by Joe Clifford
“Funny thing was, I wasn’t even looking into Roberts. Just some peripheral stuff. Places they ship kids out of state. I hit my limit of acceptable photocopies, apparently. Everyone’s a bean counter. Do you know how many kids get sent out of state? To private prisons? Kentucky. Arizona—”
“I don’t care, Nicki.”
“You don’t care?”
“Nope.”
Nicki pointed at the blank space on the kitchen table. “Where are those photocopies I left with you?”
“Threw them out.”
“Really?”
“Really,” I said. And when she wouldn’t relinquish the expression of disbelief, I added, “Doesn’t matter.”
“The lives of hundreds of kids don’t matter?”
“Don’t make it sound like they’re all innocent little cherubs. You don’t get arrested unless you break the law. You don’t get sent before the judge unless you did something wrong.”
“Wow.”
“What?”
“Cynical is one thing. I didn’t take you for such a heartless bastard. The other day, you seemed so concerned about your friend.”
“I told you. He’s not a friend. My company insured his mother. Business.”
“A nerd locked up in North River for a joint?”
“And lying on an insurance claim, yeah. Attempting to defraud a company out of thousands of dollars. Kind of a big deal. And you don’t know how long he’ll be in there. He could be out in a week.”
“Bullshit. You read that report I left.”
“Maybe I did. So what?”
“Then you would know that the average stay at North River is three years. Three years for shoplifting hair products. Trying to buy beer underage. A joint. And that’s the average. Meaning there’s kids in there a lot longer.”
“And shorter. Because that’s how averages work.” I wasn’t so hot at math, but I’d retained that much from high school.
“Come on, Jay. There are lives being ruined, irreparable harm being done.”
“Not. My. Problem.” I opened my arms, revealing my joyless, messy, rented house. “I have bigger problems to worry about.”
“Your wife still hasn’t come back?”
“That’s none of your fucking business.”
Nicki stepped toward me. “Why do you hate me? What have I done to you?”
“I don’t even know you enough to hate you! But since you asked. You’ve done nothing but fuck up my life since the day I met you. You keep bugging me with this . . . bullshit! I don’t know what you think I can do. I’m a junior claims investigator at a two-bit insurance company. I don’t have any access to court records or a pipeline to the police. And by the way, next time mention you’re dating a cop.”
“I told you. I’m not dating a cop. I’ve never dated a cop. I don’t know any cops! Do I look like I’d date a cop?”
“Well, one of them sure seemed to know you.”
“Think about it. You and I were digging around—”
“I wasn’t digging shit.”
“Fine. I was digging. But you don’t know Longmont. It’s an old-boy network. Judge Roberts has those pigs on payroll. He was sending a message.”
“About what? You’re the eager beaver, the nosy one. I’m just a guy trying to do his job.”
She went to touch my arm. I pulled away.
“You’re scared,” she said.
I jabbed a finger at her face. “You are nuts. You are one of those crazy, psycho girls. If I had a pet rabbit, I’d lock it up. Come home and find it boiling in a pot on the stove one day.”
“Huh?”
Of course she was too young to get the cultural reference. I grabbed her hand. “See, honey, it would never work out with us.”
We both turned around at the same time when we realized we weren’t alone.
I hadn’t even heard the door open.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MY WIFE SEEMED more perplexed than anything, although her confusion didn’t last long. She stuck her keys in her purse and acted like a normal person. I introduced Nicki as “a friend from work,” even though Jenny knew everyone I worked with, having just suffered through NEI’s Christmas party a couple months ago. I was standing, dripping shirtless, holding hands with a girl young enough to be my student if I were a college professor. Except I wasn’t any professor.
Nicki mumbled a polite hello, and then gathered her handbag and excused herself, quick as possible. Took her twelve seconds to get out the door, although her exit felt more like a never-ending, drawn-out scene from a Lifetime movie.
When we were alone, Jenny said, “We have to talk.”
“I know how bad that looked, but it’s not what you think.”
