She whispered in his ear, but that did not wake him. Aiden dreamed about the day the law had come to the trailer to take him to the group home, the day Thad Broom toed the line with a gun in his hand to keep Aiden from going back. “You’re not going anywhere you don’t want to go,” Thad said, as he stood there with his single-shot .410 broken open under his arm and slid a shell into the chamber. Aiden could see in Thad’s eyes that he meant it. There were crows cawing from the treetops outside, and for once, as he curled under the bed in silence, he felt protected. Everyone else he’d ever trusted had abandoned him, but Thad promised to keep him safe. Right then, Aiden put all his trust into one person and closed his eyes. He held his breath to keep quiet and in his mind he prayed.
He opened his eyes to fog. Clouds lowered onto the mountain, swallowed the ridgeline, and strung everything with tiny beads of dew almost every morning, the trees and leaves and grass shimmering as if they’d been given jewelry by the night. It had always seemed strange that what most people spent their entire lives staring up at actually pushed down on this place. Everything was always pushing down on them.
When Aiden’s eyes settled on the woman who stood over him like a pale angel it seemed as if dream delivered him to dream.
“We need to get you up, sweet one,” she said, but he didn’t stir.
“It’s nice here,” Aiden said, and rolled his head against the grass and closed his eyes as if he might just go back to sleep.
“You can’t stay in the yard. There’re people coming. We need to get you down the hill, get you on the couch.”
When she knelt beside him, he could finally make out her face. “I finished painting the room,” he said.
“You didn’t need to do that. I could’ve finished,” she said. “Now, come on and let’s get you up.”
April took Aiden by the hand and he tried to come up from the ground, but his body was mush. When he finally rose to his feet, he was so dizzy he nearly fell over, but he blinked his eyes until the feeling passed, then stood drooping in the yard until he’d regained some sort of control. “Where’s Thad?” he asked.
“Down there, I guess. But I don’t know.”
“I’m glad he made it home,” Aiden said. April was beside him and Aiden put his arm over her shoulder so he wouldn’t fall as he stumbled drunkenly down the hill. When they were to the trailer, April led Aiden inside and helped him onto the couch. The place was still ripped apart, but he was too out of his mind to pay any attention. April leaned down and kissed him on the forehead, and she put her thumb against his mouth and he puckered his lips to kiss her back. “Tell Thad I’m glad he made it home,” Aiden said. And then he closed his eyes and was asleep.