Kate Walden

Jasper Walden found out his paternal grandparents were stealing barbiturates a month after Great Grandma Miriam’s funeral, though at the time, it didn’t feel as if it was the most significant event of the day.

For a few hours that January morning, the snow fell in thick sheets, making every surface of every house, car, tree, and yard in Lelaire a glorious, uniform white. While the suburbanites slept, the trucks moved in with salt and plows, and the roads began to be discernible only by the streaks of black and gray. The flurries continued, but by afternoon, human effort had even further dappled the landscape, muddying the colors with more oil and mud, and turning the powder into various textures of water, slush, and thick ice.

Hugo Walden switched into four-wheel drive as he ground his SUV through a snow drift that had built up on Highwood Boulevard and Osburgh Drive. His wife Gina in the passenger seat inhaled sharply, and then turned her attention to the boys in back so her eyes wouldn’t be on all the dangers on the road.

Their son Jasper and his friend Brandon were silent, each with their Christmas iPhones in their hands; they were playing a game linked to one another’s system.

“Who’s winning?” Gina asked.

“No one is,” Jasper said, not looking up.

“We’re playing a cooperative multiplayer game, so we’re on the same side,” Brandon corrected him. He was the same age as her boy, both in seventh grade at Lelaire Junior High, but he looked like a short, stocky man while Jasper still was a slim, pale, seemingly genderless child.

“I didn’t even know you could do that,” Gina replied, pleased. She had second and third thoughts about giving Jasper a phone for Christmas with all the tales she had heard on TV and from friends about the various evils of the games. Hugo had argued that all that had been blown out of proportion, and video games weren’t any worse than the horror movies and comic books and rock music, the bête noirs of their own childhoods, and she had relented. Still, it was good to know there were things Jasper and his friends could do with their iPhone apps other than blowing each other up.

“I already told you: you just didn’t understand,” Jasper said, with a little anger.

Gina considered her options, and decided not to argue. The truth was that mother and son hadn’t been able to communicate much simpler concepts than the systems of video games over the last year. It was typical, even cliché, and she had experienced a similar rebellion from her older daughter Claire at that age, but it hurt that Jasper wasn’t the mommy’s boy he had been. They had even argued over him going to the party tonight for his older cousin Henry, and she knew her boy still worshipped him. Jasper had only agreed if he could bring Brandon along, and Hugo had pointed out that that was reasonable. Everyone else there would be family and friends of Henry’s, no one Jasper’s age.

As the SUV grumbled and pulled up the incline towards Uncle Dean’s house, Gina turned back to the boys and finished the subject. “We’re almost there. Save your games.”

Brandon and Jasper met each other’s eyes, and snickered. Gina didn’t know why. Just another joke she wasn’t in on.

Hugo found a place to park, and the four of them slogged up towards the little bungalow. There were lights in the window, but Hugo thought it strange that the “WELCOME HOME HENRY” sign which had been up the last time wasn’t there. For a moment, he worried that they had come the wrong day, but there were other figures in the whirling flurries moving towards the house, and cars cleared of snow and ice parked up and down the street. All evidence seemed to be pointing to the fact that the party in celebration of Henry arriving home from Iraq was happening now as scheduled.

Dean’s wife Betsy answered the door. She was a slim woman, pretty in a brittle way, far too young to have a son in the marines. There always seemed to be something going in behind her eyes. Gina had suggested privately that she thought Betsy was always thinking something that needed to be done or explained, worrying about the past or future. Hugo’s take was that she was fucking nuts.

For the time being, she seemed to be focused and calm as she bestowed hugs and kisses on her new guests.

The small house had been built in the days when it was important to have many rooms instead of a few ones big enough to breathe in. The first was a pokey little foyer, covered in discarded, dripping winter wear.

“Is Henry already here?” Gina asked as they were ushered in, and pulled off their coats.

Betsy shook her head. “No, he’s didn’t get to leave after all.”

“Oh,” Jasper said, looking confused. “Why not?”

