by Scott Smith
"I'm thirty-three," Jacob said, "and I've never even kissed a woman. That's not right, Hank."
I shook my head. I couldn't think of anything to say.
"If my being rich'll change that," he said, "then fine. I don't care if it's just for the money."
We fell silent after that. Jacob had spoken too much; we both seemed to sense this. An awkwardness hung about us like a mist, so thick that we could hardly see each other through it.
I unlatched the gate, and we passed into the cemetery. Mary Beth bounded off ahead of us.
"Sort of spooky, isn't it?" Jacob asked, his voice loud, brave, a bulldozer straining to push his embarrassment aside. He made a moaning sound, like a ghost, then laughed, short and sharp, trying to twist it into a joke.
But he was right; it was spooky. The church was dark, empty; the sky clouded over, its stars hidden, its moon just a vague shimmer above the horizon. What little illumination there was to guide our way drifted in from the surrounding town, entering the cemetery weakly, more glow than light, not strong enough even to pull shadows from our bodies. The darkness among the graves was so complete it was like something liquid; walking through the gate, I felt as if I were descending into a lake. I watched Mary Beth disappear ahead of us, leaving only the sound of the tags on his collar, clinking lightly together whenever he moved, to prove that he was there at all.
We found our parents' graves by memory rather than sight. They'd been buried in the very center of the cemetery, just to the right of the path. When Jacob and I got there, we stepped off into the snow and stood before the tombstone. It was just a simple square of granite, serving as marker for both of them. Etched into it were the words
JACOB HANSEL MITCHELL
JOSEPHINE MCDONNEL MITCHELL
December 31, 1927-
May 5, 1930-
December 2, 1980
December 4, 1980
Twofold is our mourning
Below this were two blank spots, sanded smooth. These were for Jacob and me: our father had bought four plots before he died, to ensure that we might all be buried together one day.
I stood perfectly still before the grave, staring intently at the stone, but I wasn't thinking about our parents, wasn't remembering their presence, or grieving for their loss. I was thinking instead about Jacob. I was searching for a way to enlist his aid in our plot against Lou. That was why we were at the cemetery tonight: I was reminding him of the bond we shared as brothers.
I waited several minutes, letting the silence build around us. I was wearing my overcoat, a suit and tie, and the cold bit at me, the wind pressing through my pant legs like an icy hand, firm, insistent, as if it wanted me to step forward. My eyes moved furtively from the stone to the dark shape of the church, then sideways toward Jacob, who stood beside me, swaddled in the tightness of his jacket -- silent, massive, immovable -- a giant red Buddha. I wondered briefly what he was thinking about, standing there so still: perhaps some private memory of our parents, or of Mary Beth Shackleton, or of the mysteries of fate, and the gift it'd brought him, the doors it promised to open now, finally, when his life already seemed so far along. Perhaps he wasn't thinking of anything at all.
"Do you miss them?" I asked.
Jacob answered slowly, as if rousing himself from sleep. "Who?"
"Mom and Dad."
There was a brief silence while he thought this over. I could hear the packed snow beneath his boots creaking as he shifted his weight from foot to foot.
"Yes," he said, his voice sounding flat in the cold air, honest. "Sometimes."
When I didn't say anything, he went on, as if to explain himself. "I miss the house," he said. "I miss going over there on the weekends to eat dinner, and then sitting around afterwards to play cards and drink. And I miss talking with Dad. He was someone who listened when I spoke. I don't know anyone like that anymore."
He fell silent. I could tell that he wasn't quite through, though, so I just stood there, staring up at the sky, waiting for him to go on. Off to the west, above the church's spire, I could see the blinking lights of two planes moving slowly toward each other. For a second it looked like they were about to collide, but then they passed. It was only a trick of perspective; up in the air they were miles apart.
"Dad would've understood what we're doing," Jacob said. "He knew the importance of money. 'It's all that matters,' he used to say, 'the blood of life, the root of happiness.'"
He glanced toward me. "Do you remember him saying stuff like that?"
"Only toward the end. When he was losing the farm."
"I kept hearing him say it, and it seemed so simple that I never really listened. It wasn't until just recently that I began to understand. I thought he was talking about how you can't eat without money, or buy clothes, or keep warm, but that's not it at all. He was talking about how you can't be happy without money. And not a little money either, not just enough to get by; he meant a lot of money. He was talking about being rich."
"They were never rich," I said.
"And they were never happy, either."
"Never?"
"No. Especially not Dad."
I tried quickly to retrieve an image of my father happy. I could picture him laughing, but it was drunken laughter, shallow, giddy, absurd. I couldn't come up with anything else.
"And they got sadder and sadder as their money ran out," Jacob said, "until finally, when it was gone, they killed themselves."
I glanced at him, startled. Suicide had always been Sarah's theory; I'd never heard my brother even consider it before.
"You don't know that," I said. "They were drinking. It was an accident."
He shook his head. "The night before it happened, Mom called me on the phone. She said she just wanted to say good night. She was drunk, and she made me promise her that I'd get married someday, that I wouldn't die without having had a family of my own."
He paused, and I waited, but he didn't go on.
"And?" I asked.
