Jackson turned 11 two weeks prior to the day his life ended.
His birthday party had been fun, he presumed. The awkwardness was a constant part of his life, so when his best friend ended up leaving early because he spent the entire party laughing and hanging out with his cousin, he assumed that it was just the price he paid for being cool.
His mom had been busy for quite some time. She worked occasionally, but his father had gotten a raise several years before, and now she was able to spend most of her time home-making. She whole-heartedly believed that children should be granted a significant portion of time dedicated to being alone (as in, not being constantly watched/supervised by 'authorized adults'). Lassez-faire, if you will.
His father worked in a factory doing high-end machined metal buffing, and dealt with asshats on a nearly constant basis. In short, he spent a lot of his day on a short fuse, and the time he spent at home was time he used to relax. He did this by praying, reading the Bible, taking long walks, and teaching his children to do all the things he wished his father had taught him to do as a child.
Due to these two things, Jackson and his three siblings (who were surprisingly close, in both age and sentiment) were relatively well-endowed (mentally) and mechanically inclined children who spent the majority of their non-schooling hours completely unsupervised, if any watching adult didn't count on the eyes of the neighborhood children (which is something that constantly happened).
Of course, whenever the 'helpful' neighborhood adults reported their antics to the police, there would be some reprimanding waiting for them at home (unless they had happened to do something extremely heinous, in which case Jackson's mother would leave any and all punishing to the father when he returned home), after which they would be constrained to the indoors or the immediate vicinity of the house for the rest of the day.
When the four were relegated to indoor antics for any significant amount of time, they would either take up something absurd (their father had taught them the true defense against boredom indoors, while simultaneously teaching them how to shoot with bows and arrows during one of the worst snow storms of the decade - the longest stretch of clear air in the house led down the hallway past the bathroom and into the girls room), or they would do something along a more peaceful bent. Jackson's father owned an impressive library, and although the vast majority of works were philosophical and theological treatises, there were several times that the books he kept on those shelves were of the less.. wordy.. variety. It was through those books and ideas and thoughts that the children's worldviews developed and their love of books burgeoned.
Each summer from Jacksons 7th to 11th birthday, his mother would take all four of them along on her weekly errands under the presumption that they would be on their 'top-notch behavior', and would reward them at the end of the trip with a visit to the library (which had surprisingly been selected unilaterally over gifts of candy). There they would peruse the reading material (browsing differing sections, of course. Only Dana was still in the Kid's section.. but then, she was only six), and select anywhere between 6-15 books to read for that week.
If they were feeling particularly rambunctious, their mother refused to limit them, because they would want to finish the books moreso than run around like a chicken with its head cut off. On the other hand, when all four began to read, silently, for long periods of time, she began to worry, knowing somehow that either something had gone wrong, or something was about to. Their plans backfired constantly.
It was around Jackson's tenth birthday that he decided he would attempt to smuggle Harry Potter past his parents. He knew they didn't approve of magic, either the use of it or the attempted understanding of it, but that might have been simply because his uncle had tried to contract a demon in order to save his aunt's life, and been possessed for 4 years. Either way, he figured that it made more sense to know what the bad guys were doing and how they were doing it than to be in the dark.
When he lifted the entire set of books off the shelf, however, he realized that it was decidedly conspicuous, especially if he was going to hide all of them from his parent's attentions. With that in mind, he put three books back, keeping the first and deciding to cover it under a smattering of other books. He stepped past the manga section, shivering at the sight of the covers on Bleach, and picked up Terrier, thinking its size would hide The Sorcerer's Stone the best. He selected two books from the Pendragon Cycle, a couple Redwall books, and the first book of some story about cat warriors. Knowing that selecting a book by its cover was supposed to be rubbish, he wondered why he did it anyway, as the word Jumper stood out. He grabbed it and shoved it onto his stack as Ralph (his brother) whisper-shouted that they were about to leave.
Alas, his childish desires were not meant to be, as his mother was not to be distracted while the books were being checked out. When Harry Potter turned up, the last of his 9 books, she turned to Jackson, gave him a hard look, and then told the librarian to keep it. As we left the library, he looked back and saw the librarian staring after them, her eyebrows quirked strangely.