“The job he does is too important,” Betsy said, the octave of her voice rising and turning sing-song as it did whenever she talked to any person under twenty years old. “There aren’t enough people who can do it, so they couldn’t spare him.”

“Betsy, I’m sorry,” Hugo said sympathetically. “When did you find out?”

“Yesterday,” she said, still looking to the boys. “There’s food and drinks in the kitchen. You know the way, right, Jasper?”

Jasper nodded, and motioned for Brandon to follow him. It wasn’t as if there was a possibility of getting lost.

The rest of the first floor was a series of parlors outfitted with few chairs, all of which were occupied by serious-looking party guests, murmuring to one another. It was a murmuring sort of party.

“Let me get this straight,” Brandon whispered, as they moved through. “We’re at a party welcoming home your cousin who is not coming home?”

“I know, this sucks,” Jasper agreed. “Look at everyone. No one wants to be here.”

It was an accurate assessment of the general mood of the party. Jasper didn’t stop to talk to Uncle Dean and Grandpa Averell as he passed them, and they were engrossed in a discussion about some old temple Grandpa had visited in India. More than anything, Jasper felt embarrassed about bringing his friend to a bad party. It wasn’t as if he expected it to be a great, frat-house style blowout like you see in the movies, but Henry was supposed to be there, and Brandon would have liked him. Now Jasper felt all the responsibility for entertaining his friend was entirely on his shoulders.

Jasper tried to steer away from his sister who was talking a blonde in a tight low-cut sweater, but she saw them.

“Hey, handsome,” Claire said, tagging his arm. “Looking for the bar?”

Her beer breath proved that she had found it.

“I don’t know, going to find some food I guess,” Jasper said, shrugging. Claire was seven years older, like Henry, and she always gave him the impression that she was making fun of him, which Henry never did. “Is Doyle here?”

“Aunt Betsy sent him out for ice,” Claire smirked. “Until everyone’s here and ready.”

“Okay, I’ll catch you later,” Jasper nodded, guiding Brandon away.

“’Everyone’s here and ready’?” Brandon asked. “Ready for what?”

“God knows what she’s blathering about,” Jasper said dismissively, as they stepped into the kitchen, the largest room in the bungalow. A dozen people were gathered around the butcher block island, where the buffet of canapés and a punchbowl had been set up.

“Did you see the tits on her friend though?” Brandon whispered.

Jasper smiled and nodded, though he really hadn’t.

“And your sister’s pretty hot too,” Brandon added.

Jasper wasn’t sure what to say to that, until he saw that Brandon was grinning, so it was safe to go with a whispered, “Shut the hell up, fool.”

Brandon laughed. “You grab some grub, I’ll be right back.”

Before Jasper could reply, Brandon was gone, out of the kitchen, into the crowd. He took a place in line and thought about where his friend had gone. If he had to go to the bathroom, wouldn’t he have asked where it was? Maybe he had enough of this lame party and run to the front door. No, that wasn’t like Brandon. He was effortlessly nice, while Jasper felt he had to concentrate to be at all likeable. Maybe he went to talk to Claire or her friend with the tits. That was certainly possible. Brandon talked about girls a lot. Jasper wondered if he should talk about girls more, whether that would make him seem more normal and likeable. But what would he say about them?

The artful delicacies at the buffet had obviously taken a long time for Aunt Betsy or some caterer to create, but none of them looked appetizing to Jasper. He put two of each on a plate, and then suddenly Brandon was next to him.

“Look what I got for you,” Brandon whispered, grabbing Jasper’s free hand and putting it on his thigh.

Jasper couldn’t breathe, unable to look at where his hand was being guided, but imagining in an instant the texture of denim, the heat of Brandon’s body, and the thickening shape and feel of the groin. Instead, it was hard but freezing cold. Jasper looked down at what he was fondling. The round tin top was visible peaking out of Brandon’s pocket.

It was a can of beer. No wonder it felt cold.

“I found the bar,” Brandon whispered. “Come on, follow me.”

