Nathan tugged at the too-short sleeves of his uniform as the car pulled up to the curb outside the mansion. He hadn't bought a new uniform because it was summer and he'd already outgrown this one since January, but now he was feeling extremely self-conscious about his wrists and the line of sock that showed beneath the hem of his pants. The driver opened his door and he got out, resigned, nervous, butterflies fluttering in his stomach.
"Coming, sir?" Marco asked, coming up beside him holding his bags.
Nathan took a deep breath and nodded. The walk up the steps felt like a walk down death row, and he found himself wishing he was back at school, safe in the familiar security of the barracks with John and Thomas. Things were weird here at home, and even the letters had been stilted and strange, ever since the one that had come in January to inform him that, come mid-summer, he would have a new brother. They're replacing me with an upgraded model, he'd joked to Thomas, the only one he'd dared confess his mother's embarassing condition to, but the truth was, a part of him believed it.
The door opened when they reached the top step. Nathan stepped into the darkness of the house with a twist in his stomach, but his spine as straight as a rod. He felt Marco step around behind him as he came up, face to face with his father for the first time since Christmas break. Sharply, he clicked his heels together and saluted, every pointer from every instructor screaming in his head.
Then his heart finally loosened a tad as his father saluted back, as though one soldier to another, then held out his hand. "Welcome home, Nathan."
Nathan kept his expression neutral, hiding his joy, as he shook his father's hand and said, "Thank you, sir." His voice cracked a bit on the "sir," and he cringed.
His father just smiled a half-smile and clapped his hand on Nathan's shoulder. "That's my boy. Go on upstairs, your mother's waiting to see you. I need to be getting back to my conference call."
Nathan felt his hands curl into loose fists. This was what he'd really been dreading. Ma was on "bed rest," whatever that was, exactly. He didn't like the sound of it, and it was bringing up images of frail, shrinking people lying in beds covered with white sheets maybe with strange medical equipment sitting around.
He headed up the winding stairs with the sense of dread returning with each step.
He stood just outside Ma's door for a long time, until she called out, "I know you're there, Nathan. You might as well come in, dear. I'm not contagious."
He stepped inside with one long stride, getting it over with.
The room didn't look like a hospital, or even smell like one. CNN was murmuring on the TV, and Ma was mostly sitting up on a stack of pillows on top of the covers holding a book on her stomach. She smiled and looked just like she always did except for the incongruous round belly. "You've gotten taller. Come here, let me have a look at you."
The fear was abating, so it was easy to cross the room and stop by the side of the bed, once again stopping and standing at attention.
"At ease," Ma said with a twist of irony in her voice, and he let his knees go loose again and his shoulders relax. "You need a new uniform," she said.
He clentched his jaw to stop himself from saying I know, Ma. Instead he said, "Yes, ma'am. I'll get one before next term."
Still smiling that strange, not-quite-genuine smile, Ma set aside her book and patted the bed beside her. "Here, sit with me. We need to talk. And stop calling me 'ma'am,' I'm your mother."
He sat, but carefully close enough to the edge to avoid brushing against the big, not-Ma belly.
"How was your trip?" she asked briskly.
He shrugged, knowing this was not the real discussion. "Fine."
"And the semester?"
"Good."
"I trust we'll be proud when your grades arrive?"
"Yes, m--" He bit off the ma'am and went with, "Ma."
"Good," she said, as though glad to have all that out of the way. "Now, about this," she continued, gesturing at her belly. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you that this doesn't mean you'll be loved or valued any less."
"No," he said. Yes, he thought.
"We all have our own place in the world, Nathan. This baby, Peter, he'll have his own as well. He's not taking yours."
Nathan just nodded. He didn't want to think about the thing in the belly, particularly at all, really.
"And I know that the two of you are going to be far apart in age, and that you won't see him as often as a typical brother might, but he will be your brother. He'll be family. That means he'll be your responsibility as much as he is mine, or your father's. At least as much. He'll look up to you, because you will be his older brother, so you'll need to be absolutely sure you set a good example for him."
He nodded again.
She reached out and took his nearest wrist in her hand and gave it a tug. He started to let her move his hand, then stopped when he realized where she was going to put it. She just laughed softly at his resistance. "It won't hurt you," she said.
He told himself he'd have to do worse things in the Navy, steeled himself, and let her press his hand to her belly. It didn't feel all that weird. It was just a stomach. Just the usual--
And then it moved. Or rather, something inside it moved, sort of pressed and slid along the inside under his hand, like a tongue inside a cheek. Startled and disturbed, he jerked his hand away. Ma laughed out loud this time.
