9
Saturday, 8 October 2016. 5:55 A.M. Riverport, Massachusetts. Joyce farm.
They dropped Amy off a block from her house, then Nick drove toward Jack’s old place.
Jack had known only one home. It was several hectares of what had once been a turn-of-the-century horse farm, torn down, built up, and refurbished in the 1960s to serve as home to Jack and Will’s newlywed parents. Warm old wood and airy rooms repainted every few years, with the exceptions of the kitchen doorframe. That the family kept for the notches carved there, each one bearing Jack or Will’s name, and the date it was made, measuring their growth from children to loudmouthed teens to…
Jack was nine when the family routine ended. His mom and dad had died. As the eldest, Will had taken over the task of raising Jack, while continuing his scientific work.
Will had never been well. While their parents were alive a certain order had been maintained, allowing Will to function at high efficiency while focusing on what interested him. Maintained by medication and regular meals, Will did well. His scientific papers were received with interest, even acclaim. His future was bright. But the loss of their parents changed that.
Will couldn’t look after himself, let alone someone as volatile and needful as a newly orphaned nine-year-old boy. Will replaced the organizational influence of their parents with a series of spreadsheets, allowing him to ensure Jack was maintained while maximizing the amount of time Will could spend in the barn, working.
For the first three years not an evening went by that Jack didn’t hear the Dodge crackle up the driveway and feel his entire body leap with “Dad’s home.” This was followed by the immediate reminder that Dad was gone and Will was driving the truck.
Jack finished high school while working two or three jobs, managing the household, paying bills, and making sure they both ate regularly. Will’s focus was on the world beyond Riverport, the span of history, the greater good. Jack’s had been on the home.
Dates with girls were missed. Friends were few. Dances came and went. Neither Jack nor Will attended Jack’s high school graduation: Will because he forgot, and Jack because he knew Will would forget. A glance at the kitchen corkboard told him that it hadn’t even rated a mention on the spreadsheet.
The farm had been a great place for four people, a sad place for two.
Now, standing at the gate, headlights illuminating the family name on the gate plate, Jack couldn’t bear the idea of returning to it as a family of one.
The smoke from the burning library was a faint blemish on a horizon turned morning-silver.
Jack had asked Nick to stop at the gate. He had been standing there for almost ten minutes, eyes on the roof of the old house, past the maple trees, past the barn. Nick wasn’t in a rush, just leaned against the hood and smoked. The cabbie’s eyes were closed, head back, not tired just-not running for his life.
“You want breakfast?” Jack asked.
Nick shrugged. “I don’t feel like eating a damn thing, but sure. You think Amy’ll be okay?”
“Not for a while.”
“I’m sorry. About your brother. I’m sure he was solid.”
“He was self-absorbed, unreliable, and way in love with the smell of all his burning bridges.”
“But.”
“But toward the end I think he was trying to do some good.”
“Solid dude. Nobody’s perfect.” Nick closed his lighter, flicked his cigarette onto the asphalt. “What about Thailand? They might be watching the airports.”
“They might be watching the house.”
Nick shot a glance at the red-tiled roofline. Nothing suspicious.
“If they were,” Jack said. “We’d know about it by now.” Jack thought of his worn-out little apartment. The rusted key that fit the battered door. They may as well have belonged to someone else. “No,” he said. “I’m staying.”
Nick flipped his key ring in his hand, gunslinger-style, and got in the car. Jack found the white-painted latch flipped smoothly, but the gate stuck. He remembered the trick: lifted the gate, then pulled, and it swung just fine. Nick rolled the Charger over the hump and Jack got in.
The cab rolled in quiet and slow, lights off.
“Follow the drive.” By the fence was a dilapidated toolshed, unused and kept for color, next to which a shallow wooden boat sat gathering age under an orange tarpaulin. That had been his father’s, and something neither brother had wanted to be rid of. Grass grew wild and uncut around it, still green despite the fall weather.
The drive wound past a stand of four aged sycamore trees, each having dropped a flame-orange shadow of turned leaves, bringing the house and barn into full view. The last time Jack had seen the place it had been white-sided with dark-brown detailing. Since then Will had clearly decided it needed a paint job. Half of one side of the house was painted haphazardly sky blue; next to it a scissor-lift sat unattended and partially rusted.
“Jesus Christ, Will. Follow through man, or just hire someone.”
It hurt his heart to see the place like this. Some windows were obscured with grime. Others had been soaped opaque or covered in newspaper.
“This place looks abandoned.”
“No, pretty sure Will was living here.”
“While time-sharing with bears?”
“Paul…” The name stuck in Jack’s throat. “I was told Will may have gone off his meds.”
Nick switched off the engine and the car rumbled to a stop.
“Come on,” Jack said, getting out. “It’ll be an adventure.” He climbed out, booted feet touching down on home soil. The early morning air smelled like way back when.
An uncertain laugh made the hairs on his arms stand up.
Will spoke, attempting to make light of something. “… you can’t just…”
And there he was, but not really, at the foot of the wooden porch steps. It was happening again. Will was younger, bearded, wearing glass frames Jack hadn’t seen since Jack was, what, fourteen or fifteen?
“Hey! Hey! Shut it!” someone snapped, but Will didn’t react. His nervous smile was still there, as if waiting for feedback he could interpret. This abuse didn’t parse.
Someone else cut in, and Jack saw them now, two men who had been dead for six years, blown away at Bannerman’s Overlook: Princess and Aberfoyle’s second-in-charge. They were younger, too. Leaner. Better hair.
The second-in-charge cut in, more reasonable but no less intimidating. “You’ve had three months. No payment. No payment means we take the house.”
Will wasn’t making eye contact. “You… you don’t get the house. I… I dealt with Mr. Aberfoyle.” Will was talking to himself, the way he did when he worked, when teasing loose some complicated theoretical knot. He wasn’t present. Those fuckers were totally taking advantage of him. “Mr. Aberfoyle is the one… the one… who…” Will twitched, blinked hard, once, twice, three times.
Jack knew that tic. He wiped his eyes. Whenever this was, Will had been in a deep hole.
Will shook his head, blinked hard, shook his head again. He used thumb and forefinger to readjust his glasses. He still wasn’t looking at the men, his eyes on the steps or the trees. His tics were getting the better of him. Jack whispered his brother’s name, to no effect.
Princess glanced at the second-in-charge, smiled that prehistoric fish smile, then scowled at Will. “We make you nervous?”
Something hit the gravel, grassy and clattering-groceries-and a kid twelve years away from where Jack stood barked, “Hey!”
Jack felt himself surrender, déjà vu dragging him around again.
Princess didn’t even look at the new arrival. “Fuck off, kid.”
The knees were gone from his jeans; those thrift-store sneakers had lasted four years. Jack had forgotten that he once had a T-shirt with NOT blasted across the chest and he had loved that jacket. He thought that jacket made him look like serious business: khaki canvas, two big pockets, plenty of zippers.