He did, walking behind his friend as Brandon moved quickly through the throng out of the kitchen, into one room and then another, filled with people who might as well have been faceless to Jasper. Fortunately, having a reputation as being even more glum than the average teenager meant that no one thinks twice about being ignored by him. His mom, however, was persistent, stepping in his path.

“I said ‘Have you seen Claire?’” she asked sternly, evidently repeating herself.

Jasper shook his head, and hurried in the direction Brandon had been going before he was swallowed up by the crowd. There was no need to panic: the house was tiny; it was impossible to get lost. But there was his mom, losing her daughter, and there was Jasper, losing his friend in a dead end room. Dead end, he realized, except for the door behind the bar which led to the screened patio connected to the side of the bungalow.

Jasper stepped through and found a crowd. They were older than Jasper, but younger than most of the people inside. He recognized they were Henry’s friends, well-scrubbed and trendily dressed, their cheeks pink in the chill of the winter air. Most were smoking and drinking, among them his sister Claire. Brandon grabbed his arm, and handed him the beer, which Jasper cracked open with a satisfying hiss and a burble of foam. He clinked it against the can Brandon was drinking from.

“Cheers,” said Brandon in a fake British accent. A recurring in-joke between them since they heard someone say it on BBC America.

“Hey, where are you from?” the blonde in the tight sweater interrupted them.

“Where do you think, luv?” Brandon asked, with slightly cockney, slightly Liverpudlian cadence.

“England or Australia?” she offered.

“Did you say you’re from England?” Claire asked, interested, joining the group. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m a bloody exchange student, ain’t I?” Brandon said. “Got a fag?”

“What, besides Jasper?” Claire laughed, and her brother entertained thoughts of sticking her cigarette in her eye.

“Watch it, luv, he’s me mate,” Brandon growled, throwing his arm around Jasper.

“Actually, if you were so inclined, the two of you could get married in England now, can’t you?” the blonde girl smiled, handing Brandon a cigarette and then lighting it for him. “I read you guys allow civil partnerships. Elton John got one at the same place Prince Charles married Camilla.”

“Blimey,” Jasper said weakly, not having anything else to say, hoping the subject could be changed from anything not under the subheading Gay, but hoping even more that Brandon wouldn’t remove his arm any time soon. It felt warm in the cold night air.

“That is the worst British accent I’ve ever heard,” Claire giggled. “You sound Chinese.”

“Mom was looking for you,” Jasper said. “She looked pretty mad.”

“She can wait,” Claire shrugged, taking a sip of her wine. “I just need a drink before the entertainment begins.”

“What entertainment?” Jasper asked. “I didn’t think we were doing anything since Henry’s not coming.”

“Aunt Betsy didn’t tell you?” Claire raised an eyebrow. “Oh, honey …”

“There’s Doyle!” someone yelled out, and the crowd on the porch surged to the street side of the screens to look at the figure coming out of a car, carrying a bag of ice.

Doyle was Henry’s twin brother, but it was hard to believe given their appearances and personalities that they shared more than a passing acquaintanceship in their DNA. Henry was a white-toothed quarterback American hero with heart and charm. Doyle had spiky dyed black hair, sallow skin, and a physical and emotional form as skinny and nervous as a greyhound. The only physical trait they shared was a cleft in their chins, which made Henry look like Cary Grant, and Doyle look like Steve Buscemi. Jasper saw more family resemblance between himself and Doyle, which made him love Henry even more.

The crowd on the porch yelled his name as he came closer to the house, building it up into a chant. “Doyle! Doyle! Doyle! Doyle!”

Doyle, finally hearing them and locating where the sound was coming from, raised a hand up. It wasn’t a friendly wave, just an acknowledgement. He figured he was being teased and took it in stride.

“Doyle! Don’t go inside!” Claire cried, “Run away!”

It made the crowd laugh, but Jasper was looking at his sister when she yelled it, and she didn’t look like she was joking.

Doyle disappeared around the side of the house, heading towards the front door, and most of the people in the crowd pushed towards the door in from the porch. Claire pushed Jasper and Brandon in ahead of her. “Come on, you don’t want to miss this!”

