Fury's Fire by Lisa Papademetriou

had contained. He walked over to his uncle and knelt beside him. “Are you okay?” he asked.
    Carl held up a hand. A bloody cut ran across his palm. “Tried to pick up some of the pieces.”
    “We’ll have to get this cleaned up.” Will’s brain burned with ideas—ways he could get Carl into thehouse without his parents knowing.
Dad threw a total fit when I got a parking ticket. What will he do if he thinks Carl is drinking again?
    “I’m sorry, Will,” Carl said, his words thick and slurred, as if his tongue were now a heavy sponge. “I know I’ve made a mess.” He looked at the broken glass, his face distraught.
    “It’s okay,” Will told his uncle, although this was a lie. It wasn’t okay. It wasn’t. Will hadn’t seen Carl drink in years. Not even a glass of wine with Thanksgiving dinner.
    “Don’t tell your parents.”
    “I won’t.”
    “They won’t let you ride in the truck with me anymore.”
    Carl muttered something unintelligible, then started to sing again. Will cut him off. “What are you even doing here?” he asked as he struggled to help his uncle to his feet.
    “Just checking,” was the obscure answer. Carl clearly remembered that they had to be quiet—he was whispering.
    Will helped him to the steps that led to the mudroom, which opened into the kitchen. From there, they could get to the downstairs bathroom without passing his parents’ bedroom or his father’s office.
    “Checking on what?”
    But Carl didn’t answer.
    Will trod softly on the wooden steps, but it wasn’t easy when he was half dragging a two-hundred-poundman with him. He watched carefully where he put his feet, and guided Carl toward the mudroom using the outer edges of the boards, which creaked less.
    But in the end, it was wasted effort. Mr. Archer was sitting at the table when they walked into the kitchen. His face was a mask of alarm as he set down the glass he had been drinking from. “You’re bleeding,” he said to Carl.
    “He cut his hand,” Will explained.
    “I cut my hand,” Carl repeated in his thick voice.
    “You’re drunk.” Will’s father’s face betrayed no emotion—not surprise, not anger. He turned to Will, and for a moment Will feared that his father was going to accuse him of letting this happen. Instead Mr. Archer just said, “Make some coffee while I get him cleaned up. And be quiet about it. If your mother hears, we’re in deep.”
    Will nodded and transferred Carl’s bulk to his father’s steady shoulder.
    “I’m sorry, Bert,” Carl slurred. “I don’t know what happened. I was just buying some things at the store, and I don’t even know what made me grab it—”
    “Quiet,” his brother told him.
    Clearly chastened, Carl clammed up as Mr. Archer led him to the downstairs bathroom. Will opened the freezer and pulled out the ground coffee, then measured the water and set it to brew. He was more than a little surprised by his father’s reaction—concern but not judgment. Will had expected his father to storm, to scream. That’s what he would have done if Will hadever come home drunk … and Will wasn’t a recovering alcoholic.
    When Will was small, he would tell his mother, “I love you with my whole heart.” And his mother would say, “What about Daddy?”
    “I have another heart for Daddy,” Will would reply, in complete ignorance of human anatomy. That response always made his mother laugh.
    But maybe, somehow, everyone does have different hearts for different people
, Will mused. The way his father loved Carl was different from the way he loved Will. Just as the way he loved Will was different from the way he had loved Tim.
    Carl and Tim, for some reason, got a more forgiving love. The Mr. Archer they knew was different from Will’s father. Different, but the same.
    Pink light stole through his window, and Will woke with a start. He was half covered with a blanket and the lamp on his bedside table had been turned off, and he realized that his mother