Jason felt the leaves collapse under his weight as he knelt on the yielding ground. He rocked back on his heels and looked toward the waning strands of sunlight filter through the trees.

     This was his ritual. At the end of every week, when he knew his father and brothers would be too busy to notice, Jason slipped out of the house and methodically walked the quarter-mile to his mother’s grave. If the path wasn’t covered with a layer of mud or ice, as Seattle often was, he picked flowers. Jason didn’t know much about flowers; he tried to remember the ones his mother liked. It had been nearly half a year since her death, and it frightened him that he already forgot simple things like that, because it meant he would soon forget other things about her. So when he brought flowers, they were in every color of the rainbow. Just in case.

     Jason touched the grave with his fingertips. Although it pained him to do this, feeling the rough stone reminded him she was gone, really gone. This was part of the ritual: Using his fingernails, he dug out the weeks’ worth of dirt and moss that collected in the curves of her name. Then he moved to the epitaph, gouging clean Beloved Wife and Mother of Three.

     He muttered, half-aloud, “Six words. Was that all they could think of?” His mother’s whole life, summarized in six anonymous words. Jason could have written thousands, carving out her story in the side of the mountain.

     He didn’t have flowers with him today; it was the wrong time of year. Instead he brought the next best thing: a well-worn book of Shakespearean sonnets. The leather cover was faded in the places where her fingers held the volume night after night. It was his mother’s favorite collection, Jason remembered. And he knew which poems where her favorites as well – the ones whose pages where soft and creased from being handled absently as she read and reread the words. He turned to one at random, and began to recite the verses like a prayer.

     “When to the sessions of sweet silent thought, I summon up remembrance of things past,” Jason grimaced at the sound of his own voice speaking in a language clearly not meant for his tongue. He continued reading, but silently – imagining it was her voice instead that formed the words.

     I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, and with old woes new wail my dear time’s –

     “Jay-son!”

     Jason’s head shot up, the poem interrupted by his name echoing through the forest. He recognized the voice, and the rumble of impatient footsteps tearing through the brush: Joshua.

     Jason shut the book and slowly rose to his full height. He waited for his name again, trying to pinpoint his brother’s location. He wanted to avoid Joshua catching him at their mother’s grave. It would invite too many questions that Jason wasn’t sure he wanted to – or even could – answer. It was easier to keep his ritual to himself.

     He didn’t have to wait long. “Jay-son! C’mon! It’s time to eat!”

     Jason tried to sidestep the direction of his brother’s voice, wading through the branches as quietly as possible. He got exactly two yards before Joshua caught him, jumping in his path and grinning like a wild man.

     “Gotcha,” Josh said triumphantly.

     “Yep, you got me. If I were a deer I’d be dinner.”

     “A deer?” Josh laughed. Then his eyes narrowed at the dirt on Jason’s knees. “Your pants are muddy.”

      Jason put his hand on his brother’s head and rotated him like a puppet back in the direction of their house. But Joshua stubbornly dug his feet into the ground, reluctant to move until Jason let him play detective.

     “Your pants are muddy,” he repeated. Josh straightened his posture, trying to match Jason’s height. He missed by more than a foot. “So are your fingers. And why are you holding Momma’s book?”

     Jason looked at the book, suddenly aware of its weight in his hand; he forgot he was holding it. He hooked his thumbs in his pockets, trying to hide the book behind his hip as he considered an answer. Josh waited expectantly.

     “I just wanted to read for a little while. It was too noisy in the house,” Jason finally said.

     He waited for Joshua’s reaction but his brother just kicked at the dirt with the tip of his shoe, sending little clouds of dust roiling up from the ground. It suddenly struck Jason that his brother looked exactly like their mother had whenever she suspected one of her sons had done something naughty.

     “Did you do it?” she would ask. And whatever it was – a stolen cookie, a dirty table, an unmade bed – she would stand with her hands on her hips, head cocked over to one side; just as Joshua stood now. “Be honest,” she would push. And although her mouth was gentle, there would be no escaping the seriousness in her eyes. There was no lying to her; no one ever did.

     The resemblance was almost uncanny, because Joshua alone inherited their mother’s fair coloring and beatific face. Jason and his youngest brother got their father’s darker Highland genes. But Joshua was not his mother, and Jason had no trouble lying to him. That’s what little brothers where for, he reasoned.

     The Bolts alternated nights to clear and clean after supper; tonight was Joshua’s turn. Jeremy was too young to be of much use clearing and cleaning – he had a child’s inability with his hands that caused the death of one too many plates. Instead, Jonathon usually took these pauses to review with Jeremy whatever lessons he had in school that day.

