Brant, age 8
“It’s a good day to save someone,” Theo hollers. “Hurry up, Peach!”
He’s yelling over his shoulder at us, while I hang back with June, who is already running out of steam. She’s only two, and her legs are so little.
She makes a scowl that looks more adorable than mean. “Me June!” she calls back.
Theo calls her Peach, just like in Mario, but June doesn’t like it.
We’re running through the acres of our backyard, home to a plethora of fruit trees, vegetable gardens, and a custom-built treehouse, made by Mr. Bailey. We’ve lived here for almost two years now, and it might be my favorite place in the whole world—for a few reasons.
One, it doesn’t remind me of The Bad Night. I don’t have to look out the front window and see my old driveway, and I don’t have to stare at the familiar bricks and stones while I wait at my bus stop. I don’t have to ride my bike past the sad, overgrown lawn, or look at the porch and think of the very last time my mother called me a good boy.
Two, I have my own bedroom. The Baileys made sure to buy a house with an extra bedroom just for me, and even though I spend a lot of time in Theo’s room playing games and making forts—and even more time in June’s room creating puzzles and building blocks—I have a private space to draw and do my homework. I have a quiet bed where I can dream alone. Mrs. Bailey tucks me in each night and reads me a story, reminding me that Mom is watching over me.
I dream a little easier, imagining my mother floating over the rainbow, smiling wide, smelling like caramel and taffy apples.
And three… June took her first steps in this backyard, on her first birthday.
It turns out, she was born in the early morning hours of June first—that’s why Mr. and Mrs. Bailey gave her that name. She was born right around the same time my parents died, and I’m not sure what to think of that yet. All I know is that I was sad on June’s first birthday; really sad. Everyone walked around the house all quiet and mopey, not knowing what to say to me. I wouldn’t even have known it was the anniversary of The Bad Night, but Theo spilled the beans during a video game marathon, telling me he overheard his parents talking about it. Aunt Kelly stopped by to visit, filling my palm with multicolored Skittles, minus the purple ones, of course, and giving me wet cheek kisses. She told me she was visiting my momma’s gravestone. I didn’t want to go, so she said she’d try again next year.
But here we are… next year. A whole year went by, and I still didn’t want to go.
I wanted to stay here and celebrate June’s second birthday—because, when June turned one-year-old, the most amazing thing happened.
She walked.
And not only did she walk… she walked straight to me. She hobbled right into my arms.
Nobody could believe it.
June had the biggest smile on her face, and she said my name the best she could, which sounded a little bit like, “Bat!” She says it better now, but she still can’t really say her R sounds.
“No wun,” June tells me, tottering to a stop, winded and overly dramatic. We haven’t even run that far. “I sit.”
She plops down in the lush grass, her stuffed elephant dropping beside her.
“Aggie tired.”
Theo halts his pace, groaning from a few feet ahead. “We haven’t even made it to the haunted castle yet.”
The haunted castle is the treehouse. It’s also an enchanted castle, an underground cave, a lava pit, an evil fortress, and a mystical tower. June is too small to climb up the ladder, so we created a fort underneath it, just for her. She’s the princess, and we’re the heroes.
It’s our favorite game.
Well… it’s mine and Theo’s favorite game, anyway. June would rather play in her ball pit and watch Blue’s Clues all day, munching on Goldfish crackers.
“Be right there!” I call to him. “June wants to rest.”
“Just put her on your back and carry her, Brant. Time is running out.”
June perks up at this, leaping into my arms. “Pig-back!”
“Okay, okay, hop on.”
I gather June onto my back as her wrists clasp my neck, her legs wrapping around my middle. She’s still so heavy for being just an itty-bitty ragdoll. Hunching forward so she doesn’t slip, I make sure to grab Aggie, and we slowly march our way over to the treehouse fort, where Theo is already waiting inside, pretending to fight an evil ghost with a tree branch.
“Don’t worry, Peach… I’ll save you!” he shouts.
June makes a sassy little huff, then slides down my back to her tennis shoes. “You siwwy.”
She can’t really say her L sounds, either.
I take a seat in one of the inflatable chairs Mr. Bailey blew up for us, and June follows suit, jumping into my lap. Her butterscotch curls tickle my nose, smelling like a mix of baby powder and the lilac bushes that fence our front porch. Her hair is a magical thing—it’s darker during wintertime, almost brown, then fades to golden in the summer months.
June spins in my lap, her chubby hands planting on either side of my face. “Bant. Stowy.”
Her eyes glow blue in the afternoon haze. They are light, light blue—even lighter than Mrs. Bailey’s eyes. Sometimes I think I can see right through them. “You want me to tell you a story?”
She nods, emphatically.
“Okay, June. I’ll tell you a story…” Then I tackle her to the blankets that line the floor of our fort, my fingers dancing across her torso in a frenzy. “After I tickle you!”
Her laughter warms me, her limbs flailing as she tries to dodge my attack. “No mo! No mo!”
I lift up her t-shirt, patterned with ice cream cones, and blow raspberries onto her round belly.
