The way up, Edgar whispers to me, is to know that what you did was right.

  I hang up my jacket, head into the kitchen, and sit down in the chair across from her. I’ll let her make the first move.

  She stubs out her cig. “Aren’t you going to ask how your brother is?”

  I know this isn’t really what’s on her mind; she’s just trying to put me in the wrong before we even start. “Did something change?” That’s as much as I’ll give her.

  She stares at me for a few seconds while I remind myself that if I speak first, I lose. Then, “If there’s a change, it will be for the worse. And Kyle has you to thank for that.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  She stands up so fast the chair falls over behind her with a sharp thud, wood on wood. I jump just a little. She paces the kitchen once or twice and then stops a few feet from the table.

  “Do you give me any credit, Ethan? Any credit at all?” I shrug; probably not the smartest move, but I don’t know what she’s talking about. “No? I guess I’m not surprised, given that it never occurred to you that perhaps, just maybe, there was a very good reason I wasn’t bringing your idiot father into this situation with Kyle. More than one, in fact. But you don’t even give me the courtesy of asking me! You don’t even mention that you’re going to talk to him! You just blab the whole thing. And do you know what he does? Do you?”

  Her voice has been rising through this speech. I glance toward the stairs, wondering if Kyle should be hearing this.

  Her voice dripping sarcasm, Mom says, “Oh, now you’re concerned about Kyle. Now you’re thinking maybe we should be doing what’s best for him. He’s out cold. I gave him a sedative. I had to. All because you couldn’t keep your fucking mouth shut!”

  This is too much. “What are you so mad about?” I’m about to go on, but she doesn’t give me a chance.

  “What am I so mad about? I’ll tell you, since you’re too stupid to figure it out for yourself.” She paces again, hands flying through the air as she talks. “That bastard of a father of yours showed up here, unannounced, and just marched in. Didn’t even knock. ‘Where’s Kyle?’ he says. ‘I want to see Kyle!’ Took way too much time and way too much of my patience—something I don’t have in abundance these days—to calm him down even a little. And then he hikes up the stairs and yells at Kyle, telling him what an idiot he is, telling him he’s a disgrace and he needs to pull himself together and not be such a baby. Shouting at him to be a man and stop all the nonsense. In other words,” and she stops and stares at me again, “he does everything the therapist said we’re not supposed to do. He does it all wrong. Exactly as I knew he would.”

  Any confidence I have in my decision to tell him is waning fast. “What did Kyle say?”

  She shrieks at me. “What do you think Kyle said? He went into that mumbo jumbo of his, quoting Bible verses and defending his actions with scripture. Which is exactly what the therapist said was the problem. Kyle’s been using the Bible to justify these actions, which have a psychological source he isn’t seeing. And all your bastard father did was push him further into his corner, while I’m paying through the nose to coax him out of it.” She turns away from me, and when she turns back, her eyes are shining with tears. “Ethan! How could you do this?”

  “I . . . I didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t know what?”

  My breathing is odd, noisy in and out of my nose. “Look, you didn’t tell me any of that. You didn’t talk to me about the therapist and what he said. You didn’t tell me not to tell Dad. Kyle is his son, too, you know!”

  Mom picks up her chair and sits down hard on it. “Ethan, do you have any idea why I told your father to leave here in the first place?”

  “He drank too much.” It’s the best I can do; this question takes me by surprise and I’m not sure how to respond.

  “That was such a small part of it. Maybe it was the easiest for you to understand.” She rubs her face with both hands. “Your father is an emotional child. He sees everything only as far as it relates to him, which means he can’t put himself in someone else’s shoes. He can’t put his own needs or his own feelings aside long enough to consider that someone else’s need might be more important right now.”

  “You married him.”

  There’s a silence big enough to fall into. Finally Mom says, “You have no idea how much I regret that.”

  Now I’m not breathing at all. She’s telling me she wishes she never had me, or Kyle. She would change her whole life if she could, and I wouldn’t exist. And that would be the way she wants it. I launch from my chair and run for the stairs. My room might not be a real sanctuary, but it’s sure as hell better than where I am right now.

  I lock the door, even though I know she’s coming after me as fast as she can, and I throw myself on the bed. She knocks quietly and says in a hoarse whisper, “Ethan! Come out. Please. You’re taking that the wrong way.”

  I lift my head off the pillow long enough to shout, “Go to hell!”

  I can hear her pushing something into the lock, trying to break in. I jump up and throw myself against the door just as she starts to open it.

  “Let me in, Ethan. We need to talk. Calmly.”

  I struggle to keep my voice low and still make it sound ugly. “There’s nothing to talk about. You got the really shitty end of the stick, didn’t you? A bastard lowlife for a husband, a psycho freak for one son, and a faggot for the other. It sure sucks to be you, doesn’t it?”

  The door eases shut as she controls her release of pressure on it until it closes quietly. I can barely hear her walk away and back down the stairs.

