by Adam Mitzner
He sees the error of his ways now. He only hopes it’s not too late to rectify the situation.
* * *
When they arrive back at the house, Kevin volunteers to put the kids to sleep, which apparently entails reading three stories and some singing—at least for Molly, as Amy explains that Jack has declared himself too old for the singing but not the reading.
After Kevin heads upstairs, Jonathan offers Amy some scotch, and to his surprise, she accepts. Yet another thing he didn’t know about his sister—she’s a scotch drinker.
“You know when Dad got this bottle?” he says as he hands the tumbler to Amy.
“Yes. I actually had a sip of it with Dad on my wedding day. He told me he bought it on his honeymoon, with the expectation that someday he’d drink it with his children when they got married.”
Jonathan laughs. “He told me he bought it the day I was born, to drink with me when I came of age. I guess he couldn’t wait until I turned twenty-one, because I had a glass with him on my eighteenth birthday.”
Amy laughs, too. “Well, whatever the truth is, I bet Dad’s smiling down on us right now. So, cheers.”
Jonathan’s not a believer in the afterlife. And yet he can’t help but allow for the possibility that his father is somehow smiling down on his children, drinking his crappy blended scotch together.
“To William Caine,” Jonathan says, clinking his glass to Amy’s.
“To William Caine,” she concurs.
They both take a sip. Jonathan lets the alcohol roll back into his mouth, the way his father advised him that very first time, twenty-five years ago.
“You know, I never really felt like I got Dad,” Jonathan says. “Mom was kind of easy.”
“Yeah, because narcissistic borderline personality is an actual thing.”
Jonathan can’t deny that. “And what’s your diagnosis of Dad, Dr. Freud?”
“He was just a guy who tried his best. Living with Mom was no picnic, and I think he was happy just to have any oxygen to breathe.”
“What kind of a life was that?”
“I don’t know. I always thought Dad was happy. Didn’t you?”
“I have no idea. That’s kind of what I mean about not really understanding what he was all about. But I know that I couldn’t be happy with that kind of life.”
“No offense, Jonathan, but I’m not sure any type of life that didn’t involve millions of dollars could make you happy. The rest of us, we get by with far less.”
Jonathan knows Amy didn’t mean to hurt him with the barb, but it still stings. Amy must sense that she’s crossed a line, because she tries to backtrack.
“What I mean,” she says, “is that he loved Mom, and so he was happy because he was happy with her. And I think, in her own way, she loved him, too. After all, they were married a very long time.”
He considers sharing with his sister that their mother was unfaithful, but stops himself. If she wants to believe their parents were in love until death did them part, he won’t stand in the way, even if her version is pure fiction.
“My last conversation with Dad . . . I had a real heart-to-heart with him,” Jonathan says. “It’s funny because over the last . . . I don’t know how long, he sounded like he was talking gibberish for all the sense he made, right? But this was only a few hours before he died, and he was completely lucid. Like he understood that I needed to talk to him, and maybe on some level he understood that he had to do it then because . . . because he wouldn’t be around to do it later.”
Amy rearranges herself to sit up straighter. “What did he say?”
“He said that I should start my life over, and do it better this time.”
“That seems like good advice,” she says.
Jonathan takes another swallow of the scotch. Another sentiment rolls around in his head, but he decides not to voice it.
“What?” Amy says, apparently sensing he’s holding something back.
Jonathan smiles. “You don’t want to know.”
“No, I do. I know we haven’t been very close, and I hope you know that I wish it wasn’t that way. And it doesn’t have to be that way in the future. Especially if you and Natasha are really over. With Mom and Dad gone, for better or worse, I’m your only family left.”
Jonathan hadn’t thought about it in those terms before, but Amy’s right. Like the failings of his other interpersonal relationships, the blame for his estrangement from his sister fell squarely on his shoulders. He’d always been too busy mastering the universe to take much of an interest in Amy or her growing family. She had tried, though. Always making a pilgrimage into New York City when she visited East Carlisle to see their parents, inviting Jonathan to come to Florida for every holiday. It was Jonathan who never made any effort.
He could change that now, however. By opening up to her.
“The truth of the matter is that I’m afraid I won’t be able to do it. Be a better man, I mean. Sometimes I think I’m just hardwired to be who I’ve always been.”
Amy’s face shows nothing but understanding. She puts her hand on top of his, and Jonathan recalls Jackie’s identical gesture to comfort him at Bicentennial Park.
“I don’t believe that, Johnny. Not for a second. I think you can be the kind of man you want to be. Just because you spent the last . . . I don’t know how many years being one type of person, doesn’t mean you don’t have the capacity to change. Maybe . . . I don’t know . . . maybe you’re meant to be with Jackie. Maybe with her, you’ll be the kind of person you want to be.”
Jonathan takes another gulp of scotch. More than anything else, he hopes that his sister is right. That he can be with Jackie and that she can be his salvation. Even though he knows he’ll first have to commit a mortal sin to get there.
He still wants what he wants. Now, however, the stakes are much greater than ever before.
* * *
Rick comes home before five, a first for him. Jackie’s decided to adopt a strategy of pretending that this morning never happened.
