The phone rang and rang but no one picked up. Not Emma nor Travis. Eyes on his phone, Jim took the corner onto Roman Line too fast, fishtailing the rear end in the gravel. A hair away from crashing into the grader Joe Keefe’s crew had parked on the roadside.
He couldn’t stop the flood of horrific images bubbling in his head. Emma dead, kicked to death by that goddamn horse of hers. Mangled and bleeding at the side of the road, or—
Stop. Concentrate on the road. Don’t anticipate anything, just deal with it when you get there.
The pickup bucked, hitting potholes too fast. Spinning into his driveway, damn near driving straight up the porch steps. The engine sputtered and ticked from being pushed too hard.
He banged through the door, screaming their names.
Nothing. The parlour was empty, the kitchen too. A finger of panic down his backbone.
Travis sat on the bottom step, elbows tilted on his knees. Watching his dad storm into the hall.
“Travis, what happened? Where’s mom?”
The boy flinched, ducking his head and a cold hole opened in Jim’s belly. His son was afraid of him, shrinking at his touch like a dog that had been kicked too many times. His cheek was still red.
“Where’s your mother?”
“Upstairs. She won’t come out.”
Jim’s eyes shot up the stairs to the second floor. Dark. “Out of the bedroom?”
“She locked the door.”
“Is she hurt?”
“She won’t say.” He pulled his elbow out of his father’s grip. “Her lip was bleeding.”
The horrific snapshots were back, flipping through his mind. “Did she fall? Did the horse kick her?”
“You…” Travis sputtered, trying to spit the question out. “You didn’t do it?”
His gut bottomed out. Flipped, burned and roiled. Too many things coming too fast. Horrified at what his son was asking, ashamed that the boy had reason to. How could he think that? He wanted to shake the boy again. Shake some goddamn sense into his head.
It all churns to anger so fast. He pulled away and boomed up the steps two at a time. Calling her name.
The porcelain door knob wouldn’t turn. Locked, but it was old and had never worked properly. Jim shouldered it open. The room was dark, the hallway bulb casting an oblong of light onto the floor.
“Emm?”
A silent form on the bed, curled up. Her back to him.
The floor squeaked as he moved around the bed. Her chestnut hair fanned over the pillow, hiding her face. His fingers touched her brow, meaning to brush the hair back but her hand shot out and stopped his wrist.
“Emm, you’re scaring me,” he said. This wasn’t like her. “Look at me.”
Her grip went slack and he swept the hair away, tugging it free from where it clung to dried tears. His heart stopped at the first glimpse. Her lip was split and bloodied. Swollen, raw-looking. A black cake of dried blood under her nose.
“Jesuschristwhathappened?”
She wouldn’t even open her eyes. Playing dead or suddenly gone deaf. Jim felt the anger churning back. Wrong response, he knew but— He pulled her up by the arms, into the light from the doorway.
“Emma. Talk to me.”
She recoiled from his grip. Knocked his hands away. “Don’t.”
“Okay, okay.” Hands up and easy tones, like talking a jumper down from the ledge. “We should go to the hospital.”
“No.”
She was balancing on a knife edge, he could see that. Exploding or collapsing. He kept his mouth shut and his hands off. Waiting for her to slide one way or the other.
“I messed up.” Her voice a dry-throated hiss. Emma’s eyes came up and bounced off his and dropped again. Mute.
“Who did this to you?”
“I was looking for Travis. The lights were on at Corrigan’s so…”
Done. The rest, history. The bastard’s name was already written on a headstone. “Corrigan did this to you.” Not a question, just confirmation. A gavel banging down a death sentence.
Her eyes went to the open door. “Where’s Travis?”
“Downstairs.” He reached out and touched her arm. Her skin cool and damp but she didn’t pull away. Something volcanic was rising in his throat, boiling his brain and building enough power to geyser. He swallowed it. “What happened?”
She trembled, the tears coming on full force. Emma wasn’t a crier. A yeller, a stomper of feet, yes but rarely tears. Jim waited, useless and awkward before her wet eyes.
“It’s okay now.” He pulled her close. “Just let it out.”
