.
“I realize I should’ve asked for permission before we left, but I figured you all were discussing something very important, and I really thought we’d be back in no time.”
As he utters the last few words, Tom gives a pointed glance at his parents, who oddly, look away.
None of what he has said provides any insight into why they’re wet, or why Pete is still clutching onto his now ruined blazer, but the adults all seem to be ready to brush the whole incident under the rug.
Mom sends another suspicious glare his way, and Pete busies himself, draining the cup of milk he’s been handed.
The time comes for the Kazanskys to leave, they’re driving back to Fort Worth and Mrs Kazansky wants to ensure they make it back in time for dinner.
There’s warm goodbyes all round and Pete gets the distinct feeling he’s missing something very crucial.
There is a taut undercurrent to the whole situation, as if something important has been settled and the thing is, everyone but him, seems to be in the know.
He gives Commander Kazansky a tentative smile as the tall man fondly ruffles his hair.
Mrs Kazansky surprises him with a hug and a gentle pat on his cheek as she tells him to take care.
The two of them head out towards the car and then there’s just Tom standing there, outlined by the setting sun, perfect hair rumpled by the events of the day.
Pete knows he should thank him for saving his ass, maybe apologize for not listening to him but the words get stuck in his throat. He’s about to blurt something out, regardless, when Tom grins down at him, amusement shining in the depths of his eyes and declares, “You drool in your sleep.”
And then, he walks down the road to join his parents as they get into the car.
Pete watches him go and suddenly remembers the blazer that’s still lying forgotten on his sofa. He yells across the street, “Hey! Your jacket is still with us, wait up, I’ll bring it out for you.”
But the engine has started and the car is making its way down the road.
Tom leans out of the window, his hair getting tousled in the wind, “Keep it Pete, consider it yours.”
It’s an odd end to an odd day.
He makes his way back into the living room, sees the blazer lying there innocuously. He picks it up and sniffs it, a heady mix of mint clouding his senses.
It’s only when he hears the front door shut behind him, that he drops the jacket to the floor, with a start.
His mother fixes him with an unreadable expression, smooths down his hair and asks, “What would you like for dinner, sweetheart?”
Pete’s floored, he thought he’d be in trouble, but his mother seems to be willing to put the events of the day behind her.
He gives her a smile.
Over dinner, he briefly wonders whether he’ll see the boy from this afternoon, ever again.
A month later, mom faints as she's going up to the front door to get the morning paper, and Pete’s entire world collapses around him.
—
Pete doesn’t remember much from the days that follow his mother’s death.
Sure, he recalls the hospital, it’s cold sterile walls, the scratchy sofa in the waiting room that he’d slept on as his mother lay unconscious in the ICU.
He remembers some of the words thrown around: leukemia, blast crisis, shock, but they don’t really meant anything to him.
It’s all a blur of confusion when he tries to recollect those days, as if he’s wading through a vat of amber.
One moment he’s alone, sitting on that wretched sofa, the next, Tom’s father was with him, apologizing profusely for not being there sooner.
“You don’t have to worry about anything now, I’m here,” he says, and Pete wonders: Why are you here?
It doesn’t matter, anyway, Mr Kazansky’s presence doesn’t stop his mother’s death.
He vaguely remembers parts of the funeral, knows for a fact that he threw the first fistful of soil on his mother’s casket.
He can’t, for the life of him, conjure up the rest.
Had old Mrs Carson attended? The sweet lady who always paid him extra to mow her front lawn.
Were any of his school friends present?
Who’d given a speech, what had they said?
Worst of all, Pete doesn’t think he’d cried.
He hadn’t shed a tear when they lowered his mom into the ground, hadn’t cried when his friends came to bid him a sad goodbye, couldn’t shed a single tear when their local pastor ran a wrinkled hand through his hair as he spoke to Mr Kazansky.
“Take care of him, will you? He’s a sweet boy.”
“Of course, sir,” Mr Kazansky had said, a steady hand coming up to rest on Pete’s head. “He’s our responsibility now.”
Why? Why am I your responsibility? Where are you taking me?
Only, Mr Kazansky hadn’t been a Mister at all, right?
He’d received his promotion to Captain, along with orders to helm the newest Naval Base in America.
And that’s how Pete had found himself being relocated to Lemoore, barely a week after his mother’s demise.
He remembers his childhood home, almost identical to all the other houses on his lane, his yard with the garden gnomes he’d painted littered across the grass, the Flag flying proudly in the wind, on his front porch.
He blinks and it’s all gone, like wet sand drifting through his fingers at the beach.
Pete has his own room in the two-storey house that the Kazanskys live in.
It’s tucked away on the upper floor, further down the corridor to Tom’s parents’ room.
