Page 81 of Broken Country

“Yes. Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

I have not seen this side of Gabriel before.

“Who d’you think you are?” Jimmy’s voice is thick with alcohol, he is slurring like a cartoon drunk. “You can fuck off.”

“I’ve brought Beth with me, like you wanted. So, please. Do us all a favor. Get in the car.”

To my surprise, Jimmy complies. Perhaps he is responding to Gabriel’s tone, which is crisp and authoritative; perhaps he is exhausted and just wants it to be over.

Gabriel glances at me, raises his eyebrows a fraction; he wasn’t expecting it to be this easy.We’re through the worst of it, his look says.

The drive from Meadowlands to Blakely Farm takes only a few minutes but tonight it feels ten times longer. Jimmy, slumped in the front, asks the same question, over and over. “Why d’you do it, Beth? Why d’you have to do it?”

“I’m sorry, Jimmy, I’m so sorry.”

“?’S’not right. After ever’thing you and Frank have been through. Why d’you do it?”

I don’t know how to answer him except to say that everything we’ve been through is the reason why. I know it. And Frank knows it. The day Bobby died ended something more than just his life.

Leo is gripping my hand so tightly it’s beginning to hurt. He is eleven, still a little boy, really, and he has seen far too much.

“Here we are,” Gabriel says, falsely bright, as we turn into our yard.

The last time he was here was for the wedding. A week ago today, almost impossible to grasp how much has happened since then. Since Jimmy stood in the barn, his brother next to him, watching his bride walk toward him along a roll of red carpet.

Gabriel parks outside the farmhouse and I leap out to help Jimmy.

“Here,” I offer him a hand.

Jimmy looks up at me with a lazy, drunken smile, his eyes half-closed. “Tired now,” he says, dropping his head down.

I pull him toward me but Jimmy resists, slumping back into his seat.

“Here, let me help you,” Gabriel says, switching off the engine. He turns to his son in the back. “This will only take two seconds.”

I see how Frank flinches when we come into the kitchen, Gabriel and I, with Jimmy between us. It is the first time he’s seen us together since he learned of the affair.

“Wasted a whole day and half a night looking for you, you idiot,” he says, turning to his brother. To Jimmy, Frank’s voice is warm and affectionate. He doesn’t look at us. “When are you going to stop scaring the life out of me? You’re a married man now. Going to be a father one of these days.”

“Sorry,” Jimmy says. He topples into Frank’s outstretched arms, leans his forehead against his brother’s. For a long moment, they embrace.

“No more of this, OK?” Frank says, softly. “My heart can’t take it.”

“I’ll get going, then,” Gabriel says, and Frank looks at him for the first time.

“Thank you for bringing him home.”

Frank, thanking the man who has been sleeping with hiswife. Somehow his voice is controlled. He really does sound thankful.

But the effect on Jimmy is incendiary, as if he’s been slapped. “Not havin’ that,” Jimmy says, swiveling sharply so he is only a foot or so away from Gabriel. His voice is strangely distinct now. “Thankyoufor nothing,” he says. “You’ve ruined my brother’s life.”

“Now, look,” Gabriel says. “Let’s not go through all this again. I’ve told you how sorry I am.”

I hear all kinds of things in Gabriel’s voice: frustration, sadness, regret. But Jimmy registers only the note of slight condescension, or at least, that’s what I imagine. There’s no knowing what Jimmy is thinking in this state, or if he’s even thinking at all.

He reaches out and grips Gabriel’s throat with his strong hands, as if to throttle him.

A scream rises from me, long and bloodcurdling. My nerves are shot to pieces.

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