“Okay,” she said.
“I’m serious. I just met that girl. She works—worked—at the Longmont Courthouse. See, there was this kid. Well, first there was this woman. Who had a policy with us? Olisky. Donna Olisky. She said she was driving, but it was really her son. Remember? I was telling you about him? The accident? Brian. The kid with the brother who died, the wrestler? Anyway, I was checking up on that, and that girl, Nicki, she uncovered some strange shit about this one judge who’s been sentencing kids to a sketchy juvie. Place called North River. Minor offenses. I mean, they’re minors but the crimes are no big deal. Shoplifting. Some drugs, too. She wanted my help. That’s it. I swear.”
“I said I believe you.”
I stared at my wife, unable to get a read on whether she was being sarcastic or trying to draw me out into the open where she had more room to maneuver—and I had less places to hide—like a boxer taking advantage of speed and reach. I cast a sideways, suspicious glance.
“Jay, what do you want me to say? I believe you.”
Somehow that response bugged me even more. “Wait a second. You walk in here, see me half dressed with a pretty, young girl. I tell you nothing is going on, and that’s that?”
“Are you lying to me?” my wife asked.
“No!”
“Okay, then.”
I felt this indignant surge to fight and protest my innocence. But I’d already been acquitted. Why was she letting me off the hook? There had to be an angle. Then I remembered that douchebag up in Burlington. Stephen. Tits and tat. Quid pro quo. A sneaky trick, pretending to be cool in order to make me look like a bigger asshole.
“This is about the other day,” I said. What better way to prove a point? “I lose my temper because you had a lunch date with a guy. But you walk in, see me half dressed with some girl, and you’re going to act like the grown-up? I get it.” I wasn’t sure how any of this added up to my being the victim, but like I learned with the Patriots’ last season: when you have no defense, your best bet is to keep your offense on the field as long as possible.
“I don’t worry about you screwing around, Jay. That’s never been your problem. Sometimes I think it’d be easier if that was your problem. Running around and getting some on the side would be a pleasant distraction at this point.”
Then it hit me. She was alone. She carried no bags. My son wasn’t here. My wife wasn’t coming home. “Where’s Aiden?”
“With my mother. In Burlington.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Jenny said, in that pretend-patient tone a person adopts when she’s grown sick of explaining rudimentary basics—five is less than eight, a lamb is a baby sheep, fire hot, hungry eat—“we need to talk.”
“About?” I asked the question. I didn’t want to hear the answer.
“About how I can’t go on like this. About how this relationship isn’t working. It’s toxic.”
“Toxic,” I repeated. “Which women’s magazine did you read that in?”
“What we’re doing here is not good for me. Or you. Or our son.”
“Now we’re not ‘good’ for our son?”
“Not the way we are going right now, no, we’re not. Aiden might only be three years old, but he can still tell something is wrong. Do you want t
o expose him to us always fighting? Or going days without talking to one another? How do you think that affects his growing up?”
“I’m a good dad,” I said.
“Yes,” Jenny agreed, “you are. A good dad.”
Subtext implied. A good dad. But a lousy husband.
I dropped in the chair. Next to the cigarettes and tea plate ashtray overflowing with butts. I knew the house stank like the tiki porch in the summertime. Didn’t matter that I’d propped a fan in the window, blowing out the smoke. Acrid remnants remained. My wife glanced down at my pack but didn’t say a word. We had more pressing matters confronting us. The ink had barely dried on the wedding certificate, and here we were, negotiating terms of surrender.
“And what do you propose we do?” I said.
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m here. To talk. Figure it out.” Jenny sat at the table. Facing one another at opposite ends like we were signing a peace treaty, discussing where borders would be drawn, what land traded hands. In a flash I got a horrible premonition, as if someday, perhaps very soon, we’d be sitting down like this again, only next time with lawyers, making it official, hammering out details about who got nothing. Because the only thing of value was our son, and he belonged to her. Kids stay with the mom.