"Don't you see? She'd never called me before. That was the first and only time. Dad was the one who always made the calls. She telephoned me that night because she knew, because they'd just finished planning it out, and she realized she wouldn't see me again."
I tried quickly to analyze what he'd just told me, to search for holes. I didn't want to believe him. "They would've done it differently if they were committing suicide," I said. "They wouldn't have driven into a truck."
He shook his head. He'd already thought this through on his own; he could anticipate my questions. "They had to make it look like an accident. Dad knew we'd need his life insurance to cover all his debts. It was the only way he could think to pay them off. The farm was mortgaged -- they had nothing left of any value except their lives."
"But they could've killed the truck driver, Jacob. Why wouldn't they just've driven into a tree?"
"Driving into a tree still looks like suicide. They couldn't risk that."
I tried to imagine our parents sitting in the darkness at the bottom of the exit ramp, waiting for a pair of headlights to appear before them, and then, when they finally did and my father shifted into first, their final hurried words to each other, things they'd planned out earlier that day, assertions of love, the last parts of which would be lost in the rumble of the approaching truck, the horribly impotent screech of brakes before the impact. I balanced this image against another, the one I'd held in my head for the past seven years, that of them drunk, laughing, the radio thumping out music, a window down to let in a cold rush of air and the accompanying illusion of sobriety, the two of them oblivious of their error until that final, irrevocable moment when the truck loomed before them, impossibly large, its huge mass of metal towering over the hood of their car. I tried to decide which I preferred -- their knowledge or their ignorance -- but they both seemed too pitiful, too sad, for me to accept. I didn't know which to choose.
"Why didn't you tell me this before?" I asked.
Jacob took several seconds t
o search for an answer. "I didn't think you'd want to know."
I nodded; he was right. Even now I didn't want to know, didn't want to pick through what he'd just said, to weigh its various particulars and decide if I believed them. An onslaught of conflicting emotions swept over me -- jealousy that our mother had contacted Jacob that last night rather than myself; surprise that he'd managed to keep the whole thing so secret from me for all this time; grief over the possibility that our parents -- good, hardworking people -- could've been driven by their need for money to such a hopeless act, literally sacrificing their lives and risking that of an innocent bystander to save themselves and their children from their debts.
Jacob started to stamp his feet, trying to stay warm. I could tell that he wanted to leave.
"Jacob," I said.
He turned toward me, looked me in the face. "What?"
Mary Beth moved around us in the darkness, clinking, like a tiny ghost wrapped in chains.
"Sarah knows about the money. I had to tell her after Lou came looking for it."
"That's all right," he said. "She's probably the safest of us all."
I shrugged. "The thing is, she's terrified of Lou. She's scared he'll end up getting you and me put in jail for killing Pederson." I waved off to the left, toward Pederson's grave. Jacob followed my gesture with his eyes.
"Lou's okay," he said. "He just wants to make sure you give him the money. Once you do that he'll leave you alone."
"I'm not going to give him the money. Sarah and I talked about it, and we agreed we shouldn't."
Jacob stared at me for several seconds, pondering the implications of this. "Then I guess we'll see if there's anything behind his bluff."
I shook my head. "It's not going to come to that. We're going to do something first."
He glanced at me, a quizzical look on his face. "What do you mean?"
I told him about Sarah's plan. He listened all the way to the end, his shoulders hunched in his jacket, his hands sunk deep in its pockets.
When I finished, he asked, "Why're you telling me this?"
"I need your help," I said. "It won't work unless you help."
He scuffed at the snow with his boot, frowning. "I don't think I want to do it. Lou isn't a danger."
"He is a danger, Jacob. He always will be."
"It's not like--"
"No," I said, "think about it. Even if I were to give him his split, it wouldn't stop. There's no statute of limitations on murder. Ten years from now, when he's wasted his share, he'll be able to track you down and blackmail you with what he knows."
Jacob didn't say anything.
"Are you willing to live with that?" I asked. "Year after year, just waiting for him to come and find you?"
"He wouldn't do that."
"He's already done it to me. He's done it twice. I'm not going to let him do it again."
Mary Beth reappeared from the darkness, wagging his tail, his breath coming fast and hoarse, as if he'd been chasing something. He jumped up on Jacob, and Jacob pushed him down.
"You had your chance, Jacob. You were responsible for him, and you let it get out of hand. Now I'm going to take responsibility."
"You're blaming me?"
"He found out about Pederson through you, didn't he? That's what got us into this position."
"I didn't tell him about Pederson." It seemed very important to him that I believe this, but I ignored it. "If it's anyone's fault," he said bitterly, "it's yours. You were the first one to act suspicious. You soured all our relations with it. Lou's only acting like you expected him to right from the start."
I turned to face him. I could tell from the tautness of his voice that I'd hurt his feelings. "I'm not blaming you, Jacob. I'm not saying it's anybody's fault. It just happened, and now we have to deal with it." I smiled at him. "It's fate, maybe."
He frowned down at the grave.
"It's either this or burn the money."
"You're not going to burn the money. That's an empty threat."
It was true, of course, and I nodded. "It's not that big of a deal, Jacob. It's not like I'm asking you to kill him."
