The Perfect Plan

by Bryan Reardon

  My head shakes. I hear my fifteen-year-old voice when I say, “I didn’t do it alone.”

  Drew finds this even funnier. He is practically in tears.

  “Liam, we both know you didn’t.”

  My eyes widen. It is the first time my brother has said this to me. His words rock my fragile hold on reality even more deeply. He takes a step closer to me. His features, even in the storm, begin to emerge. I can see his eyes clearly now. They are sharp and deadly.

  “But who cares about that?” he says. “We can’t take it back. You can’t change it.”

  “No,” I whisper.

  He walks up to me. He puts his hand on my shoulder. I can smell him, clean and sharp. I swear I can feel the heat of him through the cold rain. His fingers grip me, dig into my muscle.

  “We’re in this together, brother. We always have been.”

  11

  Lightning flashes once again. The moments of the past roll by in reverse. We are here and we are there, like the endless loop of time, the snake eating its own tail.

  I stand in the basement, my brother in my ear.

  “You need to avenge her. He killed her.”

  My head spins. “What?”

  “I saw it. He took a pillow and held it over her face until she stopped breathing. Then he had me lie about it. To everyone. Even to you.”

  Everything turns as red as the floor. Years of crushing anger. Years of veiled abuse. Years of being the toy stuck between two sets of claws. It all crashes down on me in that moment, this moment. I think to avenge my mother. But I am the weapon of his revenge. I am as good as the gun in his hand.

  My brother’s hand opens. I see a shine of metal, the blade of one of my mother’s pristine kitchen knives. A set my father bought for her years before. A set that sat on the counter, unused, as her life slowly wasted away.

  “Take it,” Drew says.

  With a smile, my brother places the knife in my hand.

  “Stand up to him,” he whispers.

  The words bounce off my skull, flashing through my mind over and over again. He touches my face, his fingers tender but firm. He tilts my head, looks deeply into my eyes. He is close to me. His eyes are sharp. His breath is hot.

  “It’s okay, little brother,” he says, so softly. “He hates you. I tried to tell him, but he won’t listen. He’s always hated you because . . . you aren’t like me, Liam. You’re weak and small and you cry all the time. He thought Mom babied you. He’s ashamed of you. He wants to send you away so that he doesn’t have to be seen with you. He doesn’t have to explain to people. That’s why he’s always leaving. It’s either him or you. Either he goes . . . or you do.”

  His hands move to my shoulders. Gently, he turns me, guides me back toward the open workshop door.

  “You need to stand up to him,” he whispers, or maybe the words just repeat again.

  It’s not right.

  You shouldn’t be treated like that.

  You shouldn’t just take it.

  I have your back, bro.

  He does not push me, not physically. My father’s back is to me. His thick fingers work with a delicacy that seems impossible. I am there and not there. He is there and not there.

  The rage lashes out like a storm. It crackles and burns inside me. But there is something else, too. Fear. Revulsion. I don’t know. But it makes me shake. It makes time fold in on itself. It makes the knife so heavy in my hand. My feet so cold. My legs stiff and awkward.

  My father turns. He looks at me. But his face is gone. It is nothing. It is emptiness.

  “Liam, what are you doing? Where did you get that?”

  I expect him to rise in a flash. Lunge at me. Rip the knife out of my hand and beat me to a single second from my death. But he just sits there and looks at me like I do not matter. Like I might as well not exist.

  My heart races. My body tingles. My father sits in front of me. Looking at me. Judging me. Embarrassed. Ashamed. And I swear someone stands behind me, whispering.

  “Do it,” Drew says.

  Or maybe I just hear his voice in my head.

  Do it do it do it

  12

  What happens next . . . I don’t know. Was it rage? Or worse, was it calmness? Did I move with intent? Did I stumble? Was I even there? Really there? I just don’t know. Even today, I’ll never know.

  I stood in my father’s workshop. He sat on his stool, still holding on to his model, a ship or an airplane or something else. His face was there. It had to be. But I still can’t see it, no matter how hard I close my eyes.

  Nor can I see the moment that I finally moved. One second I just stood there, staring at him. The next, I felt the resistance in my wrist as the knife’s blade plunged into his back. It caught for an instant, maybe on a rib. I remember that. But my momentum, the abandon of it, pushed past that, diverting the blade. With a hitch, it sank deeper into my father’s body.

  He lurches to his feet. The harsh light of his desk lamp flashes off the knife’s handle like a lightning strike. The gurgling sound that rumbles from his chest sounds so much like the driving rain. His hands, like talons, grasp for the handle of the blade in his back, just out of reach. A blossom of blackness stains his work shirt like a flower opening after some dreadful storm.

  “Dad?” I whisper. “Dad?”

  And all I hear is the sound of his pain.

  13

  As the rain falls in sheets between us, I stare at my brother.

  “Why do you keep coming back here?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “When you didn’t show up at the trailer, I knew you’d be here. And I knew you’d be back. I just don’t understand why. You would have chickened out that night, left me to handle everything. I did, though, didn’t I? I took care of everything. I took care of you. You didn’t trust me. You thought we’d get caught. But guess what, we didn’t. When I told them that Dad ran off, left us, they didn’t even care. It’s crazy. As long as you give them a simple truth they want to believe, people will believe it.”

