He exited his room and crossed the hall, giving a short knock to Keith’s door before entering. Sure enough, Keith was sound asleep—curled up in a tangled mess of sheets. Aaron glanced over at their water pitcher and, for just a moment, was tempted to wake his brother the way he always did back home, but common sense stopped him. Water was too precious a commodity to waste in this place. Instead, he called Keith’s name loudly as he crossed the room toward Philip’s bed. “Hey, there,” he said, seeing the boy was awake. “Let’s go down and get something into that stomach of yours.” Philip sat up slowly, blinking tears from his eyes, then stared at his brother’s empty bed unmoving. Aaron sat down beside him. “Just take things slow,” he said after a moment. “Right now, all you have to do is get up and go downstairs. Just concentrate on that.” Once again, Aaron thought back to those days when they’d been traveling west, right after his mother had been killed. He had been young, but that hadn’t made the experience any less painful. He had learned then that the way to make it through was to concentrate on one task at a time. Gradually, after the pain wasn’t so intense, he was able take things an hour at a time and then days, weeks. Sometimes, even months would go by without those old, painful memories resurfacing. Time could never erase the scars that had been left, but it did help to lessen the ache.
