the lengths that i will go to
the distance in your eyes
every whisper of every waking hour i'm
choosing my confessions
trying to keep an eye on you
like a hurt lost and blinded fool
-- r.e.m., "losing my religion"

There is a photograph, in the room where he hides, in the room where the children are not allowed. It is a simple image, a man with two small children-- girl on his shoulders, boy on his knee, all three smiling. Only one photograph, but the room itself is kept like a picture, a carefully preserved window into a time that has past.

Old bookcase slides behind him on well-oiled treads, making no sound that would disturb the sleeping.

The children know, though he does not think they do. He never speaks of it, and his sister, well, she never speaks at all. But they know, by the silence behind his eyes, by the stains on his thumbs after a windy restless night. Behind the bookcase, they whisper, Billy's gone behind the bookcase tonight and we won't see him again till morning.

Every shotgun within is polished, every corner free of cobwebs. He comes here when he wants to be alone; often he cleans. It is a sort of penance, this work-- offering up the wood-oil smell of the dustcloth in his hands, the tang of the metal grease that shines the guns, that stains his fingers.

Sometimes on a moonless night, he will pour the leather pouch of bullets into his lap, and count them, one by one. There are only twenty-six of them, so he counts them again. Not sleeping, not wanting to dream, measuring the night in the meticulous clink of shells against one another, a violent rosary of time.

He lights candles, beeswax tapers that his brothers do not know are missing. A lantern would alert the house, he tells himself, to assuage the guilt. The distinct gas-burning smell would alarm the children. The candles are gentler, their honey-smoke suffusing the room, cradling the familiar scents of leather and of gunpowder, of rest and loss and quiet contentment. He is used to the ache; it is how he numbers his days. Engrained in the image, now-- the pain is as much a part of the still life as is the red loop of the well-loved bandanna hanging from the wall, the height of the gun-rack, the books' cracked bindings on the shelves.

The floorboards by that gun-rack are worn smooth, smooth with the pressure of his knees for so many nights. An ironic altar, he knows, head bowed there to the memory of the man his mother loved, the man for whom his little sister wept, the man who broke his child's heart.

The man who should have stayed dead.

Beyond the bookcase, he hears a clamor-- the back door on its hinges, a slam and a muffled curse. Always the same.

Tonight, he prays for strength, and thinks of the wide gun-hand that lifted his boy shoulder and taught him how to aim. Protect the family.

Someone outside is calling his name.

He prays for endurance, and thinks of the house they built together, of the level eye that taught him how to shoot. Provide for God's children.

The butt of a shotgun, unsubtle knock against the bookcase shelves.

He prays for forgiveness, and thinks of that face in the photograph, the smile that taught him how to laugh. And how to grieve. Oh, Father.

"Billy?" And the voice is thick with drinking, but still he can hear that edge of mistrust. Knowing he can never explain, the distance that must be maintained between them.

He does not move, head still bowed in unspoken elegy, grieving for the man in the photograph.