Country Roads (14 page)

P
AUL JOGGED UP
the cement steps of his brother Jimmy’s brick ranch house, carrying two shopping bags. In one was a high-tech compass for his nephew, Eric, while the other held two bottles of gourmet steak sauce.

Ringing the doorbell, he noticed the white wood trim around the door needed repainting. His shoulders sagged under the weight of another disappointment. He’d bought the house for his brother, so Eric wouldn’t have to stay even one night in the ratty apartment where Jimmy had been living after his wife threw him out. Evidently, it was too much to ask that Jimmy keep the place up.

The door swung open. “Hey, big brother,” Jimmy said. Dressed in a stained apron bearing the slogan “May the forks be with you,” he held a spatula in one hand and tongs in the other. His bright-blue eyes were bloodshot, and sweat beaded on his forehead and darkened his blond-streaked hair. “You’re right on time.”

As Paul stepped into the foyer, a haze of smoke made him cough. “Where’s my man Eric?” he said, looking past his brother with the expectation of seeing his nephew hurtling toward him.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? I switched weekends with his mother, so Eric and I can go camping with the Millers next weekend.”

Paul forced himself to keep smiling, but the evening stretched before him like a wasteland without the promise of his nephew’s
lively, rambunctious presence. The agreement Paul had hammered out with Jimmy’s ex-wife, Terri, allowed Jimmy to have Eric every Wednesday night and alternate weekends. Paul made sure to visit his brother on those days, both to check up on Jimmy and because he relished his time with his nephew. “I wanted to show him how to use this new compass.” He lifted the bag.

Jimmy looked guilty. “Well, at least he can practice with it next weekend.”

Paul put his nephew’s bag on the hall table and held out the other one. “Thought you might be able to use this.”

He had bought the steak sauce at the gourmet shop next door to Annie B’s, where he’d gone to ask about a replacement for Julia’s ruined blouse. The memory of the malevolent black horse with his lips drawn back from his teeth reaching for Julia’s soft, vulnerable arm sent a shudder through him even now. His brother had plopped his cooking implements down on the hall table and was reading the sauce labels, so he hadn’t noticed.

Jimmy looked up and waved his hand around to make the smoke swirl in the air. “Probably good you brought these. The steaks could be a mite overdone.” He handed the sauce to Paul. “You want to put them on the table?”

Paul went past the kitchen door and into the dining area. The round pine table was already set with ironstone plates that matched the autumn leaf border of the vinyl placemats. The paper napkins were folded into triangles under the forks. Paul placed the bottles in the center of the table with a sinking feeling. If his brother was making such an effort to entertain him, something must be wrong.

“Grab the pitcher of iced tea out of the refrigerator,” Jimmy said, as Paul walked into the kitchen, his eyes watering in the thick smoke.

Paul cast a glance at the ceiling to find the smoke detector hanging from its wires with the battery compartment empty.
“Jimbo, if you burn the house down with your cooking, the insurance company won’t give me squat without a working smoke detector,” he said. His real fear was that Jimmy would drink himself into a stupor, drop a half-smoked cigarette, and go up in flames with the house. Even worse, Eric might be in the house with him, although Jimmy swore he never drank when his son was there.

His brother speared several charcoal-colored slabs of meat onto a platter. “That’s just temporary until the smoke clears.”

Paul made a mental note to replace the battery himself before he left. Taking the iced tea from the refrigerator, he grabbed a serving bowl filled with chopped-up lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers he assumed was their salad before he went back to the dining alcove.

“Here we are! Marinated hanger steak,” Jimmy said, setting the mystery meat down on the table with a flourish. “I used some balsamic, some Worcestershire sauce, and a little brown sugar, just like the Internet said.”

“So your cable’s working again,” Paul said. “Did you get my e-mail about the change in your health insurance?” He carried his brother’s insurance through his law practice; it was the only way he could persuade the contractor Jimmy worked for to hire a known alcoholic.

“They don’t write those things in English,” Jimmy said. “Why don’t you just tell me where to sign the papers?” He lifted the lid from a casserole dish and steam poured out from the potatoes baked in their jackets. Paul sighed inwardly in relief; his brother knew how to make those because Eric loved them smothered in cheese and bacon bits. Something in the meal would be edible.

“You should know what you’re covered for.”

“We’ll talk about it later.” Jimmy grabbed the tongs and put the largest chunk of meat on Paul’s plate. “Sit down and enjoy
some home cooking. I know you don’t get enough of that, being a bachelor without a kid to feed.”

Paul sat. “You’re right. It’s nothing but sandwiches at my desk and takeout pizza.” A lie. He often cooked for himself. He’d managed a decent chicken cordon bleu the other night.

Paul sawed at the steak and turned the conversation to a topic they could agree on. “How’s Eric doing with his new substitute teacher? What’s his name—Voss?”

A look of relief spread over Jimmy’s face. “Sounds like he and Eric have come to an understanding. If Eric finishes his test or his in-class exercise before everyone else, he can read his library book quietly at his desk.”

“It sounds like Mr. Voss knows what he’s doing.”

Eric had a quick mind, which meant he spent a lot of time waiting for the other kids to finish their work. If he didn’t have something to occupy him, he found creative but disruptive ways to entertain himself.

“Yeah, maybe if we’d had a teacher like him, we would’ve raised less hell in school,” Jimmy said.

“I don’t know about raising less hell, but we might have learned something.”

“You took in more than you let on.”

Paul shook his head, remembering how he’d barely gotten into college. “I was in every remedial class they had at WVU.”

“Well, you pulled your shit together for law school.”

“Only because I got interested.”

“Guess I never found anything that interested me. You know, this peppercorn sauce with brandy and black truffles is right tasty, despite all the fancy stuff in it,” Jimmy said, offering one of Paul’s gifts.

