Chapter Text
Rebecca smells the blood on her fingers as she picks at her nails, and looks at Wirt. His fingers are in a similar state, and she resists the urge to touch them, settling to kiss his cold forehead. She shivers. She looks at her younger son, who had been untouched by the cruelty of life. Until now. She’s failed both her children, a mirror of her own eyes.
“You don’t have to do this Mark. I swear.” Mark had smiled just like his son would someday, the hint of bitterness uncanny. The gold band on his elongated fingers gleamed as he shifted the duffel bag on his shoulder.
“It’s his dying wish, Bex. I’m going to go, and I’m going to come back deserving of both of you.” He ruffled Wirt’s hair, the two year old babbling incomprehensibly.
“Daddy’s coming back a hero, ok bud? Take care of mommy for me. Love you.” He had kissed Rebecca then like a prayer, like a confession. Rebecca just needed him, not whatever shit her father-in-law had poisoned him with. She’d hoped he’d die faster. She prayed for Mark to be ok. She wishes she had said it now, convinced him to stay. But that day, she merely kissed him back, and prayed that love was enough. It wouldn’t be.
………..
“Rebecca?” Jonathan holds two cups of coffee out. She accepts one, savoring the warmth between her hands.
“I should try to call Mark.”
“Do you think he still has a phone? Last time we saw him…”
“He should know.”
“Of course. You know this isn’t your fault honey…right? The boys are going to be ok.” She doesn't think she can hear her kind, well meaning husband tell her lies and mean them. She smiles, thinly, and steps in the hall, phone already ringing.
“Mark? It’s Rebecca. I…Wirt fell into a pond and almost…the doctors say they’re-he’s going to be ok. Physically, I mean. The hospital is keeping him overnight, just to be safe. It’s Howlslett Memorial, room 217. And you know where we live. 379 Bluebird lane. Bye.” Her voice was not as steady as she had hoped, but she still hasn’t cried. She takes a sip of the still-scalding coffee, and the memories come like a rain of bullets.
……………..
“It’s going to be ok.” She whispered to herself. She had sat in the parking lot of the support group, dabbing a tissue on her bloody thumb.
“When’s daddy going to be here, I want to show him my story!” Wirt fussed in the backseat, a book of fairytales and a coloring book abandoned in his lap. His favorite stuffed animal, a rabbit named Hansel, sat next to him, a pensive expression on his furry face.
“Soon kerido.” She hoped Mark wouldn’t make a liar out of her. He was doing that more and more lately. This was normal, according to the books and blogs and support groups. He had lost his arm, and that would be an adjustment. But they loved each other. And they’d get through this. She texted him. He hadn’t responded. They waited for hours, Rebecca’s fingers ugly and raw as she debated calling the police. Wirt eventually fell asleep clutching Hansel. Three hours later, he knocked on the window.
“Mark, are you alright? Where have you been? Are you hurt?” His eyes were glazed, and Rebecca could feel stone in her gut.
“Mm don’t worry Bexie. Mmm’all good now.” His smile was lopsided, almost stagnant.
“Are you still taking those pills?”
“I’m in pain!”
“I know, but-”
“Do you? Last time I checked you have both arms.” Rebecca swallowed hard.
“…I’m sorry Bex, I didn’t mean it.”
“You want to hear my story?” Wirt had evidently woken up.
“Mmmm. Course bud.” They were going to be ok.
…………….
“Mark, I want a divorce.” They sat, glass between them, bags under both their eyes. He had laughed bitterly then, eyes hard and cold.
“You’re leaving me? What happened to for worse or for better? I made a mistake, I’m in pain goddammit! You have no idea what it’s like to have your life turned upside down!”
“You aren’t the man I married mark. You’ve become something else! I love you Mark, I always will, but I can’t live like this! I wake up wondering where you are, what you’ve done, if the cops are coming to tell me you were found stealing someone’s jewelry and taking our son and leaving him in an alley! I can’t live second to heroin Mark. I’m tired.”
“What about Wirt?”
“You were in jail for months. You’re constantly high. You committed a felony. You brought him to a crackhouse!”
“I’ve made some mistakes! Look, I’m really trying, I’ll get better, I promise!”
“You’ve been saying that for years. We can’t pretend anymore. Please.” Mark stared at his fingers and they both pretended they weren’t crying.
“You’re wrong.”
…………….
It’s her son’s sixth birthday, and Mark wouldn’t respond to her calls. He had promised he would start showing up once he made parole, and neither of them had seen him since. Wirt thought he had been murdered, and nothing short of seeing him in person would reassure him.