     Jason settled against the kitchen door, watching his father methodically write and erase words on his old chalkboard, holding it up for Jeremy to read. They were a sight to behold together: Nearly thirty years as a logger had made Jonathon as sturdy and weathered as any of the trees on his mountain. Meanwhile, Jeremy was so small that his knees couldn’t reach the edge of the chair; his feet stuck straight out. Instead of looking directly at his father, Jeremy peeked through a mop of hair. His eyes barely grazed the horizon of the table. Jonathon periodically reached over and brushed the cowlick away. It touched Jason to see his father, normally an intimidating figure, soften around the edges. Become motherly, Jason decided. He’s trying to act like she would’ve acted.

     Jonathon held up the chalkboard. “What does this say?” he prompted.

     Jeremy squinted at the letters. “Apple.”

     Jonathon erased the board with a swipe of his fist. “Good boy. Now this one,” he said, displaying a freshly written word.

     “H-h-horse.”

     “Horse,” Jonathon repeated, carefully drawing out the sound of each letter. He cracked his knuckles. Then he swept the bangs from his son’s little face and held the chalkboard closer, as if that would help Jeremy speak. “Say it again.”

     Jeremy stared intently at his fingers twirling a strand of cloth that had unraveled from his cuff. “I d-don’t want to,” he whispered, refusing to look up.

     Jonathon tightened his grip on the chalkboard. “Jeremy, say it – ”

     “He knows what it says,” Jason cut in, touching his father on the shoulder. “He read the word. Give him a different one.”

     Jason felt the muscles in his father’s neck tense and relax beneath his fingers as Jonathon steadied his breathing. This was the sad inevitability of his father’s maternal efforts – they were noble, but lasted only as long as Jeremy didn’t fumble on any of the words. This was, Jason suspected, because his father took Jeremy’s stuttering as proof of his inability to raise his sons motherless – as though they would all be perfect if she were still alive. Well, we’re not. And we wouldn’t have been, Jason wanted to shout. And it’s not your fault either way.

     But Jason also suspected that his father needed to feel responsible – and that Jonathon wouldn’t have listened even if he did have the courage to tell his father how he really felt. The Bolts are a stubborn clan, Jonathon fondly bragged to his sons whenever possible. Stubborn, and passionate, and martyrs for all the problems of the world; Jason thought that described his father perfectly.

     “Jason, get your brother’s hair out of his eyes.” Jonathon finally said, exhaling. “That’s his problem. The child can’t possibly see a thing through that hair.”

     Jason shrugged apologetically to his brother as he pushed Jeremy’s bangs away from his face. He tried to be gentle, like her, but Jeremy still flinched at his touch. Oblivious, their father held up a new word. Jason shut his eyes and looked away.

      It wasn’t a sound that woke Jason up; it was a lack of sound. He sat up in bed, shaking off the last remnants of sleep, and looked around. A pale strand of pre-dawn light seeped through the window and pooled on the floor. Something’s wron, Jason knew. There was a smell of coffee, and he heard his father shuffle around in the kitchen – but that wasn’t what woke him. He felt Josh’s warm body curled against his leg, could feel his brother’s steady breathing through the blanket. Suddenly, with a jolt, he realized what had disturbed him: Jeremy. Jeremy usually snored through the night; the sound actually helped lull Jason to sleep. But there was no trace of his brother’s whistling nose.

     And then there was something else: A noise. A very quiet noise, barely registering in his ears. Jason crawled to the foot of the bed, where the sound seemed to come from, and looked down. His mouth dropped open.

     Jeremy was sitting on the floor, sure enough. But what caught Jason’s eye were the little piles of brown fluff that circled his brother, as though Jeremy had ripped the stuffing out of his toy bear, the one toy he clung to even after their father said he wasn’t a baby anymore. But it wasn’t toy stuffing, Jason realized with a growing sense of dread. The bear was still on the shelf, where it always sat, untouched.

     “Hair!” Jason gulped. “Jeremy, your hair – !”

     Jeremy nodded proudly. His hair, what was left of it – for most of it stirred in clumps on the floor – stuck out in sparse patches. A pair of their father’s scissors, still clenched in Jeremy’s chubby fist, had obviously done the damage. Jason grabbed the scissors away, dumbly hoping to stop any further damage. As if any more was possible!

     “Look what you did! Jeremy! Why did you do that?”