He didn't respond to that. He flipped up the collar of his jacket so that it covered the lower half of his face, then turned from the grave and glanced back across the parking lot toward Main Street. I followed his gaze. I could see Raikley's from there, could see my office window. I could see the town hall, the post office, the grocery store. Everything was quiet.
"I need your help," I said.
"I can't trick him like that. He'd never forgive me."
"He's going to be drunk, Jacob. He's not going to remember how it happened." I realized as soon as I said it that this was the hook I needed. It wasn't the idea of betraying Lou that bothered my brother, it was Lou's knowing about it. "You can pretend to be surprised if you want," I continued quickly, reeling him in, "like you didn't know about the tape recorder. You can pretend that it was all my doing, that I was tricking both of you."
Jacob debated for a second. "It would only be a threat?" he asked. "We'd never actually use the tape?"
I nodded. "It's just to make sure he doesn't turn us in." I could tell he was wavering, so I put my finger on the scale. "You told me that if it came down to it, and you had to make a choice, you'd choose me."
He didn't say anything.
"It's come down to it now, Jacob. Are you going to stand by your word?"
He was silent for a long time, watching me. The dog rolled in the snow at his feet, grunting, but we both ignored him. Jacob wrapped his arms around his stomach, stared down at our parents' headstone. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and I could make out his face now, could see his eyes behind his glasses. He looked cold and anxious. Finally he nodded.
I tried to think of something to say, something reassuring.
"Why don't you come for dinner tonight?" I asked him, surprising myself. "Sarah's cooking lasagna." Even now I'm not sure why I said it, whether it was out of pity for him or fear that if he were to go home alone that night he might call Lou and warn him about our plot.
Jacob continued to stare down at the grave. I could see what was happening inside him: his core passivity, his traditional mechanism for dealing with stress, was rising to the surface, and I knew now that if I could just keep ahold of him, I'd be able to make him do whatever I wanted. I took a step toward the parking lot. Mary Beth came up out of the snow, ears erect. He wagged his tail, thumping it against Jacob's pants.
"Come on," I said. "She uses Mom's recipe. It'll be just like old times." Then I put my hand on his arm and turned him back toward the path.
SARAH was in the kitchen when we got home.
"Jacob's come for dinner," I yelled as we stepped into the entranceway.
Sarah leaned out through the doorway to give us a wave. She was wearing an apron and had a metal spatula in her hand. Jacob, looking large and sheepish, returned her wave, but he was a second too late: she'd already disappeared back into the kitchen.
I took him upstairs to the bedroom. Mary Beth followed at our heels. The room was dark, the curtains pulled. When I flicked on the light, I saw that the bed was unmade. Sarah, though she'd recovered with remarkable rapidity from her delivery, was still a little run-down, and she'd spent much of the previous six days prone beneath the sheets, the baby sleeping at her side.
I shut the door behind us, guided Jacob toward the night table. I sat him down on the edge of the mattress, then picked up the phone, carefully untangled its cord, and placed it in his lap.
"Call Lou," I said.
He stared at the phone. It was an old one, black plastic with a rotary dial. He didn't seem to want to touch it. "Now?" he asked.
I nodded. I sat down beside him, leaving about a foot of space between us. We were on my side of the bed, facing the windows. The sound of pots clinking together came faintly up the stairs. Mary Beth moved about the room, sniffing. He inspected first the bathroom, then the crib. When he reached the bed, he stuck
his head beneath it. I pushed him away with my foot.
"That was our crib," I said to Jacob. I pointed toward the crib. "Dad built it."
Jacob seemed unimpressed. "What do I say?" he asked.
"Tell him I invited you two out for drinks tomorrow night, to celebrate Amanda's birth. Tell him I'm buying."
"What about the money?"
I debated this for a second. "Tell him I agreed to split it up," I said, thinking it might lower Lou's guard. "Tell him we'll get it next weekend."
Jacob shifted his weight, and the phone wobbled in his lap. He set one of his hands on top of it. "Have you thought about the farm yet?" he asked.
I stared at him. I didn't want to talk about the farm right now. Mary Beth jumped onto the bed and settled down behind Jacob, right up against his back. He put his head on my pillow.
"Not really," I said.
"I was kind of hoping you would've made a decision by now."
He was going to trap me into it, I realized suddenly; he was going to make the farm his price for Lou's betrayal. The teddy bear was lying on the floor beside the bed, and -- to fill the silence that my reluctance to answer created -- I picked it up and wound its key. Its music started to play. The dog lifted his head to watch.
"Jacob," I said, "are you blackmailing me?"
He gave me a startled look. "What do you mean?"
"Are you saying you won't help me unless I promise you the farm?"
He thought about it; then he nodded. "I guess so."
The bear sang, "Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous? Sonnez les matines. Sonnez les matines."
"I do something for you," Jacob said, "then you do something for me. That's fair, isn't it?"
"Yes," I said. "I suppose that's fair."
"So you'll help me get it back?"
The bear's music gradually slowed. I waited until it stopped, until the room was absolutely still, and then -- knowing full well that I was making a promise to my brother that I never intended to fulfill -- I nodded.