Chapter 30 Now #2
My phone buzzes and it’s my mother again.
I want to pick up, embrace her, forgive her, but our relationship feels rotten beyond repair.
If there’s any chance of our building bridges, I can’t yet see it, and I need time to figure out if I want to.
I decline the call and block her number.
I think about calling Claire again and then don’t. This is all too much.
With nothing to pass the time, my mind races.
I play over the conversations I’ve had with my sister over the years, try to spot warning signs, things I’ve missed.
I’m meant to be observant, aren’t I? But as hard as I try, I can’t figure out how I could have seen this coming.
My sister, the actress. She had me well and truly fooled.
When I begin to tire of this, I finally notice how much time has passed.
Twenty minutes. Really? How long does it take to tell your brother, By the way, my wife’s not perpetrated violent crimes, so you’ve not got a leg to stand on; the letters won’t hold up.
She’s innocent and you’ve got to leave us alone?
My nerves begin to clamber on top of each other, at first a scattered pile, now building into a mountain.
Another ten minutes tick by, and then another ten.
My eyes scan the windows, looking for figures, signs of life.
This might all still be okay. Perhaps it’s gone better than we thought.
James said Will had the decency to look guilty when he first asked for the money, although I find it hard to imagine that.
Perhaps he’s thrown himself at James’s feet, is begging for forgiveness. Perhaps.
My fingers are itching toward the door handle when the front door flies open. Will is pelting toward the car at full speed, face flushed by a wild madness. James is hot on his heels. James lunges, yanks Will backward with a handful of Will’s faded T-shirt. Vanessa runs after them, screaming.
“For god’s sake, stop! Both of you, stop!”
Will frees himself, spins to shove at James. Punches him once in the chest. James staggers, recovers. He gets his hands around Will’s neck, and it’s like he’s trying to choke his brother to the ground.
I’m out of the car. One hand rests on the roof while I hover behind the door, unmoving. The metal is cold beneath my palm, reminding me that this is real, but the night air is still warm, stuffy. Stifling, even.
“James!” I shout. To stop him? Perhaps. To check to see if this is really my calm, smiling husband? More likely.
It’s impossible for him not to have heard me in the deathly quiet of this suburban street, but he doesn’t even offer me a fleeting look, his eyes fixed on the brother in front of him. Eyes full of a fury I’ve never known him to be capable of.
Will’s eyes are burning just as brightly.
They rage with the desperation of a man willing to do anything to come out on top.
To confirm my fears, he spits in James’s face, which contorts with disgust. James recoils, rubs at the wet flecks with his jumper.
Will lurches back, freed from his grip. Before James can recover, Will shoves him hard, sending him tumbling to the ground.
And Will is on him, taking James’s shoulders and slamming him against the grass.
His head bounces in a way that does not look good.
This is enough to spur me into action, finally. I begin to run.
But now the pair are tumbling again, and James has mounted his brother; he has the upper hand.
My feet freeze as James makes a fist and swings.
Hard. I’m not sure if I’m imagining it, flashbacks forcing their way to the forefront of my mind, the loud den of violence my childhood home too often became flickering in and out of view, but a loud crack splits the night in two.
“James!” I shout, and I hear Vanessa’s voice join mine.
He swings again. Will’s head snaps viciously to one side. Another swing. A crack. A swing. Will’s arms reach up, feeble, fingers slipping over James’s face. Swing.
The wine in my stomach curdles. I clap a hand to my mouth, remove it to shout once more. “James!”
“No! Go back to bed. Daddy’s okay. Don’t look.”
I look. Two small figures are hunched in the doorway, Vanessa curving over their small bodies protectively. No. No more.
I find the ability to move again. And not just move—sprint.
I’m upon James as he draws his fist back again.
His knuckles are slippery with blood. My arms are not as strong as his, but I wrap both of them around his swinging arm and dig my heels in, thighs screaming as my whole body fights to stop his.
“Enough,” I say. “Please. Please, enough.”
His eyes. He looks like a man who’s dreamed himself naked on a stage, only to open his eyes and discover it’s not just a dream.
He looks at me, hair fallen out of its wax-streaked structure and into his eyes.
He looks at his fist, bloody and balled up with anger.
He looks to the house, sees his nephew and niece crying, shivering beneath a mother who looks just as scared.
He looks back at me. My voice is surer than I feel this time. “Please. Enough.”
He nods, shell-shocked expression on his face. It wears him, not the other way around. Wears him as I feel his violence has, eating away at him and leaving an impression of my husband behind, his ghost, only. He lets me take his hand, Will gurgling beneath him.
We near the car and his eyes still hold a vacant look. Empty, like they’re clutching on to the emptiness.
“I…I’ll drive,” I say. I’m not a good driver. Never have been. Or, at least, I’ve never enjoyed it. But I’m competent enough, and in his state, it’s clear that James isn’t.
He fishes in his pocket for his keys. Still zombie-like, he slips them into my palm. Red transfers onto my fingers and I gag. I try to stop it, but my stomach has had enough, this is all too much, and the wine finally splatters onto the ground, glossing the asphalt.
This seems to stir James and he wakes. He takes me in, legs shaking, hands unsteady. He tenderly slips the keys back out of my palm as if my hand is a broken bird cradling them for warmth.
“It’s okay,” he says. It’s not. “I’m okay.”
Life seems to be returning to him. Letting him take control seems the safest option.
We clamber back into the car. As we pull away, I try not to see Vanessa over Will’s still body, not to see her frantic on the phone, calling for help, her daughter running out against instructions.
There’s nothing easy I can say, and so for a while, as I rack my brains to figure out what could possibly have happened, I am quiet. James is somehow quieter, his eyes on the road, his mind clearly elsewhere. Eventually, I muster up the courage to ask.
“What happened?”
A flash of…What is it? Anxiety?
“I told him everything and it didn’t matter.” The car meanders along. The night is empty. We are alone here.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he said he has copies of the letters and that nothing has changed. That whatever you thought you did is obviously serious. The letters sound like confessions, and he could still make the police believe that you attacked George. Still put you away. And that now he knows you’re all bark and no bite, he knows he can destroy us. ”
My nausea returns tenfold. This is all too much.
“You didn’t tell him anything, did you? About Claire? About George being dead?”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m not a total idiot. I made the mistake of running my mouth to him once; I won’t do it again.”
I run my tongue between the grooves of my teeth and then over the points of my incisors. “He wouldn’t try to get me arrested. Not knowing I’m innocent.”
“He made it perfectly clear that he could and he would.”
The air is slapping me now. It stings. I roll the window up and shut it out—this is not what I need right now. What I need is an escape route out of this burning building.
I try to ignore the talon gently scratching at the pane of my churning thoughts. It tells me that despite what I know, despite my innocence, perhaps things would be better if Will never gets up from that grassy lawn. That maybe, just maybe, things would still be better if Will was dead.