  He watches for my reaction. I try not to give him anything. But his words tear at me, chipping at every wall I’ve ever built. I feel the emotions raging inside me. I know I can’t afford any of them, not now.

  “It was an accident,” I whisper.

  Drew barks out a laugh. “Accident? Are you kidding me? It was an accident that you stabbed our father?”

  “I . . . it was once. I didn’t . . .”

  “Once?” Drew’s laughter fills the space between us, harsh and thunderous. “I guess that’s true, bro. You stabbed him once.”

  14

  Dad?” I whisper again and again.

  He wriggles and shakes, trying to reach the knife. The stain on his shirt grows, spreading vines down his back, droplets slipping off the edge of the stool, splattering on the red concrete.

  The chair tumbles behind him. He turns and his fear fills my mouth with bitterness. He tries to speak but instead he shrieks in pain. Or rage. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I want to take it back. Turn back time. Instead, or maybe because, I lurch forward, my fingers wrapping around the handle of the knife. His hands slap at it but can’t reach as I yank the blade free of his body. Blood sprays through the air.

  “Oh, shit,” my brother says behind me.

  My father calls out to his son, the one who doesn’t embarrass him.

  “Help me. Do something . . .”

  Drew doesn’t move. I can hear him breathing behind me. My father’s voice rises in panic.

  “He did this to me . . . Goddamn it, do something.”

  Drew’s laughter is so cold.

  “Drew,” my father moans. “Do something. Stop him.”

  “You have to finish it now,” Drew says in my ear. “If you don’t, he will.”

  “Drew . .
.” His word ends in a wet, drowning sound.

  Maybe that moment is the first time I truly see my father. He has towered over my life, a suffocating force. But standing before me, cursing me and pleading with my brother, he looks so fragile. I feel so confused. How could I have been so afraid of this man for so long?

  “Do it,” my brother says. “Do it.”

  “I can’t,” I whisper.

  15

  You went in there?” Drew asks, pointing through the sheets of rain at the pond behind us. “You brought him out? What is wrong with you?”

  I blink, and it is as if this moment, his words, what I have done, it all merges to lift the veil. I see my father’s face again. But his eyes are not flat and piercing. No, they are wide and bulging. And his mouth is not thin-lipped and pursed. It gapes so widely that I swear I can see his dark soul deep in the pit of his being. I feel the warmth on my hands. Up my forearm.

  And I see the fingers, bloodstained, wrapped around his throat. Tightening. Squeezing the life from my father.

  “Maybe you’re not as weak as I thought.”

  Drew’s words tear the image from my mind. I blink and see him just as clearly. He means what he says. He looks at me with a respect I have never seen before.

  “You dove down there and brought him back up, huh? I assume the Explorer’s still at the bottom. What about the knife? You bring that up, too?”

  “I didn’t do it,” I say.

  He laughs again. “Shut up, Liam.”

  My eyes close. I see the fingers choking my father to death. But they aren’t mine. They weren’t mine.

  16

  You can’t do anything right, can you?” Drew says. He said, as we stood together in my father’s workshop.

  He pushes past me and gets in our father’s face.

  “You’re going to hit me, huh? You piece of shit. That was a mistake, wasn’t it? Wish you could take that back now, don’t you?”

  Drew pushes him to the ground. He screams and my brother falls on him. His fingers, not mine, wrap around my father’s neck. He squeezes the life out of him. He does. I didn’t . . .

  I blink, and I see the blood. It pools around my father as he convulses on the floor. It seeps up the side of his shirt. I feel a dampness on my forearm again. When I look down, I see his blood staining the paleness of my own skin. The emotions strike like lightning. My teeth grind together and my vision tunnels. My other hand tears at my father’s blood, clawing at it, trying to rend the stain from my skin. But it won’t come off. Ever. No matter what I do. No matter what I have done.

  I didn’t . . .

  Drew grunts with the effort. My father’s feet kick out. Then they shudder. And the blood keeps coming. The pool getting wider, a darker red against the floor. The smell, tinny and surprisingly sour, touches my nostrils. I cough.

  And Drew is standing before me. He is grabbing my shirt. Shaking me. Laughing over the body of our dead father.

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT MORNING, I wake up and think it is all a dream. I wander through the house. Down to the basement. I creep into my father’s workshop. I find the stool upright. The floor pristine. Even his model on the table, waiting for him to come home.

  I move back up the stairs. His keys, with the Ford logo key chain, are gone. Clutching the wall, I look out into the garage. My father’s car is gone. The space it had taken shines stark and empty. He’s at work. He will come home and return to his hobby like nothing ever happened. I smile before reality returns like it always does. I back up, sliding down the wall. My hands cover my head. My body shakes as I remember Drew dragging me into the bathroom. Together, we cleaned our father’s blood away. Afterwards, I sat on the floor, my sleeve up, just staring at the stain that still would not come off my forearm.