"That was his foot, I believe," she said. "He's been kicking me there all morning. You'd think he was doing water aerobics."
He hadn't expected feet. He hadn't expected anything, really. It was in her stomach, how could it be human?
"How big is--he?" he asked, still not quite able to get the preturbed expression off his face and certainly not willing to touch it again.
"Big enough to be born, they say, though hopefully he won't be for a few more weeks."
"So, um... a whole baby?" he said, his face scrunching as the implications of that settled in.
"Don't say 'um,' dear, it's an ugly, unnecessary filler word. And yes, a whole baby. Were you expecting an egg?"
He shrugged, keeping his hands safely tucked together in his lap.
She reached out and cupped his chin in her hand. "You're a good boy, Nathan. And I do believe that, in spite of yourself, you will be a good brother." He looked up at that, and she was smiling for real now, and--questionable brother part or not--that made him smile, too. "Now," she continued, "Tell me about school. Are you making friends?"
That, he could talk about.
***
He and Pop were going to go fishing that weekend, up in the Poconos. A whole weekend with no phone calls or meetings or work. They were down in the foyer with half their gear moved out to the car when Ma came down the stairs, taking them one shuffling step at a time with a hand on her back. Nathan felt something like the floor tilting beneath his feet. No, no, no. There was supposed to be fishing, Ma couldn't have a problem now. No.
"Dear, you shouldn't--" Pop started.
Ma cut him off with a grimace. "Past time to worry about that now. My water's broke. We need to go."
Nathan didn't know quite what that meant, but he understood the look his father shot him all too well. That was the look that meant "Sorry, sport, I'm letting you down again."
Nathan knew better. He knew better than to throw down his sleeping bag, he knew better than to stomp up the stairs, brushing past Ma with her stupid big fishing-ruining belly, but he did it anyway. He threw himself down on his stomach on his bed and glared at his pillow.
He heard his father come up the stairs, but he didn't stop at Nathan's room. He just walked right past.
That was when Nathan started to worry. What was this water-breaking thing, and what did it mean? If Ma was so sick she couldn't even get out of bed, then what was going to happen to her?
With a suddenly-tight throat, he pusted himself off his bed and headed down the hall to the bedroom his parents usually shared. His father was rustling around in the closet. Nathan waited until he came out, silently, and Pop startled when he saw him, then stopped and set the bag he'd been packing on the bed, seemingly about to say something.
Nathan spoke first, "Is Ma going to be ok?"
His father seemed to relax at that. "Oh, Nathan. Of course. She'll be fine. It's just the baby coming."
"Oh," Nathan said, relieved. He sniffed against his suddenly-stuffy nose.
His father reached out and squeezed his shoulder and finally said the expected words, "I'm sorry, sport--"
"I know, Pop," Nathan snapped, a little too roughly. "I'm going to my room."
His father didn't try to stop him.
***
So, instead of fishing, he spent the weekend with Mr. and Mrs. Cabbott, the next-door neighbors. Well, he spent most of his time at home, reading or watching television and playing Atari. He just checked in with the Cabbotts at mealtimes and at night.
Sunday afternoon, his parents finally came home. He saw the black car pull up outside and went to get the door. He stood in the open doorway watching as Pop helped Ma out of the car, then opened the backdoor and pulled out a baby carrier loaded down with blankets. Nathan leaned to see, but he couldn't catch a glimpse of anything in the carrier besides blue fluff.
Ma took the stairs slowly. She looked worse than she had lying in bed, but she smiled at Nathan when she reached him, and patted his shoulder before continuing on inside without a word.
Pop carried the baby up the steps. Nathan tried again to see it, but Pop just said, "Let's get into the air-conditioning, first, Nate."
"Is Ma ok?" Nathan asked, shutting the door behind himself as he followed his father inside. Ma had already disappeared up the stairs.
"Just tired," Pop said. "Come on up to the nursery and I'll introduce you two."
He followed him up and hovered by the door as Pop set the carrier on the floor and knelt down, lifting the blanket wrapped bundle from it. As he stood up, he said, "Have a seat in the rocker, sport."
Nathan did, and then Pop turned and lowered the bundle into his arms, said, "Hold up his head," and for the first time, Nathan saw the baby. He wasn't what he'd been expecting. All the babies he'd seen had been mostly in pictures, with chubby pink cheeks and toothless, charming smiles. This was a scrunchy, red-faced thing with a funny mark on its head and squeezed-shut eyes and an expression that mainly conveyed a sense of disgruntled constipation.