“I’m in the kitchen,” Jackie announces. “Making spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.”
When she sees Rick, she knows at once that he’s not in the mood to forgive and forget. He’s removed his winter coat but not his work boots, which make him a good two inches taller, so he towers over Jackie by that much more.
The look in his eyes indicates he has murder on his mind.
Jackie spies all the things in the room that she can use to defend herself: iron skillets, knives, even the boiling water. And then she realizes that these things are equally accessible to Rick.
She decides to try another tack.
“Please, Rick. Let’s not start this again. I’m sorry that someone apparently thought they heard something and called the police, but I was at the gym, so you can’t blame me for it. And I don’t know why you think that I’m having an affair, but I’m not, and so I wish you’d just let it go already.”
“There’s one thing I can promise you, Jackie, I’m not letting this go. No fucking way.”
He attacks her so fast that she doesn’t even know it’s happened until she’s on the floor. When she locks eyes with Rick, there’s not even a hint of remorse staring back at her. Instead, Rick looks like a fighter ready to go in for the kill.
He won’t hit her again if she remains on the floor, she tells herself.
She’s dead wrong.
His boot smacks up against her backside, and the kick is hard enough that she cries out. The momentum of the blow flips her onto her stomach, and she turns to see Rick hovering above her.
He drops to the floor like a cat and grabs the back of Jackie’s head. His fingernails bore into her scalp and he presses her face into the marble floor. It’s cold and rough, and she thinks that this is what it would feel like if her head were caught in a vise. It’s as if Rick is trying to push her face through the solid surface.
“Get off me!” she screams. “Get off !”
She can no l
onger see Rick, her field of vision completely blocked by the floor. Even the blackness is now playing tricks on her, with light that she knows to be imaginary dancing in front of her eyes.
He laughs at her demand. It’s a deep, guttural sound that says she’s delusional if she thinks she has any control in this situation.
“I’ll get off you when you tell me what I want to know, Jackie. What’s his goddamn name?”
“Rick, you’re hurting me. Please. Please stop!”
“You’re fucking doing this to yourself. I’ll stop the moment you tell me the truth. Who have you been fucking, Jackie?!”
The pressure on the back of her head increases and is joined by Rick’s knee crushing down on her spine. She wonders how much her body can handle before something breaks.
And then, all at once, she feels a lightness that is the absence of pain. Jackie’s afraid to look up, fearful that Rick has relented only so that he could grab a weapon to finish the job.
“Mom?” she hears from the foyer. “Anybody home?”
When Jackie finally opens her eyes, she’s alone. A moment later, she hears Rick greet their son at the front door.
She scurries upstairs and takes refuge behind the locked bathroom door so that she can tend to her wounds. Looking in the mirror, she sees the side of her face growing redder. She knows it’ll get worse in the next two hours, but for now, it’s nothing she can’t hide with some makeup.
She shudders with the thought of what would have happened if Robert hadn’t come home when he did. Rick would have killed her. With his bare hands. No doubt about it.
A few minutes later, she’s regained enough composure to face her son and make her way past Rick. She races downstairs, where she sees Robert sitting at the kitchen counter, Rick standing behind it.
“Hiya, sweetheart,” she says to Robert, careful to remain out of her husband’s reach. “You need to come with me . . .”
“Where?”
“Robert, just come!”
She grabs her son by the arm and drags him toward the door.
“Just give me a second,” Robert says. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
Jackie’s afraid to let him out of her sight, but she doesn’t see any way she can deny Robert time to pee without alerting him to the fact that something is seriously wrong. She sighs and lets go of his elbow.
“You got two minutes,” she says.
Robert jogs toward the stairs, leaving his parents alone, staring at each other.
Jackie shakes her head at Rick, telling him to not even think about it. “Not in front of Robert,” she says.
He looks at her like a snarling bull, his stare beating into her with the promise that a more physical retribution will follow.
“You think you’re so fucking clever,” he says. “But you’re living on borrowed time, honey. And if I find out that you’re heading to that cocksucker boyfriend of yours . . . Well, he’s not going to have a cock to suck when I’m done with him.”
Robert appears at the top of the stairs. He looks like he’s lost.
“Let’s go, Robert,” Jackie says firmly. “We’re late.”
Her son looks too afraid to even ask what they could possibly be late for. He’s frozen in place, but then Jackie starts toward the stairs, and Robert slowly moves down them. When they meet, she again grabs him by the elbow and begins to pull him toward the door.
The moment she crosses the threshold and leaves her home, Jackie feels like an escaped convict. She’s made it out alive, but she’s not safe yet.
She won’t truly be safe until Rick is dead. She’s surer of that now than ever before.
* * *
Once they’re in the car and on the road, Jackie tells Robert that she’s going to be visiting her mother, and that his father might be traveling for business, so it’s best that he stay at Jeremy’s house for a few days.
“Why can’t I stay home? I’m eighteen.”
“Please don’t argue, Robert.”
“I don’t have my clothes or any of my stuff.”
Damn. She hadn’t thought about that.
“I’ll stop at the mall and we’ll grab you and your sister something.”