Paul took the bottle with gratitude, dousing the overcooked beef in the sauce to give it a flavor other than shoe leather. As the two brothers chewed their steaks in a silence that grew longer
and longer, Jimmy’s eyes began to dance. He swallowed and grabbed his iced tea to take a long drink. Paul was still trying to get to the point of choking down the tough beef when his brother started to laugh.

“Bro, you can spit it out,” Jimmy said. “We’ll grind our teeth down to nubs if we try to finish this.”

With a Herculean effort, Paul forced the bite of steak down his throat. “I was beginning to think I’d need dentures before the age of forty.” Jimmy laughed harder, and Paul found himself joining in.

It was like the old days, when he and Jimmy had pulled the best pranks ever seen at the high school and only been caught twice. Of course, Jimmy had charmed his way out of any punishment, while Paul had spent weeks in detention. It had been worth it to see the principal’s face when he found the goat on his desk, eating the school budget papers.

That was before his brother had screwed up his marriage, slid into alcoholism, and nearly lost custody of his son.

A buzzer sounded from the kitchen, and Jimmy bolted out of his chair. “Oh shit, I forgot about the apple pie.” Reappearing with a steaming pie held between two oven mitts, he said, “Don’t look so worried. It’s Mrs. Smith’s. All I did was heat it up,” he said, putting it down on a doubled-up dish towel.

Paul forced a chuckle. “I guess it’s vegan night.” He speared a baked potato and dropped it on his plate.

“Just trying to keep you healthy,” Jimmy said, serving himself a potato. He sliced it in half and shook a liberal dose of salt over it. “So I hear you had a meeting with some bigwig from New York about your pro bono legal project.”

The flaky potato turned to ashes in Paul’s mouth. He put down his fork and leaned back in the chair. “We discussed how to put together funding from various sources.”

“Did he think you could get all the money you need to start it?”

“He’s sure of it. The big law firms are already on board. And there are a couple of foundations looking to support an initiative like this.” He sounded like an infomercial, but he couldn’t make himself speak casually about this.

His pro bono work had kept him sane. A few months after he returned to Sanctuary, he was so tired of wills, real estate closings, and divorces, he called up a classmate who worked at a large corporate firm in Richmond and offered to do research for pro bono cases at a reduced rate. He knew the big firms often struggled to donate the hours the American Bar Association recommended, partly for financial reasons and partly because their lawyers didn’t have the right background or experience. His friend had consulted with the firm’s senior partners and come back with an enthusiastic acceptance.

Paul found the work satisfying on both an intellectual and gut level; he believed every accused person was entitled to the best legal representation available, and his research gave the defending lawyers tools they wouldn’t have otherwise. His reputation spread, and soon he couldn’t handle the amount of work offered to him.

So he had come up with the Pro Bono Project, a databank of small-practice lawyers like himself who were willing to do the legwork at reasonable rates. His job as director would be to recruit them, evaluate their qualifications, match them up with the right cases, and monitor the quality of work they were doing, as well as tracking hours and payment.

Now he wouldn’t be doing any of that.

Jimmy cut a tablespoon-size chunk of butter and dropped it on his potato. “It must be a pretty good idea if so many people want to pay for it.”

“Ben thinks so, and he’s the president of the American Bar Association.”

Grabbing his glass, Jimmy took a gulp of iced tea. “That’s for lawyers all over the whole country?”

Paul nodded.

“I thought you were just going to talk about West Virginia.” Jimmy’s hand shook, making the ice rattle in his glass as he set it down.

“I did too, but it seems he wants to roll this out on a national level right from the start.”

“I guess he wants you to work on it.”

“He offered me the job of director.”

“That’s impressive. My big brother, a director.” Jimmy picked up his fork and began to mash the soft butter into his potato. “Where will this project be located?”

“Washington, DC.” He knew he was dragging the conclusion of the conversation out unnecessarily, but he wanted to give Jimmy the benefit of the doubt. He always hoped his brother would surprise him.

For a moment Jimmy lifted his eyes from the potato he was mauling, and Paul saw the fear in them. “You remember the promise you made to my ex,” Jimmy said in a low voice. “You said you wouldn’t leave again so I could be with Eric.”

Taking a deep breath, Paul blew it out toward the ceiling. “I remember, and I’ll keep it because Eric deserves to have you in his life.”

The sear of disappointment when he said the words out loud shocked him. He must have been fooling himself that he might be able to take the job. Jimmy had brought him back to reality.

Shoving his chair back from the table, he picked up his plate. “I’ll help you with the dishes.”

The drive to his house took seven minutes, even though he forced himself to keep the ’Vette at the speed limit. He pulled in the driveway and killed the engine, but he couldn’t get out of the car. A wild restlessness roiled inside him, a rebellion against the ropes of need and guilt his brother tethered him with.

He smacked his hand on the leather-covered steering wheel as he thought of making the phone call to Ben Serra and saying he couldn’t accept the position as director of his own goddamned brainchild. The Pro Bono Project was his; he had developed the concept, put together the plan, and outlined how to fund it.

He brought the big engine back to life and backed out of the driveway with a squeal of tires, pointing the car’s hood toward the interstate, where he could turn it loose. He hoped a cop had his radar gun on because he was in the mood to outrun anyone who gave chase.

As he rumbled along the main street, he saw the Traveller Inn, and a different sort of restlessness seized him. He swung into the parking lot and leaped out of the car, taking the front steps two at a time.

“Is Ms. Castillo in her room?” he asked the receptionist.

“Let me call up and see.” The receptionist reached for her phone.

“It’s all right. I’ll just go find out for myself.” He pivoted on his heel and headed for the stairs.

Rapping on Julia’s door, he stood still to listen for movement and was relieved when footsteps creaked across the old floor-boards.