For weeks afterward, Werner couldn't get out of bed and Reuben took care of his nephew the same way he took care of his brother. Within a month, he had moved in. Beginning to worry about him, he finally got his brother to sit down and talk to him. Werner didn't seem to care about anything anymore, not even his son. Reuben told him that he understood how difficult this had to be for him, but he had a child to take care of. Werner told him he knew but that he couldn't function while still in the home where his wife died. When he told Reuben he wanted to go to America with Hans, but he didn't want to go alone, Reuben, without hesitation, agreed to go with him, realizing that his brother wasn't the only one who needed him. Werner was showing some signs of a mental break, but Reuben just chalked it up to grief. All the same, he knew that Hans needed someone who was capable of taking care of him, a stable presence, and he was willing to provide one. He agreed to stay behind while Werner went to scope out America and decide where he wanted to live. When Werner sent a telegram, saying that he found a cabin in the woods of Washington where he wanted to live, Reuben took care of all of the packing and moving logistics and soon took Hans and followed his brother. When they arrived, they found that the cabin was beautiful but already furnished, and Werner refused to talk about the previous owners. Reuben became suspicious, but decided he was just being paranoid, like his father. Not wanting to be anything like him, he put it out of his mind and focused on raising the boy. Werner was starting to show signs of disconnection, much like their father, and Reuben absolutely refused to let Hans be put in the same situation he was put in before he and Werner's father remarried. Several years passed, and Hans started to transition from babyhood to toddlerhood. Reuben loved him very much, while Werner remained disconnected and distant. Reuben had long forgotten his suspicions, those thoughts being lost in the whirlwind of childrearing and the constant nagging pain of seeing the boy being treated like he didn’t exist by his one remaining parent. One day, Reuben found a dead raccoon out by the trash and decided to bury it before Hans had a chance to see it. He picked out a nice patch of soft earth just inside the woods. As he began to dig, he started finding bones. At first, he thought they were just from an animal. A deer, probably, God knows there are enough of them around. But the more he dug, the more bones he found, and it became clear that it wasn’t a deer—it was human remains. He, at first, panicked, not knowing what to do. He had done things he wasn't proud of, that was for certain, but it was all to protect his younger brother and he had never killed (or even harmed) an innocent person. Werner had gone mad with grief, and Reuben was entirely unsure of what to do, his world crumbling around him. He packed himself and Hans a bag and took the boy out under the pretense of a fishing trip/hike in the woods to cool down and figure out a way to break it to him that they're leaving. While they were out, he casually brought up Hans' father, and, when Hans expressed how much he loved him, Reuben realized that he couldn't just rip him away from the only parent he has left. He also recalled his promise to Werner that he would always take care of him. Once they got home, and he fed Hans his dinner and put him to bed, he poured himself a drink--the first he'd had in years--went out onto the porch, and lit up a cigarette. When Werner got home (and Reuben was on cigarette number three and drink number two,) Reuben told him to pull up the other chair, because they needed to have a talk. He told him he knew what he had done. He told him that he wasn't going to leave and take Hans with him, but he did have some stipulations:
First, if he was to keep doing this sort of thing, he would have to hide it from the boy, no matter what. He didn't need to know his only remaining parent was a killer.
Second, if Hans ever did find out, Werner was NOT, under any circumstances, allowed to involve him in his crimes. This was non-negotiable.
Third, if he never discussed his doings with Reuben, Reuben wouldn't ask any questions.
And fourth, he could not interfere with Reuben attempting to give Hans a semi-normal life. He knew at this point that normalcy was impossible, but dammit if he didn't try.
Werner accepted the conditions, relieved that his brother was staying.
It sounds like you've almost got enough material for a Burbs prequel.
If you keep writing enough Burbs-related stuff I could give up buying books for a few months!