She laughs harder. She laughs so hard, her face turns red like a ripe strawberry.
“I’ll save you, June!”
Theo leaps into action, waving his invisible sword at me until I fall back, pretending to be defeated. I play dead.
“Super Mario to the rescue,” he chimes, and I pop an eyeball open to watch as he pulls June to her unsteady feet, then lifts her arm in the air in victory.
I sit up straight. “I’m Luigi, remember? You’re not supposed to kill Luigi.”
“You were a bad guy in this scene.”
“Bant no bad,” June perks up in my defense. She dashes over to me, falling down beside me in the blankets and cradling her knees to her chest. “He good.”
“Fine, I guess he’s good,” Theo relents. His sandy hair falls over his eyes, so he brushes it back with his arm. Freckles dot his nose and cheekbones, and I idly wonder if June will have freckles, too. Right now, her skin is porcelain white, just like one of Grams’ china dolls. Theo traipses over to us and sits cross-legged in front of me, tracing his finger through a patch of dirt that pokes through the mound of blankets. “What do you want to be when you grow up, Brant?”
I consider the question. It’s not something I’ve really thought about before. I’m in third grade, and we’re learning about so many interesting things—firefighters, doctors, teachers, and pilots. My mind races with potential, with things I can become, and I blurt out, “I want to cook for people.”
Mom loved to cook, and I loved to eat her food. Dad yelled about it all the time, but I never understood why. It was so yummy.
I want to make yummy food like my mom.
Theo doesn’t look up, entranced by a ladybug that crawls along his finger. “You mean, like a chef?”
“I think so. Sure.”
“That’s cool,” he nods. “I want to be a saver.”
My brows knit together in confusion. “A saver?”
“Yeah, I want to save people one day. You know, like when we play superheroes, and we defeat all the monsters and bad guys. We always win,” he explains, still staring at the ladybug, watching, transfixed, as it wriggles over his knuckles. “I want to be a saver. That’s what I want to do.”
I love that idea. Theo would make a great saver one day—he’s always taking care of June and watching over me, making sure the other kids aren’t mean to me.
Even though we moved into a different house, we stayed at the same school. I still have to deal with the dreadful Nippersink twins, Wendy and Wyatt, along with their gaggle of bullies.
One day, on the school playground, Wyatt threw a rock at me. He said he’d heard about what I did that night, when I threw a rock through my old house’s window, so he threw a rock at me. It didn’t really hurt, but Theo saw him do it.
Theo marched over to us from the swing set and punched Wyatt Nippersink right in the belly, saying, “If you ever hurt Brant again, I swear on my sister’s life I’ll break your kneecaps, then hide your wheelchair, so you have to crawl around like a little baby, and we can all laugh at you.”
He got sus-tended from school, which meant he got to stay home for a few days.
So cool.
Wyatt didn’t talk to me much after that, and all the other kids left me alone. Even Wendy stopped sticking her tongue out at me.
That’s how I know he’ll make a great saver.
“Lay-bug!”
June drops to her knees, her curtain of shiny curls falling over her face. She bends over to stare at the tiny, speckled creature skittering along the back of Theo’s hand, then gasps with awe.
“That’s right,” I confirm, moving in closer. “That is a ladybug.”
A smile brightens her face, showcasing her dimples and the glints of starlight in her eyes. It always looks like she has stars in her eyes, even in the daytime. June pops her head up, looking right at me, then points to herself. “June… bug!”
I’m confused at first, and then she flaps her arms like a bird… or a bug?
“June… bug,” she repeats, motioning like she’s flying through the air. “Pwetty bug.”
“Oh, a butterfly?” I ponder.
She bobs her head in agreement.
A few months ago, I told June that Theo and I wanted to name her Butterfly. Then I found some picture books in her bedroom, detailing a variety of fascinating insects, and I zeroed in on the butterfly with apricot wings. She was amazed.
“June, bug,” she repeats, pleased with her association.
I smile. And then the words settle in, poking and tickling me, like some kind of revelation brimming to life. “Junebug.”
“Junebug,” she parrots happily.
Theo pokes his head up, inquiring, “What’s that?”
“That’s what I’m going to call June,” I say.
I bet it’s a beautiful bug. I bet it’s as beautiful as a butterfly.
June smacks her hands together, clapping with delight, then scoots her way back to my lap and climbs up. She nuzzles into me, her little sigh warming my chest. “June wuv Bant.”
I wrap my arms around her, my heart feeling fuzzy and full. We all stay in the fort for a while, until the sun starts to hide behind the horizon, dimming our light. Theo rests on his belly, his legs kicking back and forth through the air as he reads comic book after comic book. We tell stories to each other and create elaborate schemes to reenact after school the next day. We laugh and tease and joke, our imaginations as bright as the sun-kissed sky. And by the time Mr. Bailey comes home from work and ushers us inside for supper, June has fallen asleep in my lap, her fine wisps of hair tickling my chin and a dollop of drool dampening my t-shirt.
I place a kiss to her temple before waking her up, then heading inside. “I love you, too, Junebug.”
The following day, I have my weekly appointment with Dr. Shelby.