Inside, the crowd was flowing from the bar to the front parlors, and then stopping short due to lack of space. Jasper had never heard so many people being so quiet outside of church, without so much as a whisper or murmur. People strained their necks and got on tip-toe to try to see over those in front of them. Jasper was even shorter than most: the only view he had was the middle of Uncle Paul’s back.

Only a few feet away, Uncle Dean was taking the bag of ice out of his son’s arms.

To Doyle’s perplexed look, Dean could only say, “Thank you, son. Sorry.” And then walk away, squeezing through the crowd to hand the ice off at the bar.

Doyle looked to Betsy, sitting on the loveseat in front of him. “What’s going on, Mom?”

“Have a seat,” she said.

“Did something happen?” Doyle asked, eyes widening. “What’s wrong?”

“Why don’t you have a seat, Doyle?” a man Doyle had never seen before said, stepping out of the crowd. He was like a wall, perhaps a mob enforcer or a bar bouncer. “I want to talk to you. My name is Tom.”

“Okay,” Doyle said quickly, dropping down next to his mother, as if all the power had left his legs. He looked over to the crowd crowding the doorway to the next room. They were mostly friends of his brother Henry’s, familiar but not friendly, and their expressions were expectant.

“Your friends and family love you, Doyle, and they’re worried about you, they’re worried you’re a danger to yourself,” Tom said, in a well-practiced, authoritarian tone which cut through the stillness of the house.

Doyle’s voice was querulous in response. “What are you talking about?”

“Drugs,” Betsy said. She was smiling, but there were tears running down her face. “This is an intervention, honey.”

“This is bullshit.”

Jasper didn’t realize he had spoken those words aloud, until everyone who was standing in front of him turned around. There were some nervous giggles, some gasps, and a couple angry faces, including, Jasper noticed, his mom. It was fight or flight, and he didn’t even pause before adopting the latter. The clearest passage through the crowd was the stairs to the second floor, and Jasper and Brandon raced up.

“In here,” Jasper said, opening the first door at the top of the stairs, to the bathroom.

Grandpa Averell was standing at the sink, with the medicine cabinet open in front of him. In his right hand, he was returning a bottle of pills, and in his left hand, he was putting something in his pocket.

“Oops,” said Jasper, closing the door quickly, in the conditioned response of anyone finding a bathroom occupied upon entering. He stepped backwards quickly, colliding into Brandon.

Suddenly Grandma Kate was there, at the top of the stairs. Her strong hand grabbed his arm, and she pulled him out through the crowd, past Doyle and Betsy and Tom, to the front foyer. Brandon came quickly behind them, followed by Grandpa Averell, and Jasper’s dad.

“Put on your coats, we’re leaving,” Kate said.

“Gina and I are going to stay,” Hugo said in a low voice. “Betsy and Dean asked us if we would.”

Jasper started to say something, but Averell put his finger to his lips and shook his head. Then he nodded to Hugo, and whispered, “We’ll take him to our house. Call us when you’re done.”

Hugo gave Jasper his best, stern, “You better behave” look, and then went back to the intervention. Jasper listened to the voices as he buttoned up his coat.

Doyle’s voice, shaking: “Mom, I swear, I don’t do drugs. I mean, I’ve smoked pot like three or four times or something, but I didn’t even like it … It just made me sleepy …”

Betsy’s voice, soft but angry: “Don’t lie to me. That’s the worst part, the lies. Look at you. You’re covered in sweat, your skin is gray, your eyes are bleary …”

Doyle’s voice: “I have a cold, Mom!”

Tom’s voice, low and strong, like a sergeant’s: “Your parents found this in your bedroom, Doyle.”

Betsy’s voice: “I know all about huffing … I just never thought in my own house … the way I raised you and your brother …”

Jasper had to stick his head out around the corner to see. Tom was holding up four cans of spray paint in an impressive fashion, two in each of his huge hands. Betsy was bowing her head as if praying. Doyle was apparently speechless, staring at the cans, and then his mother, and then the crowd behind them. They met his stare, waiting for the inevitable: the tears, the denial, the lashing out, the glum acceptance. The whole show they were there to witness.

