Chapter Twenty-Six
As Helen rushed out of the farmhouse, she almost tripped over the front door’s threshold. It was the same doorway she’d crossed
through a thousand times before without issue, but she was so desperate to find out what had happened that her body felt both
wobbly and charged, like she’d been shot from a cannon after being forced to wait all day curled up at the bottom of the barrel.
From the front porch, she watched and waited, hopeful that two men would emerge from Wade’s truck.
A moment later, her heart sank. Wade was alone. He walked unsteadily toward her, the setting sun glinting off the gun in his
hand. His face was heavy and haunted. It wasn’t what she would have expected to see if he’d successfully convinced Isaac to
leave without violence. It was the face of a man who was broken, completely shattered by the day’s events.
“Wade. No,” Helen said.
Just before he reached the porch, he flung the gun aside and it skidded across the grass.
“What did you do?” she said.
He just staggered past her into the house, and she let out a strangled sound, halfway between crying and choking. He’d done it. Wade had killed his own brother.
She couldn’t follow him into the house. She couldn’t bear to question him—to even look at him—but her body was trembling so
badly she could barely stand. She braced herself against the rocking chair and took several deep breaths. As the evening wind
started to pick up, she walked slowly out to the truck and leaned against it for support.
What kind of irony was this? The universe was cruel. Surely, it was laughing at her. Yesterday, she’d held the gun to her
head, and she’d almost gone through with it. Instead, she’d avoided death to suffer this fate. Now she would have to carry
the guilt of not warning Isaac that Wade was coming undone. Isaac had left her house this morning unaware that he was marching
to his own death.
“Hey,” a voice said, and Helen jumped as a head popped up behind her.
“Oh my God,” she said as she looked into Isaac’s eyes.
He peered at her curiously from his seated position in the bed of the truck next to a large toolbox and some pieces of plywood.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I thought it’d be peaceful. Lay back and watch the sky and the birds overhead.” Isaac hoisted himself over the side of the
truck, deftly landing on the ground. “I was wrong. It was bumpy as hell.”
He was so alive that she couldn’t help but reach out and grasp him, her fingers wrapping around his upper arm. He went still,
and she released the hold almost immediately.
“Thank you for making your bed,” she said. It was the first thing she could think of to say, and it made her feel stupid as
soon as the words left her mouth, as if her entire existence revolved around housework.
Isaac started toward the side of the house. “I owe you some wood too.”
Helen trailed behind him. She just wanted him in her line of vision, so she could keep confirming to herself that he was okay.
For several minutes, she watched Isaac swing the ax and chop the wood.
She was standing in the wide open of the yard, but he never looked at her or acknowledged that she was staring.
He just let her be, as if she were having her own private moment, until eventually that started to make her feel as though they were having a shared private moment.
Helen turned away and walked to the front of the house. There, she located the discarded revolver in the grass and opened
the chamber. She dumped six spent shells into her palm, and her mouth fell open in shock.
She tucked the revolver behind her gardening tools where Wade wouldn’t find it. Thank God the only other gun he owned, his
rifle, was at the gun shop being repaired.
Helen entered the farmhouse, and Wade looked up wearily from his seat at the kitchen table. There was mud tracked from the
door to the table because he hadn’t removed his boots.
She opened her palm, showing him the six spent shells. “What happened out there?”
“I shot him.” Wade’s tone was defeated. “The bullets went right through him, and he turned around and smiled at me.”
She shook her head in dismay. She didn’t know which was worse: that her husband was disappointed he’d been unable to kill
his own brother or that he believed bullets could pass through Isaac without harming him.
Wade said, “There’s no dinner.”
“What?”
“There’s nothing to eat.”
Helen’s fist closed tightly around the spent shells. “I was a bit too worried to cook.”
“What am I supposed to eat?”
She bristled. Were they really talking about food right now? “I don’t know, Wade. Eat one of your packed lunches. Wednesday
or Thursday looked pretty fucking tasty to me.”
She tossed the spent shells at him. They ricocheted off the table and clattered to the floor. Wade didn’t even flinch.
Outside, the sun was behind the trees and the temperature was dropping. Helen rounded the side of the house and found Isaac
resting on the stump, chopped wood scattered at his feet.
“Did Wade try to shoot you?”
“Shoot me? What?” Isaac stood up. “No.”
“Well, that’s good at least.” Helen rested her foot on a chopped piece of wood and rolled it back and forth with the toe of
her shoe. The cut was clean.
“Helen?”
She looked up into Isaac’s questioning gaze and said, “Something’s really wrong with Wade.”
“I did see him point the gun at the sky and fire off some shots. I thought he was scaring away some animals or something.”
She nodded slowly. That made sense, and it made her feel slightly better.
Isaac narrowed his eyes. “Why would you think he’d try to shoot me?”
“He took the gun with him, which he usually doesn’t do because he leaves it here for me because—well, never mind why.” She
wasn’t about to explain what had happened to Tyler. “And when he came back there were spent shells . . .”
Helen trailed off, knowing her vague explanation wasn’t sufficient, but now that she knew Wade had only pointed the gun at
the sky and fired, her sense of loyalty to her husband had to take precedence over his brother. She continued rolling the
piece of wood back and forth with her foot.