“Y’know, before your mother steamrolled me—”
“She didn’t steamroll you—”
“Sorry,” I said. “I meant to say before your mother blindsided me, I’d driven to her house to tell you good news. I cracked a big case and am up for a promotion.” I smidged my fingers together. “I mean, I’m this close to getting sent down to Concord, the big office. Which will come with a raise. We’ll be able to afford a down payment on a house—”
“I called your office, Jay.”
“So?”
“So Andy DeSouza told me he gave you the week off.”
“I told you. That’s not my fault. That girl, Nicki, she got this crazy idea, and she sucked me into it.”
“Into what, exactly?”
I took a deep breath before explaining about Judge Roberts, North River, and unjust sentences. I left out the parts about police brutality. If Jenny had seen the bruises on my ribs, she hadn’t asked about them. The house was pretty dark. I spoke slow, made sure to ramble less and make myself sound as sane as possible. Good ol’ level-headed Jay. Except that “good ol’ level-headed Jay” hadn’t shown his face around here in a while. Even as I was talking, reasonable had been replaced with a stranger, whose train accelerated too fast around corners, coming dangerously close to crashing over the cliff. I could see the revulsion reflected in my wife’s expression as I resolved to ride this to the end of the line. So of course I poured on the gas.
“Nicki isn’t wrong,” I said. “There is something there. I mean, some of these kids, Jenny—we’re talking twelve, fourteen. Sentenced to hard time for a pair of Percocet? Two years in a juvenile detention center? I took Chris to one of these places once. They are the real deal. Behavioral modification. Like hazing. They have one goal: break you down to build you back up in their image. You know how stark raving everyone up here gets when the subject of drugs comes up. I mean, I know I’m not unbiased, but, damn, you should see this North River—”
My wife shook her head, and when I tried to talk louder, she shook harder.
“This,” she said, “this is what I am talking about.”
“What? I’m doing my job. I thought that’s what you wanted. Me to give a shit about something?”
“I want you to move on! With us! With me, your wife. With your son! Your family! Not with some college girl gone wild.”
“So you are pissed about Nicki!”
“No wife wants to come home and find her husband standing without his shirt on in the middle of the kitchen with a hot young girl. No, Jay. Big fucking surprise. Yes, it would piss off any wife. From here to Nebraska. Okay? But that’s not the problem. You say you’re not sleeping with her—”
“I’m not sleeping with her—”
“And I said I believe you! But you’re not here, either.”
I feigned surprised, panning around. “I’m not here? So where am I? One of Saturn’s moons? Because this sure looks like my fucking kitchen.”
Jenny hopped up. I did too.
We stood toe to toe. Another knockdown, drag-out. How many of these we’d had over the years, I’d lost track. I readied for the attack, like any wild animal, most dangerous when cornered, wounded, pitted for survival. But I was also tired. Too despondent, too disheartened to will outrage and win this time.
Now my wife saw my ribs. “What happened?”
“I fell.”
“How much are you drinking?”
“I wasn’t drunk. There’s, like, ice everywhere. I’m fine. You bitch about communication. You complain I’m shut off. But you haven’t returned a fucking phone call in three days.”
“I needed space.”
“Yeah? And I need my son. Who you took. Across state lines. And then you don’t have the courtesy to pick up a telephone? I’m still your husband. More importantly, I’m still Aiden’s father.”
“I know. You’re right. I should’ve called sooner. And I shouldn’t have kept Aiden from you. I didn’t know how else to navigate the situation. I didn’t want to hear your voice.”
“Well, ain’t that fucking wonderful. So while I can’t see my son because you can’t stand the sound of me I’ve got your mother whispering in your ear.”
“I know you hate her but—”
“Bullshit. She hates me. Always has.”
“That’s not true. Believe what you want to believe. But even if it were true—and it’s not—have a little faith. I wouldn’t be so easily swayed, okay? I’m not this delicate flower, too naïve to make up her own mind. People talk shit. They always do. What is going on with you and me is between you and me.”
