He cast about for something to say. Looked at the wall, the window, the sun, his eyes dancing. Coming to rest on the drawing in front of Billy.
"Can I see?" He reached for the paper bag, hoping for something to distract him, to distract them both.
The drawing had started simply: A door with a four-panel window on either side, and in front, a lumpy, out-of-scale tree. The same house drawn by generations of children, the lines rough and hesitant, a kid's clumsy attempt to conjure something from his mind.
But darker lines grew out of it. Horizontal and vertical slashes that framed boxes. Each connected, spouting from one another. Doors between them, and windows. A series of rooms, he realized, like a twisted mansion. Space piling on space, higher and further. An impossible, unwieldy labyrinth. A sorcerer's lair. And in the smallest room in a forgotten corner, lost in the maze, stood a stick figure with big hands and wide eyes.
Jason stared at the drawing, his fingers trembling. Stared at the red world Billy saw himself in. Not just lost.
Alone.
"I'll tell you the truth, kiddo." He passed the drawing back, then swung his legs out to lay on his belly beside Billy. "I don't know yet. There will be a lot of things we have to figure out. But everything will be okay. I promise." Realizing, as he said the words, that he meant them. That he would do whatever it took to make them true.
Billy wiped his nose with the back of one hand, unconvinced. "I was scared last night. You didn't come back."
"I know. I'm sorry." He reached out and picked up the crayon Billy had abandoned, twiddled it idly between his fingertips. "I was… well, I was trying to get the bad guys. If I could have, I'd rather have stayed here with you."
"You would?"
"Definitely." He nudged Billy with his shoulder. "You're my man."
They lay there in a silence a moment. The crayon's tip had been worn to a broad spade, and Jason sharpened it with the edge of his thumb. The red wax jammed under his nail like blood.
"Uncle Jason?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you need to go to the hospital?"
"Huh?" He cocked his eyebrows. "Why do you say that, buddy?"
"My dad said that you were sick."
"Sick?"
Billy nodded. "He said that when you went to war you were okay, but that you came back sick." His eyes were egg whites sizzling in a pan. "I don't want you to be sick. I don't want you to die, too."
Jason stared at him. Opened his mouth, closed it. He could feel the Worm tensing inside of him, like it hoped to burst through his chest. When he spoke, his voice came out soft and measured. "Your dad's a smart man. I guess I did come back sick. But it's not the kind I can die from."
"What's wrong?"
"I'm not sure how to explain." He blew air through his mouth. "You know how sometimes you make a mistake and it's not a big deal? It's wrong, but nobody gets hurt. Like when you screw up a homework problem."
Billy nodded.
"Well, sometimes you can make a small mistake that is a very big deal. It can be something really simple," seeing the stranded ambulance, a target under skies of flame, "something that seems like the right thing to do. Except if things don't go the way you expect, something bad can happen. When it does, it's easy to feel like you're to blame."
"Something went wrong?" Billy's voice was just a little louder than a whisper.
Martinez clutching his throat, blood squeezing through clenched knuckles.
"Yeah."
"It was your fault?"
"Well, what went wrong wasn't my fault."
"I don't understand." Billy stared at him. "It wasn't your fault?"
"Sort of. I made a mistake that let somebody else do something bad."
Billy wrinkled his brow. "But you said you were doing the right thing."
"I thought it was." Seeing the wounded Iraqi child in the back, his eyes wide and scared. "I was trying to save people's lives."
"Did you?"
You killed Martinez, the Worm hissed in his belly. You took a twenty-year-old kid off mission against explicit orders, in an area you knew was full of insurgents and snipers. You killed him.
"I think we might have," he said. "But my friend died, too."
"That's why you got sick?" Billy looked at Jason with the unblinking directness of a child.
"I-" He hesitated. Was it? He'd walled this part of himself off for so long. Hadn't questioned his guilt, hadn't let himself even look at it. And now that he did, he found things weren't as black and white as he pictured. Yes, Martinez was dead. But soldiers died. It was part of the job description. And dying to save the life of a child, that made you a hero, didn't it?
Jason pointed at the drawing. "Lemme see that again."
Billy passed it to him, confused. Jason peered at, made a show of holding it close to his face. "Yup. I thought so. You're missing something."
"What do you mean?"
Jason bent over the paper. Drew a vertical line with four diagonals branching off, topped by a circle with a mop of squiggly lines. A smile and big hands. Passed it back. "There, see?"
"You drew someone with me."
"Look familiar?" He flipped his bangs.
"Is that you?" Billy squinted at the stick figures, the tall one standing behind the smaller one, a hand on one stick shoulder.
"That's me, buddy." He smiled. "That's me." Somehow.
I swear to God, somehow that's going to be me.
Billy stared at the drawing, then back at him. Then he rolled over and threw his thin arms around Jason, squeezing like that was all that kept him from being swept away.
"Shhh." Jason whispered, little-boy smell strong in his nostrils, sunlight and sweat. A weird blend of emotions shivered through him: terror, sure, but also resolve. And something else, too. It'd been so long since he'd felt it that he almost didn't recognize it.
Pride.
"It's okay, buddy." Jason paused. "Everything is going to be okay." He stared at the ceiling, watched dust burn in a beam of light. Stroked his nephew's hair and made him promises, realizing that he had no idea how to keep them, knowing he'd give his life to.
And then he saw something he never expected.
CHAPTER 30
The gun was made of purple plastic, and for a second, even before he remembered what it was and where it came from, Jason felt it tug at him like gravity.
"What the…" He trailed off, looked down at Billy. "Where in the world did you get that?"
Billy pulled away, looked up at Jason, then over to the nightstand. "Dad gave it to me. I lost it under the bush when I hid, but yesterday Ronald took me out to look for it." He looked suddenly guilty. "It's yours, though, right?"
Jason realized his mouth was open, so he closed it. Stretched for the Transformer, the toy his brother had gotten for Christmas in 1983, a robot that could turn into a gun. The toy he had lusted after for months, playing with it when Mikey wasn't looking, until he'd accepted his brother's dare to sprint across the El tracks and won it for himself.
It fit his hand so well he wondered if it was why real guns felt like home.
"It's… yeah, it used to be mine." He found himself smiling. "I wonder where it's been all these years."
"It was in the basement." Billy wiped his nose on the back of his hand. "Dad gave it to me. But you can have it back."
Jason laughed. "No, kiddo, it's yours."
Billy took the gun and began idly toying with it, folding and unfolding one component. "I wish…"