Emma heaved and rocked and after a minute, settled. Her voice was brittle as frost. “He said he’d end everything. Suing us, trying to take the farm if—”
“If what?”
Emma shook her head. Whether refusing to say more or simply disbelieving it all, Jim couldn’t tell. Impatient, he whispered as soft as was able. “Tell me.”
She brushed her eyes with her hands, took a deep breath and blew it out. “He said he’d end it all if I slept with him.”
Puzzle pieces slotting into place, Jim put the rest together. “You refused. He hit you. Jesus, Emm.” His hand rubbing her back, something he knew comforted her. But she didn’t fold into him this time. Emma remained rigid, pulling a hand away to wipe her nose.
“Emm.” He started sinking through the floor, the room spinning. “Is that what happened? You said no and he hit you?”
“Jim…” It was all she could get out. The rest choked off, unsaid.
His hands snapped back. On his feet. Stung.
Emma sputtered but none of it was coherent. Not even words, just sobs. Pleas. She had seen this before. A stupid horror movie. The woman with vampire bites on her neck, the man recoiling. Unclean, unclean! She wanted to explain it, tell him what happened but the only thing registering in her head was this stupid horror movie cliché. Oh God.
“What did you do?” The venom in his voice was just there. Unbidden and unwanted, his gut speaking for him.
“I wanted him to leave us alone.”
“Emma! What the hell did you do?”
The sickening vertigo coming full bore. Jim floundered into the wall and his fingers clung to its edges for ballast. Bile on his tongue, bitter and poisonous. “I’m gonna be sick.”
“I couldn’t do it!” Rage broke through the despair. How dare he? She wanted to kill him. “I said yes but I couldn’t go through with it. That’s when he hit me!”
He heard nothing, clinging to the wall for life. If he let go, he’d be swept overboard and never come back. “How could you?”
“He wouldn’t stop. I tried to fight him off but he just kept coming. You have no idea!”
His lips moved but no words came out. He felt like he was freefalling.
She saw the revulsion in his eyes. Turned away, looking for a rock to crawl under. “Don’t look at me like that!” Again the horror movie trope. A monster shirking the sunlight.
A silhouette broke against the hall light. Emma and Jim froze.
Travis stood, watching. His face dark, backlit from the hallway. Now tilting to his dad. “Why are you yelling at her? It wasn’t her fault! Didn’t you hear her?”
Oh God. He’d heard it all.
Jim was back in the dark river, not knowing which way was up. The panic of drowning. He raised his hands, as if calling for a time-out. A do-over. Anything but this. “Travis—”
“Where were you?” The boy’s eyes screamed murder. The accusation like battery acid to the face. “You should have been here,” he hissed. “You shoulda been home.”
Emma clamped her palm over her mouth. She was going to be sick. She wanted to crawl under the bed and never come out. Anything but this. “Travis,” she said. “It’s not your dad’s fault. Come here, honey.”
Travis’s eyes shot from dad to mom and swung back. Laser guided death rays. “That’s a lie. It is your fault. All of it.”
Jim reached for him. “Stop it.”
Travis ducked back. “What are you gonna do? Hit me?” He vanished from the doorway. The sound of his heels banging down the stairs.
No one spoke. Neither parent willing to look the other in the eye.
The mason jar hit with a pop and shattered. Penny nails scattered over the floor. A coffee tin on top of the metal locker tipped over, raining drywall screws on Jim as he rattled the door. The lock stuck, the little key refusing to turn. He bashed it with his fist, jarring the handle back and forth trying to shake it loose. Nothing.
Jim looked around the cluttered basement for a hammer. Dusty furniture that would never be repaired. Travis’s hockey gear dangling from a hook, outgrown and needing to be replaced come winter. Where was the axe?
The lock turned. He flung the doors open and rifled the shelves. Knocking out of the way, he swept it all to the floor and reached way into the back. Fingers wrapping around the prize.
He slid the bundle out, laid it across the washing machine and slipped the sock from the shotgun. A Mossberg pump action he used for duck hunting and taking potshots at the odd turkey vulture. Two summers ago, a young bear had roamed the back country of the Roman Line tipping garbage cans. He’d kept the gun over the back door, worried the stupid thing would get into the barn where the horses were. Twice he’d spotted it but it had vanished by the time he ran back for the shotgun.