It’s a clean, nice space with a sturdy desk and a square window that overlooks the front lawn.
There’s a maple tree right outside his window and it’s branches tap against the sill, at night.
They’ve aired it out thoroughly, prior to his arrival, but there’s no mistaking it, the space previously belonged to Tom.
Tom, who’s now staying in a room downstairs, just across the hall.
His scent still lingers in some corners and crevices and Pete doesn’t know why, but it soothes something in him.
Pete wonders why the Kazanskys didn’t just give him the room on the ground floor, being told to vacate his space must’ve upset Tom.
If the older boy is upset, Pete wouldn’t know. He doesn’t really interact with anyone, much.
Of course, he’s there at meal times but he studiously avoids eye contact, passes the peas when he’s asked to, eats the bare minimum and leaves, when he’s finally excused from the table.
He never asks for second helpings, doesn’t smile at anything the Kazanskys say, never has anything to add to the conversation.
He’s not angry with them or anyone for that matter, but it’s like he doesn’t know how to exist around people anymore.
They try their best to engage him, ask him about his day, insist he call them ‘Jo and Mary’.
Even Tom gives him worried glances across the dining table, as though he’s quite unsure as to what to say.
Mary asks him what his favourite dishes are, Jo tries to get him to talk about his interests, but it’s all in vain.
They take him aside once, to talk about his mom, about what happened to her but Pete can’t get through five minutes of that conversation without begging to be excused.
He drifts through life like he’s a spirit, watching his own mortal form below him.
He knows they’re worried about him.
One night, he hears them as he walks through the corridor, on his way back to his room, after brushing his teeth.
“Do you think once school resumes, maybe he’ll come back to himself?”
“I don’t know Mary, I think we should look into that grief counsellor…”
That night Pete lies awake, as the branches tap-tap on his window sill. He walks across his room to open the window, a gust of wind blows across his face to greet him.
It’s pitch dark, only the glow of the adjoining garage, lighting up the space.
Tom must be up, fixing the headlight on their Chevrolet.
Apparently, he’s good with stuff like that, he likes to mend broken things.
Pete grabs onto the nearest branch, and then proceeds to carefully climb down the tree. He’s just managed to land on the lawn when a hushed voice calls out to him, “You don’t like using doors, is that it?”
Tom has come out of the garage, a wrench in his hand, probably alerted by the sound of the branches. And Pete looks at him, truly looks at him, probably for the first time since he’s come to live in his house.
Without saying a word, he turns around to lay down on the grass.
Tom walks up to where he’s lying supine, and there’s that expression again, the one that says: I wish I knew what to say to you, but I don’t.
Pete has had enough of these expressions, hushed conversations, pained silences, people walking around on eggshells in their own house. He just feels tired, so so tired.
“What do you think death feels like? They say my parents are up there, amongst the stars but I know that’s impossible, they’re gone.” Pete looks up into the night sky, his eyes catching on the Big Dipper, glittering away in all its glory.
Tom silently settles onto the grass next to him.
“Are you familiar with the law of conservation of energy?” he asks, looking into Pete’s eyes, and encouraged by his shaky nod, he continues: “If energy can neither be created nor destroyed then maybe, nothing truly ever ends, it’s just transformed. There’s a finite number of atoms in the universe. We came from the stars and maybe, we go back to them. Your parents aren’t here right now, in the physical sense, but they live on within you, Pete. As long as you’re here, they haven’t ceased to exist.”
“Do you think I’ll get to meet them soon?” he asks, not bothering to wipe the tears that stream down his face.
“No Pete, I don’t think so, they wouldn’t want to meet you so soon, anyway.”
Something breaks inside of him, a tsunami of emotion rising up that he can’t hope to control. He cries like the orphan that Fate has rendered him, sobs wracking through his body and it’s awful. His nose is running, he can’t even sit up properly, and he’s trying his best to muffle his sounds, he can’t have Jo and Mary see him like this.
Tom wordlessly gathers him in his arms, and Pete can feels his tears soak through the older boy’s shirt but he doesn’t give a hint of discomfort. It’s embarrassing, he’s drooled on him, and now he’s crying on him, and he’s probably never going to live this down; he hiccups at the thought, and the moment is broken.
The tears stop just as suddenly as they came. Pete squirms a little in Tom’s arms, and he quickly pulls away from him, as though burned.
“Let’s go in through the front door this time?” Tom asks, the tips of his ears turning pink, and Pete stares at him for several moments longer than what can be considered socially acceptable, before they quietly make their way back into the house.
The next day, at breakfast, he asks for an extra slice of toast with jam, and Mary looks at him like he has just announced that he’s going to give her a million dollars.