It squirmed in his arms and made a funny grunting noise.
"Nathan," his father said, as though at a dinner party, "this is Peter. Peter, that's Nathan. He's your big brother."
"Is it--he supposed to look like this?" Nathan blurted.
He was too busy examining the baby's squashy features to see Pop's expression, but Pop simply said. "You looked just like that when we brought you home." Then he said, "Hold him for awhile. I'm going to go check on your mother."
Then he left, and Nathan found himself stuck in a rocking chair with a baby. Which squirmed again like it was uncomfortable in Nathan's arms and started making an "eh eh eh" sound. Nathan wasn't sure what that meant. He tried to discern some meaning from the baby's face, but it was just making funny shapes with its lips and not really giving anything away.
As Nathan watched, its eyelashes fluttered then opened.
Its--his--eyes were a kind of dark, dark blue. He rolled them back, then down, then up towards Nathan's face, where they stopped, as though the baby had just then noticed the new person holding him. It was disconcerting, the way those eyes made the baby suddenly not a baby any more, but a person. A tiny, tiny, strange-looking person. That was looking at him.
"Uh. Hi," Nathan said.
The baby made another "eh," sound, like the very beginning of a cry, but then was quiet, staring at him in apparent abject fascination. They stared at each other for a long while, and then the baby shut its eyes again, sighed, squirmed a bit more, and drifted off to sleep with his face turned into the crook of Nathan's arms.
Nathan inched back deeper into the rocker so that he could settle himself and the baby into a more comfortable position. He thought if he just had a book, he really wouldn't mind this so much. The baby was warm and soft like a puppy in his arms, and there was something soothing about his damp, even breathing, and something fascinating about the way his small fist, which had worked itself out from the tangle of blankets, was opening and closing slightly. Such tiny, perfectly human fingers, with fingernails and creases and all.
"Oh," came his father's voice from the doorway.
Nathan looked up. Pop was standing there with a bottle in his hand.
"You could have just put him down in the crib," Pop said.
Oh. Nathan shrugged one shoulder. "It's okay."
Pop gestured with the bottle. "Time to feed him."
Nathan looked down at the warm bundle settled in his arms, then back up at Pop, who was waiting for him to hand him over.
"Can I do it?" Nathan asked.
***
Two weeks later, things had gone from odd to bad. Nathan spent most of his time out with his neighborhood friends from elementary school, but it was weird being with them now that he went to the boarding school, and they were still just in private school here. A lot changed in seventh grade, so he hardly knew them now. Still, they were willing enough to let him tag along, and it was better than being at home with the wailing baby and Ma being so tired, and Pop being... strange. Quiet, moody. Something.
He missed Thomas and John like he'd miss a limb, but he didn't want to call them because that just seemed dumb, and he didn't know what he'd talk about anyway. All that was going on in his life was the baby.
Today, though, he'd had to come home, because Mr. Linderman, Dad's big client, was going to be visiting, and Ma wanted them all there and looking presentable. He was almost surprised that she didn't make him wear his uniform, what with the fuss she was in, but instead, she sent him and the new nanny out to the tailor to get him a new suit that fit.
So now they were all in the sitting room, waiting for Linderman's limo to get there. Even Peter was dressed up in relative finery. He was in a brand-new sleeper nestled in brand new blankets. Nathan, bored from the waiting and the silence from Ma and Pop, who sat on opposite ends of the other couch, was crouched over the bassinette, wiggling his fingers over Peter's face. Peter, for his part, looked slightly put off by all the newness surrounding him, but his attention was beginning to turn to Nathan's fingers. After a moment, he reached up and waved his hand, trying to catch Nathan's pinky but still not nearly coordinated enough. Nathan dipped and bobbed his hand, always just dodging Peter's clumsy grab, until all of a sudden, Peter seemed to catch on that he was engaged in a hopeless task, and did what any baby in a tight spot would do.
He burst into tears.
Nathan cringed even before he heard Ma's "Oh, Nathan."
"Hey, hey, hey," he said. "Shh, shh. Peter. Pete. Hey, stop!" He shoved his hand down into the bassinet with his pinky sticking out right next to Peter's red, balled fist, but it was too late now, the damage had been done.