  Together we rolled him up in the carpet from the foyer, one we would replace the next day at some cheap store by the airport. We lifted him awkwardly up the stairs, into the back of his Explorer. Drove to the access road. I got out and lowered the chain, jumping back in as my brother rolled slowly over it. He sent me to find the rock that would hold the gas pedal down. We stood together, side by side, as the car rattled across the dock, splashing into the water and sinking out of sight far faster than I thought it would.

  “I cracked the windows so it would fill up with water,” Drew said, emotionless. “Not enough for him to float out, though. That would have been stupid.” He laughed. “Like something you would do, bro.”

  As my father’s lifeless body sank to the bottom of the pond, into the depths of the long-dead swimming hole, my brother moved to my side. I felt his hand atop my shoulder. A loving squeeze. So much like my father did to Drew the day of our mother’s funeral.

  “I love you, Liam,” my brother softly said. “It’s just you and me now . . . Just you and me.”

  We did everything together that day. Everything except touch my father’s keys. Only Drew did that.

  17

  The past shrinks in around me. Every breath feels like glass in my throat. I close my eyes and try to see his face. I try to remember. But instead of the void, I see his bulging eyes. The rictus of his mouth.

  “You needed me to clean up your mess. Like you always do. I’ve protected you forever. Can you imagine what would have happened to you if they found out what you did? And no matter what I do for you, you betray me. Over and over again, you betray me. You . . . really? You’re still doing that?”

  At first, I don’t know what he’s talking about. Then I feel the burn on my arm. I stop scratching at the tattoo, the Celtic knot that never truly masked the stain.

  Drew’s head tilts slightly. “Do you still see the blood?”

  I don’t answer. But I do let my hand fall to my side again.

  “You do, don’t you? Grow the fuck up, bro. Why the hell did I ever trust you?”

  I stare at him. My hand moves up my leg to my waist. I slide it around and under my shirt and feel the cool handle of the gun move against my back.

  “I went to the trailer,” he says, his voice merging with the rumble of the storm. “I saw it. I saw what you did. I saw your fucking painting. Look, this can all go away. We can get past this.” He pauses. “Think about it. Think about everything we’ve overcome. Everything we’ve done together. It’ll be okay, Liam. Just tell me where she is.”

  I blink. “Lauren?”

  “Jesus,” Drew snaps. “Are you serious? I don’t give a shit about her.”

  I see the change on his face. It is subtle but slow. He is getting angry. This place. Patsy. Me. He is on edge. He is, maybe for the first time in his life, feeling the strings slipping from his fingers, just a bit. Hopefully, just enough.

  “Patsy knows,” I whisper.

  He has pinned everything to me. He’s hidden behind me. I know this now. I need to take that away. I need my brother to feel exposed, naked in front of the truth. Only then will he slip up. Only then do I have a chance.

  “There’s nothing to know,” Drew says.

  “She knows I didn’t kill him,” I say.

  His laughter is cutting and harsh. “Yes, you did.”

  No, I think. “She knows what you made me do.”

  “I made you stab your father? Seriously.”

  “She knows you choked him, Drew.”

  “That’s a lie,” he says. “Who do you think she’ll believe, you idiot? You or me?”

  I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t even know who I believe. Not yet.

  “She knows about Lauren,” I say.

  “Who cares?” he shouts.

  “She’s leaving you, bro.”

  “Yeah . . . right . . . she is.”

  It is the first time I have heard my brother stammer. I say nothing, watching him, trying to let the fear I feel show on my face. Just enough for him to suspect nothing.
>
  He rubs the rain from his eyes. “She’s using you, Liam. Can’t you see that? Patsy hates you. She always has. You scare her. But look, it’s done between us. That’s why the whole Lauren thing happened. Patsy and I are finished. I’m done with her. Don’t let her ruin everything.”

  This is it. My last card. “I have the keys, Drew.”

  And he blinks. For the first time in all our games, he blinks first.

  18

  My brother’s eyes widen. I swear, even through the pounding rain, I see the calculation behind them.

  “What keys, Liam?”

  “The ones to Dad’s Explorer.”

  Drew shakes his head. “So what? Even if you do, so what!?”

  “Did you forget? I never touched them. Only you did.”

  This time, he laughs. It is too fast. Too loud.

  “You’re lying,” he says. “Besides, even if you did have them, they’ve been under the water. Any fingerprints would be gone.”

  “You’re wrong,” I say, smiling. “I’ve been paying attention. I’ve been waiting.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “A few years ago, I found an article. It was about identifying fingerprints on metal after it’s been in stagnant water. They have new methods now. Ones that can pull prints from metal that has been in the water for weeks.”

  “Weeks! It’s been years!”

  I look him right in the eyes. “No, it hasn’t.”

  He recoils. It is slight. Less than a step, but I see it. I feed on it.

  “I went back, Drew. I went into the water. I saw him, before he was just bones. The keys were under the water for less than a week. I’ve been holding on to them. Keeping them safe. But when I found the article, I went to someone. An expert.”

  “No, you didn’t,” he says. “I would have known.”