The safety was on, the open chamber empty. He held the release and pumped the action three times. The action smooth, no forgotten hulls in the magazine. He laid it aside and reached back into the locker. One last box of ammunition. He shook out the contents. Four rounds and no more.
Enough to do the job.
Back up the basement steps, the gun sheathed in the green sock. He thumbed through the list of names on his phone, a faint hope that he had Puddycombe’s cell number. Nope. But then why would he? They weren’t really friends. Puddy was just the guy who slung pints at the pub, everyone’s friend in the moment. After tonight that would change.
The cell’s battery was low. One bar and no time to recharge it. No matter. He dropped it back into a pocket and turned off the basement light.
Travis stood in the mist of the open freezer door, scooping ice into a wash cloth. An ice-pack for his mother’s battered face. The boy’s eyes dropped immediately to the rifle in his father’s hand.
“Why did you get the gun?”
Jim moved his thumb over the grip, feeling for the safety. Ensuring it was on. He hadn’t expected to find Travis in the kitchen. “Where’s your mom?”
Travis nodded towards the parlour but kept his eyes glued to the rifle. “Why do have that?”
He stood the gun in the corner. This was one of those situations, teachable moments, but Jim was damned if he knew what he was supposed to school his son about holding a gun in his hand and revenge in his heart.
He nodded to the loaded firearm in the corner. “Don’t touch that.”
Emma was on the couch, feet tucked under her and holding the ice pack to her face. He knelt before her, down to her eye level. “Let me see that.”
The ice tinkled as she lowered her hands. Her eye was swelling up but her lip had stopped bleeding. She looked awful. “Not so bad,” he said.
A grimace from Emma, than a wince. The lip splitting open again at the slightest movement. She knew he was lying, she always did, but let it go. From her perch on the couch she could see partway into the kitchen. The shotgun against the wall. “What are you doing with that?”
“Lock the doors after I leave. Stay inside.”
“Where are you going?”
“Stay away from the windows.”
Emma lowered her head until her chin notched into her clavicle. He couldn’t tell if she was crying again. Did it matter? “Where are your keys?”
“In the bowl. Why?”
He crossed to the table in the foyer, fished her keys out of a misshapen ceramic bowl that Travis had made in the fourth grade and came back. Dropped the keys into her palm and folded her fingers over them. “Keep those in your pocket. If I call and say ‘leave’, you go. Just get Travis and drive to Norm’s as fast as you can.”
“Jim…”
He knew what she was going to say. Don’t do anything stupid. Think it through. He cut her off. There was no time for that. He squeezed her hand until her eyes lifted. “Emma, listen to me. You don’t know where I’m going. You don’t know what I’m doing. You turned your back and I just left. You understand?”
She looked at the keys in her hand and then back to him. Her left eye a runny slit against the swelling. He wondered if it would leave a mark. Something permanent that both would pretend wasn’t there.
“Make it hurt,” she said.
Not what he’d expected. Her good eye was sober and clear. No bullshit, no wavering.
The skin of her brow was cool and damp on his lips. “I promise.”
His knees popped as he straightened and went back into the kitchen. Travis was gone.
So was the gun.
He was on the porch. Butt up on the rail, heels bouncing off the balusters. The Mossberg next to him, the barrel tilted against the railing.
Jim let the screen door thwap behind him. Looked at his son. “What did I say about touching the gun?”
“I know what you’re gonna do.”
“Your mom needs more ice. There’s Tylenol in the medicine cabinet.”
Travis didn’t move. “What happens afterwards? After you, ya know…”
“Go back inside.”
“You haven’t thought it through. You’ll go to jail. What’s mom gonna do then? Or me? Run the farm by ourselves while you get raped by gangbangers?”
Jim crossed the porch and shooed his son off the rail. “Don’t sit on that, you’ll break it.” Travis slid down. Jim put a hand on his shoulder. “You didn’t see me. You came home, found your mom and looked after her. I wasn’t here. Got it?”
“Whatever.” Travis shrugged it off.
“Tell me you understand.” He held the boy by the shoulder. Travis nodded. “Go back inside. Look after your mother.”