Wirt was an anxious child, sitting under the table with paper and crayons while the kids played outside. Rebecca has never been much of a cook, and her tentative boyfriend Jonathan offered to help. He was her fourth date since the divorce, and the only one to make it past a first date. She liked him, but had been afraid to introduce him to her son, worried she was a bad person and mother for dating a year and a half after getting divorced from her child’s father, who was a formerly incarcerated addict. Wirt cried when he saw a dead ant, how was he going to react to Jonathan? Strong, stable, unfailingly kind Jonathan, who was everything his own father was not? She didn’t know how to tell her now six year old that she would never love anything as much as him. She settled for crawling under the table and ruffling his hair.
“Do you want to play with the other kids kerido? They look like they’re playing a fun game.”
“I don’t want to say the wrong thing.” Rebecca wondered if Wirt could hear her heart crack at the admission.
“Oh sweetheart, everyone says the wrong thing sometimes. All that matters is that you fix it after.”
“But I don’t know what I said wrong!” Wirt picked at his nails, and with his hair mirrored to her own, his face a peculiar amalgamation of her and mark, she wondered if darkness could be inherited.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened, ok?”
…………………
“Wirt, kerido, I’d like you to meet your brother Gregory.” Jonathan was out placating his mother for not naming his son after his father, and the nurse had left, so it was just the three of them in the room.
“He’s ok, I guess.” Wirt stared at his shoes.
“You're a big brother now, so you got to look after him, ok?” Wirt pressed his lips together, steadfastly ignoring the tears that threatened to spill down his cheeks.
“Come here love.” She didn’t want to put down Greg, every bit as perfect as her eldest child, but she laid him down, opened her arms so Wirt could clamber on the stiff bed.
“This changes nothing, sweetheart. You will always be my favorite guy, the most important thing in my life. We just have a new addition to my most important people list.” Wirt looked down at his brother, and Rebecca thought that love would be enough this time.
………………………..
“It’s not your fault. Wirt…can be prickly. He’s going through a lot and I know you know and it’s not an excuse, I’m going to talk to him-“
“It’s alright. I get it, I do. I know Mark hasn’t…been present in a while, and he’s a good kid. He’s fourteen, at least he isn’t doing drugs.” Despite saying this, Jonathan looks remarkably like a kicked puppy from Wirt’s scoff of his suggestion to join the marching band, and his blatant vow to not acknowledge his existence unless pressed.
“He’s taking out Greg for Halloween tonight, right? That’s something.” Rebecca nodded encouragingly.
………………
Had that been only a few hours ago? Rebecca stares down at the pallid faces of her sons, her suns, and inhales, shaky. Jonathan puts his arm around her shoulders and speaks in a low tone.
“We’re going to be ok.” And Greg stirs, mumbling nonsense.
………………
There’s something vaguely uncomfortable about the anti-septic smell that permeates the hospital. The unknown may have been some sort of death, or purgatory, or something, but the air was either crisp or overripe, not this tepid warmth from stiff sheets. Sara, both Jason Funderburkers, and his family are all staring at him in a way that would have made him uncomfortable only a few hours ago, but now, it seems trite.
He almost got his six year old brother killed by a magic beast. Wirt thinks most things are trite comparatively. A lonely pilgrim floating in the dark wood; luminous acquiescence of the inevitable…
“Wirt? You’re doing that thing again?”
“What thing?“
“That thing where you get all poet-y and sad.” Greg makes Jason funderburker (the frog) make a sad face.
“I don’t-well, maybe I sort of do that.”
“Whatever you say, brother o mine! Since you’re the hero who got us away from the beast, you can have some of my Halloween candy!”
“Wait, what beast?” Jason funderburker (the man) interjects. He looks so bewildered, hair askew (not in a sexy way) and Wirt tries not to laugh. Jason is…just a guy. An ordinary, regular, normal boy. Maybe everyone is just a person. He registers Greg telling them all about their adventures (he was almost glad that Greg experienced it too; it’s comforting to know someone else had been there and that he probably wasn’t crazy even if it was his six year old brother who he almost killed with his selfishness, oh god they almost died-)
“You’re thinking too much.” And you’re thinking too little, thinks Wirt. No. That isn’t fair. He lets the acid die in his throat before responding.
“Maybe. Do you have any KitKats?”
“For my favorite brother, of course!” The hospital doesn’t feel quite so cold anymore. Wirt smiles, and takes a breath.