PIHM Short Story: Hush, Little Baby by James Edward Cook

It was Autumn, the first time I remember it happening. It probably wasn't the first time, looking back. Drew was too ready for it. I was six years old, my brother Andrew was eleven. We were walking home from school. The leaves caught the sunlight overhead, all bronze and gold.

A sheet of paper was stuck to our front door. Drew's grip on my hand wound tighter as he took the paper. I lifted myself on my toes to get a closer look, but I could only read the four biggest words at the top.

WARNING: RENT PAST DUE.

 I stared up at Drew. The paper in his hand shook.

“Drew?”

He tightened his fist around the sheet, crumpling it as he turned to me. He looked older, suddenly. Grave.

“Listen to me, Quin,” he said, quiet but frantic. “When we go inside, I want you to go straight to my room. Don't run, but don't stop, either. Just put your head down and go. Can you do that for me?”

I nodded, unable to make myself speak.

“I want you to close my door, but don't slam it. Then you're gonna crawl under my bed and stay there until I come get you. Okay? Stay still, and don't make any noise.”

My heart racing, I swallowed, and my lower lip wobbled.

“Okay?” Drew prodded again.

“O-Okay.”

Drew smiled. “Good. Everything is gonna be okay, Quin, don't be scared.”

I was still scared, but I nodded.

The door swung open. I lowered my head and started walking.

“We're home,” Drew called, and the voice that replied was like rolling thunder.

“They leave another one of those things?”

“Yeah. It was on the front door.”

My stride faltered as I flinched at the sound of him cursing.

“Swear to God, if they don't - hey, [ET1] where do you think you're going?”

Don't stop. Don't run, but don't stop, either.

“Leave him alone, Dad,” Drew said, and I bit my lip. We weren't supposed to talk back, Drew knew that.

I shut Drew's bedroom door, dropped to the ground and shimmied my way under the narrow bed. I lay there, cheek pressed to the carpet and staring at my brother's messy floor, for what felt like hours. To occupy my mind, I started trying to count by odd numbers while the voices outside kept speaking.

One. Three. Five.

My chest ached. The voices grew louder. I shut my eyes, put my hands over my ears. Dad was swearing, shouting. Drew shouted back. Seven. Nine. Eleven. Thirteen.

The carpet itched. A loud banging sound rang out from the kitchen. Something getting knocked to the ground, maybe, or thrown at the wall. Fifteen. Seventeen. Twenty - no, not twenty, Quinton, get it right.

I covered my mouth when the bedroom door swung open, silencing my hitching breaths. Relief flooded through me when I saw Drew's beat-up sneakers in the threshold, rather than my father's work boots. He knelt beside the bed and smiled at me. If I didn't know better, I might’ve thought that nothing even happened.

“Hey,” Drew said softly. “You can come out now, it's okay.”

I scrambled from beneath the bed, throwing my arms around Drew's neck the moment he was within reach. I hid my face in Drew's shirt, my cheeks hot with fear and shame. Drew didn’t stop me. It took longer than it should have, maybe, for me to settle. Long enough that by the end I was exhausted.

I whimpered, blinking my heavy eyes. “I’m tired.”

Drew leaned back, mustered up some strained enthusiasm. “Hey, I have an idea— let's have a sleepover.”

“A sleepover?” I'd never been to a sleepover before.

Drew nodded. “You can sleep in my bed tonight. It'll be fun.”

It wasn’t difficult to convince me. I was scared to be alone.

That was the first time I slept in Drew's bed. He positioned me close to the wall, putting himself between my body and the door. I eventually fell asleep, and when I woke up, Drew was still awake. He looked exhausted. It made me wonder how much he’d slept, or if he'd slept at all.

-

Years passed. Drew taught me how to play five-card poker, and whistle like a bluegrass singer, and do long division.

Our 'sleepovers' kept happening. I had the steps down by heart. Drew only needed to look at me, his eyes wild and serious, and whisper the word ‘go’. As soon as he did, I would rush straight to Drew's room, and hide until he told me that it was safe to come out.

I would list things to myself, shoved awkwardly under Drew's bed like a suitcase. Things I was learning for school, usually. Sometimes the yelling only lasted for a few minutes. Other times it would go on and on, until I ran out of state capitols and US presidents, and started listing Star Trek episodes, or David Bowie songs, or ways that I could disappear and never come back.

