Page 151 of Beneath the Stain

“Kell did,” Mackey said, smiling a little. “When he saw you naked and pissed off. He put his shirt over your shoulders, and we all knew.”

“Hate you all.”

“Good. You’ll fit right in.”

“Fuck off.”

“Get some rest.” He kissed her cheek, stood up, and turned toward Trav’s suitcase. They both needed laundry, so he started with a basket full of their clothes mixed together that he put in the washer.

Cheever was in the kitchen, nursing a hot chocolate and leaning against their mother. When Mackey walked past them, he met Cheever’s red, teary eyes and sighed. He made it to the washer and dryer and did what he needed, his mind pleasantly blank for just long enough to do the mindless task.

When he came out of the laundry room, he walked up to the table and leaned on it with both hands. It was one of those sturdy carved-wood things—real wood, he thought with detachment, not laminate, which meant Heather Sanders had been looking at stuff for her dream house for a long time.

“You want us to be part of your life and we’re there,” Mackey said without preamble. “But for just a little while here, you gotta remember you’re not the most important person on the planet. Man, we built ourlivesaround you, Cheever Sanders. Kell gave part of his take-home to make sure you had clothes, Jefferson and Stevie bought your books, I watched you and took you to art shows and the library, and Grant brought you just random shit including the bicycle you rode to school in the fourth grade so you didn’t have to be seen in the band van. We havedonefor you, and we’ll do for you again, but we need you to do two things for us.”

“What, Mackey?” His voice was clogged, but he wasn’t being an obnoxious little shit, so Mackey hoped it was good.

“First of all, give us some space while we’re here. The whole reason your house got filled with people you barely know is ’cause we’re here to say good-bye to someone.” He closed his eyes. “I know from experience this hurts. It’s gonna hurt everyone. If you don’t give us a fucking break with the brother-lemme-climb-your-body bullshit, we’re gonna strangle you, and I know how to hide the corpse. And the second thing?”

“What?” Cheever asked, his eyes still wide and brown on Mackey’s face.

“Stop selling out your brothers for whoever’s got your ear. Don’t talk about us to the press, don’t posture in front of your friends. Man, I just sat in a jail cell with five guys who’d rather be in there with me than on the other side bailing us out. Even the guy who bailed us out wanted to be in that cell. If you want to be inside the stupid jail cell, the guy talking shit next to you needs to be the first guy to get dropped, you hear me? Not the girl in our home. Not the reporter with the blow or the car or the box of burgers or whatever. The guy talking shit needs to be the guy you go after, or we wouldn’t go to jail with you, much less let you in.”

Cheever was crying a little now, but it was a freeing sort of cry, so Mackey figured he could go put on one of Trav’s shirts and call Debra.

He was ready to go tell Trav about emotional maturity and how they should all run out and get them some.

THEY’DBOUGHTa canvas beach bag in Greece, and Mackey put a pair of jeans and a T-shirt—yes, T-shirt—and a hooded sweatshirt in it for Trav. On impulse he put a pair of clean underwear and T-shirt in it for himself, then grabbed a sweatshirt, because the wind was sweeping cold and fierce, and slid into some loafers.

His mom took him to the hotel, at her own insistence, and he sighed. God. He just wanted to talk to Trav.

“Sorry, Mom,” he said automatically as the silence descended in the car.

“Don’t be. Youtoldme it would come out some day all surprising.”

“Well, surprise!” He made his voice bright and sarcastic, and she laughed a little too.

“Cheever’s young,” she said quietly. “He’s young, and he’d do anything to impress his friends—and you guys are more parents than brothers.”

Mackey grunted. “I think sometimes we should take him down to LA with us, but….” He shook his head. “There’s a lot more to do there, but alotmore trouble to get into. It’s like, here’s probably better, but we can’t—” He stopped himself. It sounded cruel.

“You can’t raise him for me,” she said, and yeah, she sounded hurt, but she also sounded like it was due. “I know. I mean….” Her shrug was tiny, and that much uncertainty made her look vulnerable. “It would be great if I didn’t do this alone, but, well, choices and choices, right?”

“Mom, yeah, choices. Like who he’s hanging out with at school, right? I mean, he made that choice, whoever they are.”

Her sigh should have alerted him that this next part was going to piss him off. “Yeah,” she said, “I have no idea.”

“Mom!”

“Momwhat, Mackey—it’s not like I knew everythingyouwere doing!”

“Wellyeah, but it didn’t surprise you who I was doing itwith!”

“Yeah, but I didn’t like him and you still did it!”

“But you knew. Dammit—you knew it was Grant and Stevie. You knew who their parents were, even if you didn’t talk to ’em. You used to know Cheever’s friends—remember Kevin? Whoever Cheever is dealing with now that makes him think this kind of thing is okay—you gotta know that and you gotta stop it! That’s your job. Man, you’ve got a chance to spend some time with him—you can’t just… give up on him because we’re not here to help!”

His mom’s voice wobbled when she spoke next. “Oh, Mackey—man, I tried. I did. I volunteered at his school and it just embarrassed the shit out of us both. I’m the only mom there without a fucking education, did you know that? Did it ever occur to you that I was not there enough to be the kind of parent Cheever needs? I don’t even know how to start! I mean… you boys and me, I was the only lap you had to sit in. With Cheever, once you left, it was just him and me, and suddenly I had all this time, and he was away at school!”