Grandpa Averell gave Jasper a good yank, and they were outside in the cold, walking towards the car. The street lights had come on, and the snowfall they illuminated made them look like bee hives.

Brandon, also wearing his jacket again, looked to Jasper and whispered, conspiratorially in agreement, “Total bullshit.”

Jasper felt a fire spread through his body and grinned, before looking to his grandparents to see if they heard. Kate and Averell had, but the moment didn’t seem right to lecture their grandson and his friend about bad language, so they feigned deafness to the whispers.

Averell cranked up the heat in the car, Kate got in the passenger seat, and the boys got in the back.

“Hugo told me, but I’ve forgotten,” said Kate, looking in the rear view mirror. “Your name is Brandon?”

“Yes, m’am,” he said, smiling. Jasper looked at him, wonderingly. How could he always be so unfailingly nice and never make it look artificial?

“Where do you live?” Averell asked.

“Just a couple blocks away, on Quentin Avenue,” Brandon said. “But I was going to spend the night at Jasper’s.”

“Then we’ve just got one stop,” Averell said, slowly steering the car down the icy street. “Our house.”

Jasper groaned. “But my house is on the way.”

“I have enough sense not to let two bored 13-year-old boys alone without any supervision,” Averell chuckled. “Mr. Beer Breath.”

Kate turned around in her seat, and smiled at her grandson’s mortified expression. “I’ll make you two something more filling than canapés, and then we’ll get out of your way. Deal?”

Jasper shrugged, and Brandon said, “Deal. Jasper said you two went to India recently?”

Jasper managed to keep from groaning out loud, as they launched into all the stories which were already old after a little over a month.

The car puttered slowly down the dark streets and then on to the warm, bright glow of Highwood Boulevard, the great divider of Lelaire. Had Brandon been older and more sophisticated in sociology, he would have recognized more class divisions, but to him, it was a simple bisection: they were passing out of the land of poor – which included not only Dean and Betsy Garrity, but Brandon’s own family – into the land of the rich. Throughout his childhood, Brandon had taken his bicycle along the twisting, woody roads, where houses were separated by great acreage if they were seen at all. He had seen the houses from a distance, and counted the number of floors and number of chimneys, not to mention the circus of exotic, expensive automobiles in the curving driveways. In the fall, when there were no leaves to obscure his view, he had been able to peek at tantalizing glimpses of swimming pools, croquet lawns, and gracious, formal rose gardens. But he had never been allowed inside. All his friends before Jasper had lived on the wrong side of Highwood Boulevard.

When Averell turned on the left turn signal at the corner of Dunbar Street and Crestway Road, Brandon knew the street and instinctively knew the house they were going to. It seemed to fit the two old folks from the short time he’d known them. A very plain, honest, two story house, symmetrical to the point of austerity, with two windows on either side of the front door, directly in the center, and six windows on the second floor. In the summer, rose trellises and a collection of potted plants in the wide, bricked front walk softened it and made it, particularly since it was closer to the road than other houses on the block, very welcoming. As Averell pulled up in the driveway, Brandon decided that even in the winter, with the rose bushes sheathed by snow, it was a beautiful house. He couldn’t wait to see inside.

Mac had heard the car and woke up from his cushion in the den with a reflexive woof. He wasn’t sure if it was going to stop or go all the way around to the back where the garage was, and so he made a figure eight, his paws skittering on bare wood floors and carpet, scampering from the front hall, to the den, to the dining room, to the kitchen door, and then back again. Outside, he could hear their crunching footsteps, and he jumped excitedly at each window in the den to catch sight of his family, and for them to see him. He was standing in the hallway, bouncing in the air, when Averell put the key in the lock and opened the door.

“Brandon, this is MacCannon,” Averell said, as the dog leapt at the stranger, woofing and grunting. “He’ll probably let you call him Mac, but he has been getting more formal and pompous in his old age.”

“I wonder where he gets that from?” Kate shook her head. “Would you let him out, sweetheart, and I’ll put together some food?”