One night when I was eleven, I crawled from beneath his bed to find that my brother’s face was swollen, just near his right eye. There was a red patch forming beneath the socket, the beginnings of a bruise.

That night, I watched him until I could barely keep my eyes open. Drew was still awake. We couldn't both fit in his bed, not anymore, but Drew still demanded I not leave his sight on nights like this. So, Drew sat on the carpet and let me curl up in his bed. Maybe I was still supposed to think that he slept during our 'sleepovers', even on the floor. He never told me otherwise. Then again, Drew never told me many things that I’d come to understand.

“Come on, Quin, you need to get some sleep,” he urged. “You have a history test tomorrow, remember? I don't want you to fail just because you’re tired.”

The bruise on Drew’s face was getting darker. It would be purple in the morning.

“I don't know if I can,” I mumbled, burrowing myself deeper into the blankets.

“Okay.” He sighed as he looked around the room. “Do you want me to read something to you? I still have those Agatha Christie novels we got at that estate sale, maybe that'll help-”

“Do you think Dad wants to hurt me?”

A few different feelings flitted over Drew’s face before he finally settled on a frown. “You don't need to worry about that kind of thing.”

“You do, don't you? That's why you always make me hide in here when he gets angry. You think if I don't, he'll hurt me.”

Drew tipped his head back, letting it hit the nightstand with a soft thunk. When he spoke, his face was turned away from me. “I think it's more complicated than that.”

Sometimes, I found myself forgetting Drew's age. He always seemed so much older to me. More mature, more capable. Like he could do anything. Lying there, though, I was reminded that Drew was only sixteen. Still a child, just like me.

“I don't think he wants to hurt you, no. I-” Drew swallowed thickly. “I don't think he wants to hurt me, either. Not really.”

“He hit your face, Drew. Why would he do that if he didn't want to hurt you?”

A sharp sniff, and Drew dragged an arm across his face. “I don't know.”

He turned to look at me, then. His wet eyes shone in the dark. “But you don't need to worry about it,” he repeated. “It doesn't matter, because I'm not gonna let him touch you, okay? Never. You trust me, don't you?”

I didn’t even have to think about it. I nodded.

-

Drew's eighteenth birthday came and went. The most important birthday of his life, the day he was finally an adult in the eyes of the law. The day he’d sworn, when we were younger, that he would leave home and never look back.

I kept waiting for Drew to start packing his bags. For him to escape. I lay awake in bed, all night, listening for the sound of the door closing behind him. Midnight came around, and Drew was still in his room. And the next day came, and the next, and he still wasn't leaving.

It was nearly autumn again. I was sitting on our front porch, staring at the clouds. I could hear shouting inside, again. Suddenly the door flew open and Drew stomped out, red in the face as his eyes landed on me.

He took me by the wrist and led me to the driveway. “Get in my car.”

“What happened?”

“I said get in the fucking car, Quinton!”

I stumbled as I raced to obey. Drew sank into the driver's seat a moment later, shutting the door so hard that it made me wince.

He peeled out of the driveway, speeding through our neighborhood. His hands begun tightening and releasing around the steering wheel as we rolled up to a stop sign.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn't have cursed at you like that.”

“You scared me.”

Drew sighed. “I'm sorry.”

“I know. It's okay.”

“No, it's not,” Drew insisted, still stalled in place. “I fucked up, and I hurt your feelings, and I need to apologize. Don't just say it's okay if somebody hurts you.”

“Then I forgive you.”

He nodded, turning his attention back to the road.

Trees rolled by outside the window. “Where are we going?”

“I don't really know,” Drew confessed. “Far away, I think.”

A stab of anxiety shot up my spine. This was all so strange. I didn’t know what to do, how to feel. I watched Drew drive, trapped in a tense silence.

“Hey,” Drew said after a few minutes. “You, uh- you like Grant, don't you?”

I shrugged. Grant was Drew's friend, not mine. I’d only met him a few times, and never for very long, but he and Drew were close. Sometimes, I’d catch Drew sneaking back into the house at odd hours, and he’d tell me he'd been ‘having a sleepover’ with Grant. I was only thirteen, but I was old enough to understand what was happening between them.