Isaac’s boot came down on the wood, preventing her from rolling it further. “What else aren’t you telling me?”
She studied the thick sole on his shoe, the leather material, the knot on the laces at the top.
Her eyes continued to drift up, past his worn jeans and the black canvas work shirt, the sleeves rolled up his forearms, until finally she was looking at his face.
They were standing close together now, too close for a normal conversation.
She took a step back and crossed her arms against the cool wind.
“He’s been saying some things that worry me. He seems to be under some kind of emotional strain, and I think maybe your visit
triggered it.” Helen chose her next words carefully. “I think it’s guilt about the accident and maybe some resentment about
past issues between you two.”
Isaac raised an eyebrow. “He talked to you about the accident? What did he say?” For a flicker, she saw defiance in him—maybe
even anger—but it was gone so quickly that once it had passed she wondered if she’d imagined it.
“Not much. That you were hurt badly, and he was devastated and left town not long after.”
“That’s all?”
“More or less.”
Isaac waited expectantly, and she knew he wanted her to elaborate on what “more or less” meant. When she didn’t, he smiled
faintly in acknowledgment that she wasn’t going to share and he couldn’t make her.
“I’m sorry, Isaac,” she said, “but maybe the best thing would be—I don’t know, maybe you should go.”
“If Wade’s in trouble, I want to help.”
“I’m not sure you can. And I’m not sure it’s safe for you. I think he’s having a mental health episode.”
All day something had been nagging at Helen, something dark and insistent in the back of her mind. She wasn’t sure it was
an idea she should give wings to by putting it into words, but it had to be asked now. “Isaac, the accident? Was it definitely an accident?”
Isaac crossed his arms, mirroring her own stance, and his face hardened. “You’re asking me if your husband is the kind of
man who would deliberately run over his own brother with a tractor?”
She’d offended him, it seemed. “No, I’m sorry. That’s a stupid question.”
“Do you think he would?”
“No.”
“Then why did you ask me?”
When she didn’t answer right away, Isaac asked, “Do you think I would just pop by for a visit if my brother had tried to kill
me?”
“Unlikely.” Helen managed an uneasy smile. She didn’t want to be in this conversation any longer. “I should go inside.”
“Wait.” Isaac uncrossed his arms and stepped toward her, his eyes tender now. “I’m sorry. Your question surprised me is all.
Is everything okay?”
“Not really.” They were standing too close again, but she’d already backed up the first time he’d advanced on her. It would
be a strange dance if she retreated again, so she held her ground as if the space between them was perfectly normal, as if
she wasn’t just tiptoes and one sway away from kissing distance. “Some of the things he’s saying sound threatening.”
“Toward you?” Isaac’s voice was low now, intensely probing.
Helen shook her head. “No, toward you.”
“Doesn’t matter what he’s saying. Wade can’t hurt me,” Isaac said firmly.
“But would he try?”
Isaac seemed to weigh his words before he spoke again. “Growing up, our parents were tough on us. How much has Wade told you?”
“Not much.”
“Some parents make their kids hug it out after a disagreement. Not our dad.” Isaac’s expression tightened. “He made us solve
our disagreements with a good old-fashioned fight. Winner gets their way.”
Helen inhaled sharply. “Like a fist fight?”
“That’s right. Wade has knocked me out cold at least three or four times.”
“Oh my God! That’s awful.”
“But don’t worry.” Isaac flashed a wicked little grin. “I got a knockout at least five or six times myself.”
Helen swallowed and looked out at the forest. Forced fights, forced whippings. “Maybe it really is best if you leave.”
Isaac sighed. “I didn’t mean to freak you out. All I’m saying is Wade and I had an unusual upbringing. We’re fine though.
Maybe neither of us is good at talking things out, but we’re brothers. He’s not going to hurt me.”
Helen’s eyes left the trees and found a resting place within Isaac’s gaze.
“It’ll be okay, Helen,” he said softly. “But you don’t have to take this on by yourself.”
His confidence gave her confidence. After all, Isaac had grown up with Wade. In many ways, he was in a better position to
judge her husband than she was.
“When I came here last night, I didn’t plan to stay,” Isaac said. “Wade and I have some unresolved things, and I planned to
take care of that in my own way and then leave. But you being here—it made me rethink my plans.”
She didn’t know what he meant by that. The truth was, she didn’t want to ask for clarification, because there was a protection
of sorts in not knowing. She could reasonably interpret Isaac’s words to mean that meeting his sister-in-law had given him
a renewed longing for family connection. Indeed, that’s probably all he meant, she told herself. And so she didn’t ask him
to clarify just in case he was implying something else about her—about them—in case he said something that crossed a line, because then she’d have to ask him to leave right then and there. Which was
a preposterous thought anyway. He’d barely been here twenty-four hours, so there was no line to cross, there was no them. Goodness, how starved was she for connection that having dinner company and discussing a little poetry with him had given
her such a lift? It was embarrassing to admit, but she wanted it to continue just a bit longer.
“Do you want me to go? Or do you want me to stay?” Isaac asked. “It’s up to you.”
Helen knew what she was going to say, but she wanted to hang on to the feeling of watching him wonder what her answer would
be, so she let a long moment pass between them before she finally said, “Stay.”
When the word left her lips, though, she saw it in his eyes: He’d already known.