Brandon took off his jacket, and hung it alongside Kate and Jasper’s in the hall closet. The inside of the house matched the style of the outside. Nothing about it was grand or show-offy; in fact there were few things at all, compared to the cramped tiny rooms at Dean and Betsy Garrity’s house. There was a sense of empty space all around that made him feel small, particularly with the lights out.

“It’s a very nice house,” he said, and meant it, but it was still a relief to get to the kitchen, which was warm and light and small.

“Thank you,” Kate said cheerfully as she rummaged through the refrigerator. “Jasper, do you still eat egg salad? With bacon and all that?”

“Of course, grandma,” Jasper said, looking to Brandon and rolling his eyes. “I’ve never been a vegetarian. You’re thinking of someone else.”

“Oh yes, silly me, I was thinking of Hitler,” Kate said, getting the hard-boiled eggs, bacon, mayonnaise, and tarragon out of the refrigerator. “Now pour yourself some sodas, you little smart ass. I think the two of you have had enough beer for the night. I hope we won’t be sending you to your folks tomorrow with a hangover, Brandon. They’ll wonder what kind of Roman orgy or den of iniquity we dragged you into.”

Brandon laughed and blushed. “Actually, my ‘folks’ is just my dad, and I don’t think he’d mind.”

Jasper listened to Brandon talk with his grandmother as he poured the sodas. He hated their fast, easy words back and forth, just being a spectator, but it was the same as always. Whenever he had put into his head the words he wanted to say about a subject, the subject had changed. It was so much easier when it was just two people. It didn’t seem like such a race.

“I have to admit, I’ve never been to an intervention before, but I wouldn’t have thought there’d be an open bar,” Kate said, working her ingredients into a bowl, and then feeding big slices of rough torn bread into the toaster oven. “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated it, but I bet that was technically no-no according to the book.”

“I didn’t want to say anything, but I also think it’s supposed to be you surrounded by your friends and family who are worried about your condition,” Brandon added. “Not a bunch of friends of your brother who think they’re there for a different party.”

“I think we’ve identified several reasons why poor Doyle might have decided to start puffing in the first place.”

“It’s huffing, Grandma, not puffing,” Jasper said irritably, handing Brandon a soda. “It’s when you sniff gasoline or paint or glue or whatever.”

“I read that in Africa they sniff rancid human – you know, excrement – to get high,” Brandon added.

“To think, they say kids aren’t learning in public schools these days,” Kate chuckled, dolloping the chopped egg salad on the toast. “On that appetizing subject, bon appétit.”

Brandon began eating his sandwich, but Jasper paused a moment before saying, “You know, Grandma, people are addicted to all sorts of things. Even legal, medical ones. Like pain pills.”

Kate looked to Jasper. “Yes, and what’s the relevance of that?”

Averell stepped into the kitchen, closely followed by Mac, “Jasper, is this about what you saw in the bathroom? You think I’m addicted to pills?”

Jasper shrugged and took a bite of his sandwich. “Are you?”

“No,” Averell said.

“Then you want to tell me why you were stealing pills from Aunt Betsy?” Jasper asked, his mouth full.

“No,” Averell said. “Probably better to tell you later on, not now.”

Jasper shrugged again, and for a moment, there was a heavy silence in the kitchen. Kate broke it by giving her grandson a kiss on his forehead.

“Isn’t a relief to know Gramps isn’t a junkie?” she said. “Well, I’m off for a bath before bed. Help yourself to whatever you like, just rinse off your plates and glasses and leave them in the sink. You can use the guest room off the den, so you can play video games all night if you like, and it won’t bother us.”

“You have video games?” Brandon asked, impressed.

“Of course, we have a Playstation,” Averell replied, proudly.

“Not the newest one, he means the original Playstation from like ten years ago,” Jasper said, looking to Averell and then Brandon. “It’s all right if you want to play old school.”

Kate had left the kitchen already, but her voice traveled from down the hall. “Don’t bitch and moan about everything, sweetheart, it’s not very becoming!”

“Ah, you know we’d upgrade if you came around as often as you used to,” Averell said, smiling at his grandson.

