#lilly gray

            Lily knew the boys were a little different from the moment she took them in.

            There was something in the way that Luke looked at her almost jealously whenever Mark came to her to kiss his scraped knees or sooth the nightmares he’s had. And something in the way that Mark let Luke crawl into his bed night after night, like a living security blanket that seemed slightly abnormal.

            She wondered if there was even a point to the separate beds anymore, but left them just in case.

            They liked to take each other’s places, pretending to be the other, responding to the wrong names. At that age they were nearly identical, but Mark always barely stifled a giggle when she called him Luke. And Luke had a certain way of smiling at Mark’s name. But she plays along. It seems to make them happy.

            The first time she left them alone while she went away on business, when she returned it was almost as though they don’t need her, like they’ve developed a secret language all their own. But Mark still liked to sit on her lap while she read him stories, and Luke still liked to sit in the corner with his head on his knees waiting for Mark to come to bed.

            She has a particularly vivid memory of the days after she returned, watching the boys interact in all sorts of new ways. Mark had developed a habit of pushing Luke’s hair up on his forehead, slicking it back and giggling.  Luke started to wear it that way.

            By the time they were in school they’d alienated most of the neighbor kids, because Luke was inclined to scare off anyone who came near them with knives he stole from the kitchen and Mark doesn’t really care enough to correct it, happy to pull his brother around by the hand, telling him which kids to torment.

            School was mostly the boys keeping to themselves and Luke driving teachers mad, endless letters coming home about his “challenges” in the classroom. They suggested separating the boys. Lily advised against it but they went forward with it anyway.

            Two days later the boys were back in class together. Mark missed two days worth of lessons because all he would do was stare at the wall and Luke threw such massive temper tantrums he actually caused structural damage to one of the rooms.

            Lily didn’t leave the boys in school for long. She let them grow up on their own, never pushed them to make friends outside of each other, never discouraged the violent tendencies they tended to exhibit. Luke kept stealing knives from the kitchen until he got a real hunting knife for his birthday. He carried it everywhere like a trophy. Mark read books that seemed far beyond his age. She never censored them.

            She let them sleep in the same bed, and in their teenage years never questioned if anything else was going on (though peeking into their room at night revealed Mark draped over Luke, clinging to him in his sleep as though he could disappear at any moment).           

            She is sympathetic to the fact that they’ve only had each other, and that they truly, only trust each other. At any age, when she brought a new family member into the fold, Luke would shut down. At times when he was younger it was violent outbursts against them, or unfortunate bystanders, but over the years it’s faded to quiet passivity and scathing remarks. Mark doesn’t make much of an effort except with a few he connects with from the start. Luke doesn’t take that well either. 

            Lily doesn’t fail to notice the possessive bite marks on Mark’s neck that show up over the next few days after Mark makes a new friend. But she lets this go as well.

            They’ve grown a lot over the years, and despite their entanglement with each other, they are shockingly different. But she’ll always see Mark as the little boy turning the pages of a book in her lap, and perhaps, it’s why she’s easier on him. Luke has always been independent of everyone except Mark. And she never gives him a task he isn’t capable of completing. No matter how much he seethes about it.

            They’re her boys. And she loves them dearly, for all the things that others would see as flaws. Luke is brilliant and confident, loyal to his family and self-assured. Mark is quietly intelligent, well-read, and sweet when he choses to be.  It doesn’t matter to her if they’re outcasts, or if they’re violent, or sometimes careless in the things she tasks them with.

            She knows no one would understand it, the way they’ve been brought up, the things she’d brought them into. But they are family. She is their mother, and they are her sons. They’ve been brought up as well as she could imagine, integral parts of the plan to come.