She’s a kind woman, with a voice that sounds like a pillowy cloud. Dr. Shelby isn’t like a regular doctor—she doesn’t poke me with metal sticks, or shine lights into my eyeballs, or press on my belly with cold fingers.
She just talks to me. She plays with me. Sometimes, she draws with me.
I glance up at her from my perch on the bright orange area rug, aimlessly dallying with one of those colorful bead mazes. Dr. Shelby is watching me with one leg crossed over the other and a pad of paper on her lap. A pencil taps against the notepad, a friendly smile drawn onto her lips.
“You like that bead maze,” she notes, bobbing her chin at the toy in front of me. “It’s always the first thing you play with.”
Sliding an assortment of colored beads along the thin metal bar, I nod. “It’s June’s favorite toy. It reminds me of her.”
We talk about June a lot. My first meeting with Dr. Shelby was shortly after the incident at my old house—the night I took June and cut my hand so badly, I needed stitches. I still have a scar etched into my palm.
Dr. Shelby asked me questions about that night, about why I did the things I did. She wanted to know my thoughts. But mostly, she asked me why I took June. She asked me that question a whole lot of times, and I wonder if she thought I’d give her a different answer one day.
I never did.
“Because I told her I’d always protect her,” I replied.
I realize now that I’d actually put June in more danger that night, and I feel sorry for that. But at the time, I was just a sad, scared boy who made a promise to a little girl that he didn’t want to break.
Dr. Shelby situates herself on the couch across from me, jotting down some notes. “How is June? Did she learn anything new this week?”
“Yes!” My excitement flares; I love talking about June and all the fun things she learns. “She learned how to pedal on her trike. It took a long time to get her feet going in the right directions, but she was so happy when she figured it out. She’s the smartest girl I know.”
“She’s very lucky to have two big brothers she can look up to as she grows older.”
I stop fiddling with the beads and glance up again. “I’m not her brother. I’m an only child,” I explain. “Mom didn’t bring home any more babies.”
Dr. Shelby is quiet for a moment, then she writes something in the notepad. “The Baileys adopted you, so that would make you the adopted sibling of Theo and June.”
“No, I don’t have any siblings. I’m an only child.”
More silence. More notes.
“Okay, Brant, let’s talk about some things that make you happy. How does that sound?”
“That sounds okay,” I tell her, shrugging, then leaning back on my palms. “Like June?”
“Sure. What else?”
I chew on my lip. “Video games with Theo. Sweet things, like muffins and cake. Bubbles, even though he’s gone. But mostly, June.”
“That’s great,” she says through a smile. “Maybe you can think of some more things and tell me about them at the next meeting.”
When I left to go home that day, I was still thinking about those things. I thought about happy things all through dinner, and when I took a bath, and when Mr. Bailey helped me with my math homework, and when I tucked June into her new toddler bed, and when my own head hit the pillow.
Mrs. Bailey sits beside me on the mattress, and it squeaks beneath her weight. “Did you have a good day today, Brant?”
She always asks me that. I stare at the pens stuck inside her blonde bun, noting that one of them is Theo’s Mario pen. It makes me smile.
It makes me happy.
“I guess so,” I tell her, picking at the bed covers. “Dr. Shelby wants me to think about things that make me happy.”
“I love that. I bet you can think of a lot of things.”
Snuggling under my comforter, I nod my head. “Yeah.” I’m about to turn over and settle in for the night when a thought strikes me. It’s something that used to make me very, very happy. I blink, then gaze up at Mrs. Bailey with curious eyes. “Can you… sing me a lullaby?”
Her grin stretches wide, lighting up her face, just like when June smiles. “Of course. Is there anything you want to hear?”
I swallow. “My mom used to sing one to me. I can’t remember the words… but there were bluebirds and rainbows. The words made me happy, but the song sounded sad.”
“I think I know that one.” Mrs. Bailey scoots closer to me, pressing her fingertips to my forehead and brushing aside my scruffy bangs. She clears her throat. “Tell me if this is right…”
The moment she starts humming the tune, I’m drenched in familiarity. Tears rush to my eyes in an instant. “That’s it,” I croak out, my throat stinging and itchy. “That’s the lullaby.”
She stops humming and tells me, “It’s called Over the Rainbow. It’s one of my favorites.”
“Mom didn’t sing it for a long time because she said it made her cry sometimes. But she sang it to me on the night…” My voice trails off, a tear breaking free and sliding down my cheek. “She sang it to me that night.”
Mrs. Bailey’s eyes gleam with her own tears, and she licks her lips with a quivering sigh. “Okay, Brant,” she whispers, her thumb grazing my hairline with a lingering touch. “I’ll sing it to you from now on. I’ll sing it every night, until you grow too old for lullabies.”
And she did.
Every single night, until I grew too old for lullabies, Samantha Bailey would tuck me into bed, comb my hair with gentle fingers, and sing me that song. I looked forward to it. It kept me close to Mom, so she never strayed.
And then one night, I started singing it to June.
Only, I changed the words a bit.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, Junebugs fly…