Kate’s voice traveled from further away, halfway up the stairs to the second floor. “Averell, come to bed! You’re not one of the boys anymore!”

Averell sighed, and left the kitchen with a wave. “All right, good night. Forget what your grandma said, and try to keep the noise down.”

“Or what, grandpa?” Jasper replied without thinking.

“Or else I will beat you within an inch of your miserable life,” Averell chuckled, pleased that Jasper remembered their own in-joke. He waved again, and left the kitchen.

Averell was vain enough to be happy when as he walked up the stairs, he overheard Brandon say, “Your grandparents are actually pretty cool.”

And he knew without seeing what Jasper’s reply was. The noncommittal shrug.

Averell crawled into the cool bed, where Kate, warm and smelling of her tuberose soap, joined him a few minutes later. Their old house was never completely silent, and all the creaks and whistling of the winter wind was familiar to Averell, drowning out conversation and video game playing downstairs. The old man and old woman, holding each other, drifted off.

Kate woke up, feeling thirsty, in the middle of the night. The moon was high in the sky, shining through the top edge of the uncurtained bedroom window, as she quietly padded out of the room, careful not to wake her husband. When she got downstairs into the kitchen, she smiled at the sight of the plates and glasses, not just rinsed but washed and dried next to the sink. That must be Brandon’s influence on Jasper, she thought.

Kate poured a small glass of juice, and drank it, looking out the kitchen windows at the snow striking the glass and melting, rolling down in rivulets. She washed out the glass, and put it next to the other clean ones next to the sink.

She was starting to climb the stairs when she noticed what looked like a jumble of pillows on one of the sofas in the den. Not a big mess, she considered. It would just take a moment to straighten out in the morning. Or, she reconsidered, if she did it now, she wouldn’t have to think about it. Sighing with a little frustration at her own obsessive compulsiveness, Kate crept back down the stairs to the sofa in the den.

It was not only a jumble of pillows, she discovered, but her grandson’s friend, wrapped up in the blanket from the guest room, fast asleep. Then she heard the faintest of sounds coming from the closed door to the guest room itself. Coming closer, she knew it was Jasper sobbing.

Kate opened the door a crack, and whispered, “Sweetheart? Are you all right?”

The sobbing sound stopped, and Kate walked slowly in the room. Jasper was lying in the far side of the bed with his back to her, a single blue sheet wrapped around and around him for warmth.

“What’s the matter, Jasper? Did you have a fight?”

Jasper’s head shook in the negative, and he gave a short, snotty sniff.

“You must be freezing,” Kate said, opening the closet door and taking out a spare blanket. She spread it out across the bed with a wave, and walked over to Jasper’s side of the bed to pull it all the way. The moonlight was on his face, and she could see his eyes were squeezed closed, and his pillow was damp with tears. “Why are you crying? You did have a fight, didn’t you? What did he do? Why is he sleeping in the den?”

“Because two boys don’t sleep in one bed together, Grandma,” Jasper said hoarsely. “That’s weird.”

Kate considered this for one moment, and nodded.

“I’m sorry, I’ll make better arrangements next time,” Kate kissed Jasper, left the room, and quietly shut the door behind her.

Jasper opened his eyes. He couldn’t look out the window from the bed, but he could see the long shadows the light of the moon cast, the tendrils of the winter trees rolling over the ceiling, floor, and walls as they were caressed by the wind outside. He touched the side of the bed where Brandon had lain, but there was no trace of the body warmth there anymore. Not since Jasper had chased him away with a whisper, and thrown the blanket after him as he fled.

Unable to sleep, Jasper watched the shadows and indulged himself in dramatic self-pity. He imagined Brandon telling everyone at school what Jasper had wanted to do, but that masochistic fantasy had no legs. Brandon was nice, too nice to humiliate Jasper, too nice to hate very much. The second fantasy was much more believable: that he was all alone, unwanted and unloved, and that was to be his state until the day he died. Jasper let that thought carry him for more restless hours until his swollen eyes grew heavy enough that sleep overcame him.