  Back on my bed, staring at the ceiling and breathing deeply to fight off the tears stinging my eyes, I consider my options. Maybe I could go live with Etta. I’m part of her pack, after all. It’s better than running away altogether, and better than trying to live with Dad in his one-point-five rooms over somebody’s garage. And I could still be around if Kyle needed me, though obviously I’m as bad as my father as far as Kyle’s concerned. I mean, didn’t I just do exactly what Mom accused Dad of doing? Didn’t I just decide on my own that I wanted Dad to know this, not at all considering what it could mean to Kyle or to Mom?

  I squint my eyes shut and roll onto my belly. How was I supposed to know what Dad would do? How did I know he would make Kyle worse? No amount of thinking about this from Kyle’s or Mom’s point of view would have made me do anything else.

  Would it?

  Christ!

  I curl my arm toward my face, and without meaning to I bring Edgar toward me like I’m hugging him. Heidi said the bat would help me through times of trouble in a way that would also make me more truly myself.

  Suddenly I want my bat ear cuff. I need that feeling I got when Shane said, “The bat.” It’s in my jacket pocket, and that’s downstairs. I stand at my door, ear to the crack; where’s Mom? Can’t tell, so I open the door slowly and listen again. I think I smell fresh cigarette smoke over the aroma of lasagna cooking, but I don’t hear the TV, so maybe Mom’s back in the kitchen, which means she’ll see me. I decide not to hide, though I don’t know how convincing my attempt is to move casually down the stairs and over to the closet like nothing’s wrong. I don’t look in any direction other than the closet door, and then at my jacket, and then at my wrist as my hand disappears into the pocket where my package is. Just as I’m turning to head back upstairs, Mom calls to me.

  “Ethan. Come sit. We need to come to an agreement.”

  But I’ve already decided I’m not doing any more sitting or talking until I’m truly myself. “Just a minute.” My voice sounds tight, not natural at all. She doesn’t protest. I take the stairs two at a time, go into the bathroom, pull out my bat cuff, and put it on. I allow myself maybe twenty seconds to admire it in the mirror before tossing the bag with the other stuff onto my bed and heading downstairs again.

  I sit in the same chair as earlier and wait. When she looks up, she opens her mouth and then pauses, staring at my ear. Then she says, “New jewelry, Ethan?”

  “Max and I went to This Time For Sure. Got this at the body art place next door.”

  She glares at me from under her eyebrows. “Body art? You didn’t get a tattoo, did you?”

  “It’s illegal. I’m underage.” She looks unconvinced, so I add, “Mom, believe me, I didn’t get any tattoos today.” Partial truth is all she’s going to get.

  “What did Max get?”

  “A plain silver band ear cuff, and he’s now the proud owner of a brown leather jacket from This Time. No tattoo.” Okay, so I’m not being totally honest about timelines, but, it’s the best I can do. The best I’m going to do, anyway. I decide against mentioning her divorce lawyer.

  But she’s not done. “Any more piercings?”

  “No.”

  She takes another drag on her cig, exhales, and looks hard at me. “Ethan, you and I have got to make an arrangement. We have to be a team and work together to pull your brother out of this chasm he’s fallen into. And I’m sorry, but we have to leave your father out of it.”

  I want to ask why, to challenge this exclusion I don’t really like. But if her description of what happened while I was out is at all accurate, I don’t need to know more. But there’s more to say. “Then you have to let me fully into it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw you and Kyle in the bathroom this morning. I hadn’t seen his hand outside of bandages before. You didn’t tell me it was as bad as that. You called Dad a stupid idiot, but you called me that, too.”

  “When did I call you that?”

  “You said I was too stupid to figure things out for myself. Y’know, I didn’t hear anything the therapist said, and you haven’t told me anything other than a few bare facts. You told me I had a fucking mouth.” She starts to say something, but I drown her out. “And you regret having both me and Kyle.” Silence. “So I guess I know where I stand on this team.”

  I can see tears pooling in her eyes, and it hurts. I want to feel vindication, and righteous anger. I don’t. I can’t.

  She gets up and walks to the back door, staring out through the nine panes of glass separated by narrow strips of wood and taking a few shuddering breaths. It’s maybe a full minute before she wipes her hand over her face and comes back to the table, and I know she’s not crying to make me feel sorry for her. If she were, she’d have cried right there at the table. But I feel bad all the same.

  “I’m sorry I said those things to you. But I’m not sorry I had you. You’ve always been my sweet, sweet boy. I haven’t called you that; I don’t expect most boys want to hear that from their mothers. But that’s what you are. I don’t regret for one second that you’re my son. All I regret is what I had to do to get you.”

  She rubs her face again and I take advantage of the moment to swipe quickly at my own eyes. Then she grins at me. “I love the bat.”

  It’s the best thing she could have said, really. That is, once she’s told me she doesn’t regret me. And I believe her about both things.

  She takes a deep breath. “If I’ve kept things about Kyle from you, it was to protect you. So you need to let me know how much you’re willing to hear. What would you like to know?”

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s not enough.”

  She sighs. “You know he’s seeing another therapist next week. The first one would like to treat him, but that consists mostly of standard talk therapy and keeping him away from that church crowd. I don’t know whether they’ve made this any worse, but they sure as hell can’t make it any better.” She sighs. “Evidently there’s no medicinal treatment anyone’s found that does any good. There are a few other kinds of therapy that have been tried, but their track records aren’t any better than standard stuff.”