Ma swept across the room and scooped Peter up, stalking off to somewhere else to try to soothe him. Nathan looked up at Pop, who was still just sitting on the couch, and who reacted with nothing more strenuous than a disapproving look. Nathan slumped back in his chair and of course, that was the moment Mr. Linderman knocked on the door.
Peter was still wailing somewhere in the distance, and Pop had an expression on his face as though getting up was a complicated operation, so Nathan sighed and got up and went to get the door.
Mr. Linderman smiled as broadly and--in Nathan's opinion--fakely as ever. "Nathan! What a pleasure. My how you've grown," he said.
"Thank you, sir," he said, stepping back. "Please come in. My father's in the sitting room."
Linderman came in, but didn't go to the sitting room right away. "Military school, yes?" he said. "How was your first year?"
"It was challenging and enjoyable. I'm looking forward to going back." he had that answer down by rote by now.
Linderman smirked. "Well, good for you. I assume that's young Peter I hear?"
Nathan nodded.
"Well," Linderman said, his attention now focused off down the hall towards the squalling. "I suppose I shall go find your father." And then he went.
Nathan shut the door and headed down the hall, past the sitting room where Linderman and Pop were greeting each other to the sunroom in the back where Ma was standing in the dark, rocking Peter and murmuring to him. It was so unlike her, for a moment he was struck dumb in the doorway.
"Hush. Hush, my darling. Shh. It's all right. It's all right. There, there." Peter was finally starting to settle into the choked gasps that meant he was calming down. "That's my boy. That's my beautiful boy." She was rocking from foot to foot, almost dancing in the dim light coming in from the terrace. "That's it. Hush."
It was like a moment he wasn't meant to see. So much so, he quietly backed up a few steps, then stomped back, announcing his presence before he said, "Ma, Mr. Linderman's here."
"All right," she said, and he saw her back straightening, heard her voice hardening. "Let them know I'll be out in a moment, would you please, Nathan?"
"Yes, Ma," he said, then hurried back down the hall, still feeling like an intruder.
He felt safer in the sitting room with Linderman and Pop chatting about politics and the weather. Once he walked in, he told them Ma would only be a moment and then Linderman asked him more about school, his friends, what he wanted to do when he grew up, all the usual, expected adult questions that Nathan could mindlessly, politely answer. It was a waltz of a kind, and one that was comforting in it's familiarity and sameness, as though each question and response was scripted. All neat and tidy.
Then Ma came back.
"Angela, darling!" Linderman said. "You look radiant, as always, my dear."
"Alexander, always a pleasure."
Nathan was slightly amused that they both seemed to stagger a bit when they realized the baby was in the way of their standard cheek-kissing greeting.
"So!" Linderman said, recovering quickly, as Pop stood akwardly back from the two of them. "This... would be Peter, then?"
Like there's some other baby in the house... Nathan thought, while maintaining the perfect disinterested yet attentive visage.
Ma handed Peter over, admonishing Linderman to support his head. Linderman took him and cooed over him with the same exaggerated fake sincerity he seemed to do everything with. Nathan was watching Peter though. In the past two weeks, he'd gotten better at interpreting the baby's squirms and wimpers, and those were definitely his put-me-down signals.
Good taste, Pete, Nathan thought with somewhat vindictive glee, right before Peter started making his I'm-about-to-break-your-ears-bawling noise.
"Well," Ma said, abruptly, apparently also recognizing the warning sign, "Our cook's been hard at work, shall we ajourn to the dining room?"
"Certainly!" Linderman said, fortunately handing Peter back just before they all got an earful of Peter's displeasure.
Ma turned and handed Peter down to Nathan. "Could you take Peter up to the nanny to get him cleaned up and then join us, please?" she said, not bothering to wait for his reply before she, Pop and Linderman left the room.
Nathan looked after them, then hoisted Peter up near his face. "I don't like him, either," he whispered. Then he settled Peter against his shoulder and headed up to the nursery. Peter didn't cry.
***
Things didn't improve. His parents held hushed arguments behind closed doors, and Linderman visited again a few weeks later, bringing along whispered discussions of his own, both with Ma and Pop. Pop continued to get quieter and quieter, spending most of his time locked away in his study "working," if that was even what he was really doing. He rebuffed all of Nathan's attempts to suggest a rescheduled fishing trip, until finally Nathan gave up and accepted an invitation to go camping with one of his old friends' families instead.
It was fun, but it made the strained atmosphere of home even more noticable when he got home.
As he walked by his father's study one day while his mother was out, Peter started wailing somewhere, and Pop, apparently not knowing anyone was nearby, growled, "Someone shut the little monster up, please."