     Jeremy stood up, smiling, his eyes wide. He scooped up a handful of his own hair and let it flutter back to the floor like snow. Then he touched his ragged hairline. A look of something like satisfaction passed across his young face.

     “I c-c-can s-s-s-see the letters now,” Jeremy began. “S-s-so I c-can read the words, right J-J-J-J –

     right, J-J-J-J-Juh-Juh – ”

     Jeremy’s face knotted and reddened, the name stuck in his throat like a bone. When the effort to dislodge it became too much for both of them – who knew if he would ever get it out! – Jeremy issued a strangled cry, and Jason finally, desperately, picked him up. He held Jeremy in his lap, surprised by how light he was. As light as air, Jason thought. He hunched his arms into a protective circle, and whispered a promise in his brother’s ear.

     “From now on I’ll do the reading and writing with you.”

     The end of the week again, and there were some flowers this time – tiny yellow ones, barely an inch above the ground. Jason stooped down to pick them, and suddenly changed his mind. She wouldn’t have liked them, he decided. They’re too small, too . . . helpless. Helpless was something he knew quite well: It was the look in his father’s eyes the morning they lowered his mother’s body into her grave; it was his brothers, who would have to grow up without knowing her. Today was the six-month anniversary of her death.

     Jason shuffled along the path, not bothering to look up. He was empty-handed; no flowers, no book of sonnets. His fingers drummed restlessly at his thighs. When he reached the site, he knelt and began to clean silently. He got through Beloved Wife and before he heard someone call his name. Not loudly; even nearby. Jason’s eyes flickered around the clearing; but he knew who it was.

     “Jason?” Josh ventured, appearing from behind a crooked tree trunk. His translucent eyelashes reflected the sunlight into tiny prisms across his face. Jason sighed and walked toward him.

     “Why did you follow me?” Jason asked his brother.

     For a second Josh looked guilty. Then his jaw tightened. He opened his mouth, and shut it again. “Because you didn’t ask me to come with you,” he said at last. “Was this what you were doing last time, with Momma’s book?”

     Jason saw the look of hurt in his brother’s eyes. “Yes,” he answered simply.

     “Why did you lie to me, Jason? Why don’t you want me to come here with you?”

     Jason hesitated. “I . . . I don’t know.” He paused. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

     “Like what?”

     Jason groped for the right word. He was aware of Joshua’s piercing blue stare; it cut through any hope of him lying a second time. “Sad,” he said carefully. “I don’t want you to see me sad.”

     Joshua didn’t answer, but walked past Jason to their mother’s grave. He kissed his finger and touched her name.

     “It’s okay to be sad,” Josh said, not turning around. His shoulders trembled slightly, and Jason thought he might be crying.

      A long silence. Then Jason asked, “Do you know why Momma was buried here?”

     Joshua shook his head, still refusing to face his brother.

     “She showed me once, about two years ago. . . ” Jason trailed off, hoping for some response. But Joshua was stoic.

     “See that tree, right over there?” Jason continued. He gestured behind Josh’s back, not caring that his brother’s couldn’t see him – it was enough that Josh could hear him “The one that’s smaller than the rest? She planted that tree the day she married our father. She used to come here every week, make sure it was growing big and strong. And that day she took me with her. I think . . . I think she knew she was sick. Yes, she must’ve known by then. That’s why – that’s why she made me promise to look after it for her. And to look out for you, and Jeremy.”

     Josh scarcely moved for a long time. Then he turned and said, his voice rough with emotion, “I miss her.” Jason pretended not to notice the tears crusted over his pale cheeks.

     “I miss her too,” Jason echoed.

     “I don’t think Jeremy even remembers her.”

     “He does, Josh. And your job is to make sure he never forgets.”

     Joshua licked his lips and asked, “Then your job is to make sure I never forget?”

     Jason nodded and shut his eyes, dazed. The sense of shame he expected when Joshua first caught him was not coming. Instead he felt, strangely, proud. This is what it feels like to be a man, Jason suddenly knew. Not just the oldest, not just grown-up. But a man.

     Jason knelt to eye level with his brother. “Okay, Josh. The next time I come here, will you help me pick flowers?”

     Joshua’s eyes lit up. His head bobbed up and down.

     “And will you help me help Jeremy write something for her, something he can bring?”

     Joshua smiled widely. “Sure,” he shrugged.

     Jason’s arm goose-pimpled with a sudden gust of wind. He saw Josh shiver. The sun was setting, the air becoming chilly. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around his brother. Then Jason put his arm around Joshua, and they walked back toward the house.