Their brother's keepers

When Ethan Hickey, 6, weakens in his battle against a malignant brain tumor, when he leans his bald head into his mother's body, saying, ''I'm tired," the four other boys in his family rally. Sometimes they lower their voices to give Ethan some quiet. Sometimes they start singing. Other times, Shane, 7, nudges the family comedian saying, ''Make him laugh."

That's when, Cory, 8, does his cross-eyed face. Or breaks out into a zany dance. Or teases just a little, like the day he saw Ethan in a pediatric cancer ward at Massachusetts General Hospital watching ''Boohbah," a television show for preschoolers.

''Ethan's watching Boohbah?!" Cory cries in exaggerated disbelief. ''That show is for babies!"

At these times, Ethan looks up and grins. He may have little reason to feel lucky these days, but he has a cancer support group like few others.

It is made up of four other boys -- two of whom are brothers, and two of whom are like stepbrothers -- who share his Malden home and accompany him to almost all of his cancer treatments. At the hospital playroom, the boys entertain each other with card games: War, Go Fish, and Memory. They give Mr. Potato Head every possible look.

Their personal experience pulls the boys together: All but one have endured serious medical conditions, including Cory, a cancer survivor. It is one of life's flukes that so many of them have been sick, and they don't dwell on their misfortune. They depend on doctors to make Ethan healthy, but they lean on each other for reasons to smile. They are a fraternity of their own, and they are on a mission to give Ethan everything he needs to survive.

This band of boys came together through a chance meeting three years ago between Barbara Hickey and Shawn Daly. On a spring day, the two stood on the sidelines of a grassy Malden baseball field, watching their eldest boys play for the same kindergarten T-ball team.

Hickey, 27, a former nurse, was on her own with three young boys, having separated from her husband a year earlier. Daly, 29, a maintenance worker, had split from his longtime girlfriend and had taken over the care of their two sons. A judge had granted him full custody.

As the T-ball game began on this chilly morning, the two chatted. And soon, they fell in love.

Before long, the boys were spending hours together, their personalities meshing like pieces of a puzzle. From the oldest to the youngest: Cory Daly was the Clown; Shane Hickey was the Peacemaker; Ethan Hickey was the Quiet One; Nickolas Daly was Mr. Emotional; and Markie Hickey was Cuddles.

''They just blended," Barbara Hickey recalled.

She said the boys loved the rough-and-tumble of a bigger family, and the two oldest shared the early wisdom to know good health could not be taken for granted.

At 3, Shane Hickey had been diagnosed with Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory condition of the intestinal tract, which usually strikes young to middle-age adults. A special treatment ultimately put the illness under control.

Also at age 3, Cory Daly had battled a fast-growing malignant tumor in the soft tissue of his right eye, known as rhabdomyosarcoma. After months of intensive chemotherapy and radiation, Cory's cancer went into remission and he can still see fine.

When Cory's father started dating Hickey, he told her about the panic he had felt after hearing that his young son had a life-threatening cancer.

Hickey remembers thinking, ''I'm blessed that I don't have to go through something like this."

Several months later, Hickey and her boys moved into Daly's apartment. They wanted the boys to experience a stable family life. Warm and energetic, she began running domestic life with the efficiency of a CEO. Daly kept busy with his full-time job as a maintenance worker, as well as some side jobs. From the start, the couple sent out a clear message to the boys: There are no favorites.

''They all get treated the same," Daly said.

The five boys thrived in this new family, as well as eagerly received periodic visits from their other parents -- the father of Shane, Ethan, and Markie, and the mother of Cory and Nickolas.

Life wasn't always easy. Money was tight, and days were packed with all that it took to care for five active boys. There was also another medical scare. Markie, the youngest, began walking with a wobble. Doctors discovered a condition known as Arnold-Chiari malformation, in which a portion of the brain protrudes into the spinal canal. They said surgery would be needed, but the boy could get by for now with physical therapy.

Just as the boys grew familiar with their new routines, the family was jolted by more bad news. In January 2004, they learned that the mother of Cory and Nickolas had died. On the day of her funeral, Daly dressed Cory and Nickolas in suits and ties for the service.

Hickey and Daly began making long-term plans to be together, though Hickey's divorce was not finalized. The boys grew closer, and soon, Cory and Nickolas joined the other children in how they addressed the woman who took care of them day to day.

''Mom!" they would call out.

Just after Memorial Day weekend last year, the boys were preparing for school. Ethan was putting items in his backpack, when he suddenly collapsed on the family room floor, with drool spilling out of his mouth. Hickey and Daly raced to the boy's side, while Daly's mother, who had been visiting, called 911.

At first, doctors concluded that Ethan probably had epilepsy. His mother repeated to herself, ''There are worse things." Two weeks later, other tests revealed a more ominous answer.

As tears streamed down Hickey's face, she listened to Dr. David Ebb, a pediatric oncologist at MGH who had treated Cory's cancer, describe the rare and aggressive cancer attacking Ethan's brain. Ebb said Ethan would need surgery to remove the growth, known by oncologists as a supratentorial primitive neuroectodermal tumor. He would then require radiation and months of chemotherapy with periodic hospital stays into 2005. His prognosis was ''reasonable" if doctors could remove the tumor and see no evidence that it had spread.

On the day of the surgery, Hickey and Daley joined Ethan when he was wheeled into the operating room. As the couple prepared to leave, bracing themselves for the tick-tock wait of a 10-hour surgery, the mother looked back. One item caught her eye.

''Being a nurse, I'm used to seeing a lot," she said. ''But when I saw those paddles they use to hold the head in place, I just had to hold onto Shawn to stop from fainting."

Months later, Ethan Hickey was one of 20 students in Marlita Donovan's first-grade classroom at the Ferryway school in Malden. Like the others, he is keeping up with his phonics, reading, and handwriting work. But there are some special accommodations for this boy who classmates know is fighting a serious illness. When Ethan tires, he takes a ''power nap," resting his head on his desk. When this happens, the students take turns grabbing a stuffed animal and placing it under Ethan's head as a cushion, the teacher said.

When school started, Donovan had one problem. At different times every day, Cory or Shane, whose homerooms were nearby, would stop by her classroom and peer through the glass door to make sure Ethan was feeling OK. They would often linger for what seemed like several minutes.

It was touching, but it became a distraction to the class. Now, she has a rule: Cory and Shane can enter and give Ethan a hug, but then they promptly return to their classrooms.

As she keeps up with the boys' school activities and doctor's appointments, Hickey, 30, said she does not wonder why so many serious illnesses have hit her boys. There is no medical or genetic explanation, and she said she has no time to analyze the randomness of life.

''It's odd, but it's just what we have to deal with," she said.

This past Tuesday, Ethan and the four boys spilled out of the family's gray minivan and raced back into the pediatric cancer ward at MGH, where Ethan spent the next three days for inpatient chemotherapy. Surgeons have seen no signs that the cancer has spread, but the chemotherapy is needed to try to kill any cancer cells that might still be lurking in Ethan's body.

During the hospital stay last week, Ethan received visits from his father, Mark Hickey, as well as Daly, the other dad in his life. The boys like to keep Ethan company as late as possible. They put on their pajamas, so they can jump straight into bed when they get back home.

Shane said he doesn't mind spending hours doing homework and eating dinner at the hospital.

''All that matters is that we're taking care of Ethan," he said.

As Ethan dresses in his pajamas, a piece of jewelry hangs from his pale neck: a gold necklace with two pendants, a cross, and a St. Christopher medallion. When Cory fought his cancer, he clung to this necklace, a gift from his paternal grandmother, to restore his health. Cory has since given the necklace to Ethan.

Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com.