I was glad Drew had Grant. Someone his own age, someone he could talk to. Maybe he talked to Grant about all the things he refused to share with me. I hoped so, anyway.

-

Drew planted me on a couch in Grant's living room when we arrived, telling me to wait while the two of them talked. For a few minutes, I stayed put. I squirmed in place, looked around the overly tidy room, practiced my prime numbers. I wasn't used to this. At home, I heard everything. Even the things I didn't want to hear. This new silence put me on edge. So, I crept down the hall, and pressed my ear to the door they’d gone through.

“I don't know!” Drew's voice, his words leaving in a panicked rush. Footsteps. Back and forth, back and forth. “I-I don't know what I'm doing, I just couldn't spend another minute there!”

“I understand that.” Grant, fighting to remain calm as Drew spiraled. “But you need to think about what you're doing.”

Drew laughed, but it sounded wrong. Mean. “I think that ship has sailed.”

“Not necessarily.”

“What are you suggesting?”

Grant sighed. “You know that I love you. But you don’t have any money, or a job, or- hell, a plan.”

Drew scoffed. “You want me to go back.”

“You took your brother away, Drew, your dad could have you arrested!”

“Fucking let him!” Drew said. “I hope he does send the cops after me, I'll tell them everything. Quin will back me up, too, he knows what happened in that house!”

“That isn't how it’ll play out, and you know that!” More footsteps as Grant spoke. More pacing. “If you get caught, you’ll go to jail, and Quin will be back at your dad’s house. He’ll be furious, and you’ll be gone, so he’ll take it all out on Quin. Even if anybody believes you, you’ll still be in jail for child abduction, so Quin goes into foster care. Is that what you want?”

I clamped a hand over my mouth, trying frantically to hold back the wail rising up in my throat.

“It's not fair!” Drew half-shouted, giving voice to my own thoughts. “It's not fucking fair, I can't-” His voice broke, lapsing into a cry that was quickly muffled. I could only guess that Grant was holding him.

“I can't stay there,” Drew sobbed. “I can't just sit and wait until Quin turns eighteen, I can't.”

“I know.”

“But I can't just abandon him!” Box springs groaning, the sound of Grant guiding Drew to take a seat on the bed. “I spent my whole life trying to protect Quin, I can’t leave him behind! He's not like me, he won't-” Another shuddering sob. I’d never heard Drew cry like this before.

“He won't make it, Grant. Even if he survives, he won't be the same anymore. He'll kill my brother.”

“Breathe,” Grant said. “It’s okay, baby, It's alright.”

“I raised that boy,” Drew insisted. “I did more for him than that son of a bitch ever did. He's not just my brother, you know? Not to me. I-I look at him, and he's mine.”

Tears rolled hot and blinding down my face. It took a while for Grant to speak.

“Well, it sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.”

“I guess so.”

Sniffling. Shifting. Silence.

“Don’t get caught,” Grant said, and Drew let out a weepy laugh.

“I’ll try.”

-

I awoke to a rush of night air as Drew entered the car. We were parked at a truck stop. The tiny clock on the dashboard informed me I'd been asleep for nearly three hours. Drew had a paper cup of coffee clutched in one hand, a plastic bag of snacks and drinks in the other.

Drew smiled at me, his eyes heavy with exhaustion. “Go back to sleep, Quin,” he said, and reached over to ruffle my hair.

I shifted in the seat, frowning when I disrupted a piece of cloth on my chest. Drew's flannel, draped over me like a blanket. I yawned, watching Drew pull out of the gas station and back onto the highway. Beyond his tiredness, I could see relief in his expression. Freedom.

The car’s engine was already lulling me back to sleep like a lullaby, so I pulled Drew’s shirt up to my chin and let myself drift off.

James Edward Cook is a queer author based out of Georgia, USA. As a dedicated fanfiction creator turned full-time writer, Cook has been sharing his stories online since 2016. He specializes in Romance, Tragedy, and Coming of Age. Many of his works focus on themes such as familial abuse, autism, alienation, and sexuality. Previously published in Adapt. Evolve. Become: The Genderqueer Fandom of NBC’s Hannibal.