  “Is there anything special about the therapist next week?”

  “She combines standard therapy with something called EMDR. I forget what it stands for, but it means she does something to make him move his eyes back and forth for half a minute a few times during the session. It’s supposed to help him make cognitive connections with whatever is causing the irrational behavior.”

  “But . . . that doesn’t work, either?”

  “From what I can tell, the only thing that really works is amputation. And I’ve already asked about that. No one is willing to do that unless the limb is so damaged that it threatens the patient’s life.”

  “Does this threaten his life?”

  Another deep breath. “They’re talking about infection. But . . . it’s not unheard of for BIID sufferers to commit suicide.”

  We just stare at each other. Then she leans on the table, lowers her head to her arms, and sobs. I pull a chair close and do my best to hug her, but I feel so fucking helpless.

  What is this thing my brother’s got? No one will do the one thing that would make him stop hurting himself, and other than that there’s nothing that will make him stop wanting it? Fuck!

  Rock-and-a-hard-place is something I didn’t really understand until this very moment. Kyle is between a rock and a hard place, and there’s a pendulum swinging over his head.

  I want to ask Heidi, Which direction should Kyle go in? What’s “up” for him?

  Kyle’s still groggy when dinner’s ready, so Mom takes his dinner up to him and stays while he eats it. Then he goes back to sleep again. Over our own dinner, Mom and I don’t say much. The one thing that stands out is when she says that Kyle can’t go through the rest of his life sedated. I don’t say that it looks like just about the only option at the moment.

  Around ten, I get a text from Max. u ok?

  bout the same

  hang in there

  Chapter 9

  Sunday morning Etta calls and asks if I’d like to drive to the dog park in Bangor, and Mom reminds me she needs to go to the supermarket later, so I shouldn’t stay out too long. I nearly forget to put on my new bat ear cuff.

  Etta notices it right away and laughs, not at me, but because she likes it. “Ethan, you do have an interesting esthetic.” Two leans forward from the backseat and licks that ear.

  I’ve never been to a dog park before, so I don’t know what to expect. It’s a bit overcast, with a chilly breeze. Not many leaves are still on the trees. Etta has Two on his leash as we approach the gate to the open area, and she makes him sit down quietly before she leads him in. She makes him sit quietly again inside until he looks up at her, then she rubs his head and takes the leash off.

  I have to say, if I’d been there with my toy poodle, or my collie, I’m not sure I would have been thrilled to see a pit bull. Some of the smaller dogs could have been appetizers for Two. But I watch him trot forward and exchange sniffs with a few dogs, and then he’s off, dashing around, playing with the other dogs—laughing, as far as I can tell.

  I look at Etta, who’s smiling fondly at her monster. I ask, “So, what does it mean to a dog? Socializing, I mean. That’s why you bring him, right?”

  “It is, though I enjoy it too. Sometimes there are other owners I know here, and I do a little socializing myself. But a dog that doesn’t live in a pack of dogs needs to be reminded every so often how dogs behave. The more like a dog he acts, the easier it is for me to manage him, because he’s more predictable. And a pit bull takes some very deliberate management, or he’ll take the upper hand. That’s not a good thing.”

  I watch Two’s dense bronze body running, even jumping, he’s barking happily, and it’s hard to remember that he has the potential to be dangerous. He looks like just a dog out there, having fun being a dog. At one point, he sits down, panting, and looks around for us. When he trots over to us he sits down beside me, almost on my feet, and looks out across the park.

  “Is he tired?” I ask.

  “Probably. That’s a lot of running for a dog built for power rather than speed.”

  I look down at the top of his head, his ears in floppy triangles bobbing with his panting. “Can I sit next to him?”

  “Certainly. Let’s both sit for a minute.”

  As soon as I’m on the ground, Two turns to me and laps my face. It makes me laugh, and without thinking I wrap my arms around his neck and hug him, just for a few seconds. Then he’s on his back, paws in the air, grinning at me.

  “Rub his belly. He loves that.”

  He sure does. I rub and rub, and he squirms and makes puffing noises that aren’t quite whines and aren’t quite barks. Before long, we’re wrestling on the grass, this dangerous dog and me. Etta laughs, and it hits me that I love being in this pack. I get peace, and relief, when I’m with it. Finally we lie still, my head and Two’s touching, and through half-closed eyes I watch the clouds move across the sky, letting my heart and his rest together as close as our heads.

  I want a dog. Actually, I want this dog. I close my eyes and let the image of my tattoo lend sweet balance to this feeling of peace.

  A few minutes later Two jumps up, checks with Etta, and then trots over to be with the other dogs again. We wander around, not quite following him, and from time to time he bounces over to us and then races off again. Etta and I don’t talk a lot; it doesn’t seem necessary. But I do decide to tell her how bad Kyle’s hand is, partly to see if she already knows, if Mom told her and not me.

  “I saw Kyle’s hand without the bandage yesterday,” I open.

  She looks at me. “Oh?” And when I don’t go on right away, she adds, “Is there something you want to say about it?”

  “It was bad. Did Mom tell you how bad it is?”

  “No.”