And there was something about it that made it feel worse than an exclamation of frustration. Something that made Nathan shiver. Something that made him turn around and hurry up to the nursery, getting to Peter before even the nanny did and plucking him out of his crib onto the changing table.
After the diaper was dealt with, he sat for awhile in the rocking chair with Peter in his lap. He felt like he should tell him a story, but he didn't really know any stories for babies. He was supposed to be meeting his friends for a soda, but Peter was drifting off to sleep, warm in his arms, and something told him this was maybe more important.
***
The night three weeks before Nathan was to go back to school, his father was drinking brandy. Nathan slipped into his for-once unlocked study and sat down across from him, intending to make one last-ditch effort at a fishing trip.
But all thoughts of that drained from his mind as soon as he got a good look at Pop. He looked haggard. Tired. More than just from two a.m. crying babies.
"You okay, Pop?" he asked, and finally his father really seemed to look at him. Pop smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile.
"You're such a good boy, Nathan," he said, his words rolling into one another. "Sometimes... sometimes that's maybe not a good thing."
Nathan frowned. "Pop?"
"Sometimes, you try to do the right thing, and you end up doing the wrong thing. Not you. Just... you. The general you."
Nathan found himself gripping the arms of his chair like sitting at the top of a rollar coaster. There was something... horror-movie creepy to his father right now. The steady, slow, inevitableness of his words.
"Who even knows what's right? Sometimes... what seems right, it's wrong. Sometimes what seems wrong is right. I mean, how many lives are worth the life of an innocent? How many lives are worth changing the world? What gives anyone the right to decide that?"
He turned his eyes straight to Nathan's, and Nathan shuddered.
"Too many balls in motion. You never know where they'll end up. Which one you need to nudge to make it all work out in the end. Which one will fuck everything up. You... You, Nathan, you don't know how important you are. Everything... everything hinges on you."
"Pop--you're scaring me," he said.
His father blinked, almost as though coming out of a trance. "Aw, sport. Don't listen to me. I'm an old, raving drunk. Go on. Go have some fun."
Nathan went--anything to get out of that study--but he didn't have fun. He found himself in Peter's darkened room instead, sitting very quietly on the floor by Peter's crib. He fished through the cardboard books by the glow of Peter's balloon nightlight and the sound of Peter's even breaths. "Pat the Bunny." The whole hook of that one seemed to be the soft plush bunny, there was no real plotline to speak of. "The Hungry Caterpillar" was similarly lacking in plot. Then there was "Goodnight, Moon." Nathan flipped through that one, and although it was no more plotty than the other two, it got his attention. It was oddly melancholy for a baby book. It seemed as though everything was slipping away, one small object at a time. "Goodnight, kittens. Goodnight, moon. Goodnight, stars."
He wasn't sure if it was the kind of thing Peter should be hearing. Pete was a baby. He didn't need sadness, he didn't need loss. Nathan shut the slim book and pushed it deep underneath the crack at the base of the dresser. No one would find it there.
That was when he heard the crash.
***
Later, he only remembered the night as a blur of flashing red lights. The police came, the EMTs, swarming Dad's study where the pills and the brandy had been, before Nathan had hidden them after calling 911. Ma got home from her Ladies Night just as the ambulance was pulling away, and she stopped them and got in with them, shouting for Nathan to "Stay here! You take care of Peter!"
So he did. He ended up falling asleep, exhausted, in Peter's rocking chair as the dawn light seeped in, and he didn't wake up until Peter began whimpering for a diaper change and a bottle. He changed Peter's diaper then carried him downstairs, leaving him in the sitting room on his activity blanket while he warmed a bottle. Peter was quietly waving his rattle in the sunlight when Nathan got back. His mouth was open in a toothless approximation of a grin, and Nathan felt himself smiling back.
"Hey, Peter. You lucky little guy. You don't know about any of this, do you?"
He sat down cross-legged on the floor and tucked Peter in his lap, watching him latch onto the bottle like mana from heaven. Nathan found himself stroking the silky hair on the top of Peter's head, playing his finger lightly over the soft spot on his skull.
"You shouldn't have to," he said, as Peter's small hand came to rest on the back of his own on the bottle. "You leave it to me, ok? You just... you just be happy. Don't let 'em get to you. All that drama and stuff. You don't worry about it. I'll handle it."
Peter just slurped away at his bottle, but his eyes, dark brown now, never left Nathan's face.