Nobody said anything on the way back to the house, but that was par for the course, as the children were all focused on the words pouring into their minds, and their mother was focused on driving (on more than one occasion, she had gotten too interested in the conversations at hand and accidentally driven to a friends house instead of the bank, or to church, instead of their father's work. once she drove all the way to their grandparents' house, distracted, while intending to drive there. Upon arriving, she figured that it hadn't been the destination, turned around, and came back). When they arrived at home, however, she turned and told Jackson, "Leave your books on the kitchen table and go to your room. Your father will be home in half an hour, and he'll want to talk to you."
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The children got out of the car and Jackson and Ralph transported the books and groceries inside while Dana and Lydia organized the things into their respective locations. After the heavy lifting was done, Jackson went into his and Ralph's room and got out the lego set they owned and began building random things. As he assembled walls and courtyards and windows and doors, he looked with envy at Ralph's buildings and wished that his peices came with as much variety. 'It's always easier to build what you want when you have all the good peices', he thought. Little did he know, but with that thought he had touched on the main problem inherent to non-professional technical labor.
As the time drew near for his father to get home, he felt a sick, sinking sort of nervousness (or maybe anxiety) in the pit of his stomach. All he knew was that the same feeling plagued him whenever presentations were due at school or when he asked a question of one of his teachers.
When the car pulled into the driveway, whatever he was feeling plunged even worse, and he waited out the moments in exquisite agony. He had never voiced this to his parents, but he sometimes felt like they talked in the car solely to draw out the length of his maximum discomfort.
Eventually he heard the car doors open and close, followed by the front door, and then his bedroom door. His father stood there, looking at him, and then came over to his bed and sat down next to him. He smelled of burnt aluminum and leather. Feeling extremely timid, Jackson remained silent, his eyes downcast.
"Jackson," his father asked, "do you know what you did wrong?"
"I was trying to read a book about magic," Jackson replied, suppressing the slight feeling of rebellion stirring in him.
"Do you know why that was wrong?" his father continued.
"Yes," Jackson replied. His anxiety at this point was leaping and shouting inside him, and it took all his effort to constrain it. 'Please don't ask, Please don't ask' he recited mentally.
"Why was it wrong, do you think?" he asked the dreaded question.
Jackson's mind raced for a sufficient reason that would both seem sensible and also might possibly be the actual truth.
"Because you said not to," he blurted out, after several agonizing seconds, berating himself mentally the entire time.
"Ok, and is there anything else? Any other reasons?" his father pressed. Jackson began shaking, subtly, hoping against hope that the interrogation would be ended immediately.
"You know that I love you, right?" his father changed tactics.
"Yeah," Jackson replied.
"Ok, as long as you know that." He stopped talking for several long minutes.
"What kind of punishment do you think fits what you did?" his father asked. Jackson wanted to scream in fury, in fear, in anxiety. He held it in.
"I don't get to read any of my books?" he queried, hoping that it would be enough.
"Ok," his father replied, "If you think that's enough. Just don't let it happen again."
Jackson nodded, his breathing disjointed, barely holding it together. His father hugged him, and then turned to leave. At the door, he looked back and said, "Don't fall asleep, dinner will be ready soon".
Jackson nodded again and looked up at his father's face. The concern etched in it was clear, and Jackson knew that it was true concern, true love. He knew that his father would do anything to protect him, and that applied to his siblings as well. What he didn't know was what it was about his father that made him so terrifically afraid.
His father left, quietly shutting the door behind him, and Jackson fell back against the bed, breathing roughly, barely holding in the tears. He turned and scrambled up against the wall, curling himself into a small ball between hiss pillow, the wall, the mattress, and the air. He stayed that way until Lydia came in and sat down next to him (strong, smart, sneaky 11 year old Lydia). She patted him on the shoulder for a minute and then began rubbing his back. His tears were coming slower now, and his gasping sobs had quieted down.
"Breathe in through the nose, and out through the mouth," she murmured. Jackson hiccuped, and replied with a small, "I know. He tells me that too, sometimes."
The reminder helped him do it properly, however, and he was able to relax, and soon fell asleep.
Lydia woke him when she began smelling food and told him that it was time to get ready.
After his ablutions, he joined everyone at the table and they prayed, and ate.
After dinner, they read the Bible together (Proverbs 9), and then they went to sleep.