“Where’s Emma going to be?”
“She’s going to stay at Hannah’s.”
“When will you be back?”
“Sunday.”
She can feel her son’s gaze zero in on her bruised cheek. Now Robert knows full well the true reason he’s staying at Jeremy’s and his mother is leaving town.
* * *
After a quick pit stop at the mall, where Jackie buys essentials for her children to survive the next few days—toothbrushes, underwear and socks, two T-shirts and a wool sweater (they can re-wear their jeans, she figures)—she arrives at Jeremy’s house. Jackie spins the same lie to Jeremy’s mother that she told Robert. She puts her thumb on the scale a bit by claiming that her mother is ill, which is why she can’t wait for the weekend to visit, and promises to return by Sunday.
Sharon has no reason to disbelieve the tale. She’s known Jackie since their kids were in Pop Warner together and is always happy to help a fellow mom in a jam. “Of course—Robert’s always welcome here,” she says cheerfully.
From there, Jackie drives to East Carlisle High School to pick up Emma, who had stayed after school for gymnastics practice. Like Robert, Emma doesn’t question her mother’s explanation as to why she needs to stay at a friend’s for the rest of the week, and as with Robert, Jackie assumes that’s because Emma knows the truth behind her mother’s hasty departure. Indeed, it’s as plain as the swelling on Jackie’s face.
Jackie repeats the lie about her own mother’s illness to Hannah’s mother. Donna appears more suspicious of Jackie’s explanation, but that seemingly makes her more receptive to the request. “Jackie . . . if there’s anything I can do . . . anything at all, please tell me.”
“Thanks,” Jackie says. “This is a big help. I’ll be back on Sunday, at the latest. I really appreciate that Emma can stay with you.”
* * *
Her children in a safe place, Jackie now seeks shelter for herself. She drives to the Hilton hotel, which is located just off the New Jersey Turnpike. It’s probably the only building in East Carlisle more than six stories high and has gone through various hotel iterations over the years, but the Hilton designation seems as if it’s going to last.
The front desk is manned by a mousy-looking girl. She’s the type who likely was teased mercilessly by the popular crowd in high school. Jackie once pitied these girls, but now she’d trade places in a heartbeat.
Jackie asks for a room, but when she seems unsure about how long she’s going to stay, the mousy girl looks concerned. Although she’s trying to avoid staring, Jackie knows that she’s zoomed in on the side of her face that Rick had pressed into the floor. When Jackie says she doesn’t have any luggage, she assumes that the clerk has figured out what’s going on.
“Can I have your driver’s license?”
“I’m going to pay cash,” Jackie says.
“It’s hotel policy. I need to keep a copy of your driver’s license. Also, a credit card . . . you know, for incidentals. In-room movies, phone, room service.”
Jackie reaches into her purse and hands over her American Express card and her driver’s license. “I’d really rather that no one knows I’m staying here,” she says quietly.
“Of course,” the clerk says. “We don’t give out that type of information.”
Jackie’s given a room on the fifth floor with a view of the parking garage. Nevertheless, her accommodations are nice enough, with a large flat-screen television and a marble bathroom with a full-size tub.
She puts on only the hot water and squeezes some of the hotel-label body wash into the running faucet. It begins to foam, and she enjoys the floral scent that takes over the room.
Jackie lowers herself into the hot water. It’s too hot, and she should run some cold water to temper it, but she welcomes the feeli
ng of pain. First the burning on her feet, then her legs, and then all over as she submerges herself.
Rick has already called her a half dozen times. She didn’t answer any of the calls, letting each one go to voice mail. Rick hasn’t left any messages. He must not want to leave any evidence of a fight. There’s only one reason why he’d care about that: because he was planning on doing something very bad to her.
She didn’t care anymore. She was planning to do something bad to him, too. Soon. Very, very soon.
25
For the first time since New Year’s Day, it’s not cold enough for snow, so a freezing rain falls. Jonathan can’t help but see some symbolism that today is going to be as uncomfortable as possible, without any beauty to it.
The Caines lacked any religious affiliation growing up. Jonathan’s father wasn’t just a nonbeliever but affirmatively opposed religion in any form. Jonathan’s mother used the phrase culturally Jewish to describe the home in which she’d been reared, by which she meant that her family lit Hanukkah candles and attended someone else’s Passover seder.
Amy’s husband, Kevin, however, came from an Orthodox Jewish family, and while Amy’s family wasn’t that observant, they were still more Jewish than any other family Jonathan knew. Amy had handled all of the arrangements for their mother’s funeral, as Jonathan had told her he was too busy at work to help, so she had picked a Jewish cemetery and purchased a double plot. Which meant that William Caine was being laid to rest for all of eternity in a Jewish ceremony, too.
At the cemetery, Amy and Jonathan are led into a small room off the main chapel. It’s well appointed, with four overstuffed leather armchairs for one sitting area, and behind it a sofa and two other matching chairs. On every hard surface is a box of tissues.
The funeral home director is roughly Jonathan’s age, with a bald head and a full beard. Jonathan recognizes him as the same person who handled their mother’s arrangements, and nods, but the man displays no similar familiarity.