“And what is going on?” I looked around the depressing setting, afternoon skies dampening walls, throwing a dark blanket over furniture and floor. I hated the way the northern wilds could do that. Draw all light, suck it up like soda through a straw. “Because here you are, without my son, after not returning calls, with none of your things. Obviously you’re not planning on staying. So what’s the deal, Jenny? You’re moving out? That it? Want a divorce?”
Jenny didn’t respond right away. Then again, I didn’t give her much a chance, jumping right back in.
“Just fucking great.”
“I didn’t say anything about a divorce.”
“Hey,” I said, “I mean, who could blame you? You gutted it out, tried marriage for almost, like, a whole fucking year. Makes you fucking Mother Teresa, right? Goddamn martyr, stay married to a monster like me for twelve months. Actually . . .” I pretended to do the math in my head. “Not quite a year. More like nine months. But, still, I mean, close.” I clapped my hands in a juvenile display. “Wow, just wow. Should fucking pin the medal to your chest. Fucking heroic.”
“We’ve been doing this dance a lot longer than a few months. We’ve been at it since high school. And the problem now is the same as it was then.”
“Which is?”
“Your brother.”
“What the hell has he got to do with any of this?” I stopped and pretended to think. “You mean my dead brother, Chris? The junkie who’s been gone for over a year? And truth be told, a lot longer than that. The same guy I barely saw the last five years of his life? The drug addict I avoided like the fucking plague? That brother?”
I meant the barb to be a stinging indictment of how ridiculous my wife was being.
Instead all she said was, “Yes.”
“I’m seeing Dr. Shapiro-Weiss again,” I blurted.
“That’s good to hear.”
“She says I have a PTSD thing going on. Because of Chris. So, y’know, I’m dealing with stuff.”
“That’s good,” my wife said.
“I don’t want to lose you, Jenny.”
“I know.”
> I waited for reassurance, my heart flipping inside its cage, desperate for release, blood pressure surging; I could hear the swells rising in my ears, riptide threatening to drag me from shore for good, surrender me to the undertow. I thought admitting I needed help—telling her that I was getting that help—would be some magic elixir. But I was too late. We’d run out of time. I felt my chest clutch up. The pills the doctor had given me were in the other room. Right on the dresser. Relief ten feet away. But I didn’t want to risk moving from that spot. I had this sudden, all-consuming fear that if I took a step away from her right then, let her out of my sight for even a second, she’d be gone forever.
“Tell me what you need me to do,” I said. “How do I get you and Aiden to come home?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you even come back here?”
“To talk,” she said. “And I needed clothes for Aiden. Some of my things.”
“So you’re moving out?”
“No. Not moving out. Just taking space. Time.”
“Until what? What the hell are you waiting for?”
“I’m not sure. I guess I’ll know it when I see it.”
* * *
Afterwards I retrieved my script and sat at the kitchen table while my wife gathered those things she’d come back for, clothes, makeup, whatever a single mom needs to survive. I didn’t watch her pack. I kept my back turned and lit up right there in the house. Didn’t bother with a window or the fan. Who gave a shit? I listened to the soft patter of feet, the opening and closing of dresser drawers. We lived on a quiet street, everyone at work or cloistered behind suburban walls. Nothing stirred outside. I could hear every squeak inside our fractured home, and these echoes of extraction stabbed parts of me unknown.
I poured a cup of coffee from the pot Nicki had made, swirled in milk and sugar, sat back down without sensation, a burn victim long after the fire, all nerve endings cauterized, deadened, the pain now seared as a permanent part.
Jenny dragged her haul into the kitchen. My wife leaned over and kissed me on the head, the way you take leave from a mildly annoying cousin you tolerate once a year on the holidays, responsibility served, parting a relief.
I asked when I could see my son. Jenny said since I had the week off, come up tomorrow if I wanted. Just call first. Then my wife walked out the door, and I was alone.
