In Reach (17 page)

“She went back to Texas.”

Conrad takes a slow draw on his cigarette, stifles a cough. “That the only reason?”

Gary doesn’t speak. He’s coiled tight, and Conrad waits. Then Gary says, “You had no business following me.”

Conrad grunts, a bitter rueful sound. “We gonna have this fight all over again?”

Conrad pitches his cigarette butt into the yard. Most days, he wishes to hell he hadn’t let his curiosity get the best of him. When he set out after Gary in that old pickup, wondering where Gary slipped off to mid-afternoon when he thought Conrad wouldn’t notice, he never expected to find him shagging another woman. He would’ve bloodied the nose of anyone who spread such a farfetched rumor.

“I’m sorry for it, if that’s what you need to hear,” Gary says.

Conrad lets a beat go by. He’s conscious of Gary leaning on the railing, breathing hard. He’s shocked to discover that Gary’s getting old.

“Does Laynie know?” Conrad asks.

“No. I didn’t see no point in telling her.”

So, that’s what this is. He wants to make sure Conrad will keep his dirty secret. He considers letting Gary twist in the wind, but he can’t do it. “Good,” he says.

He looks at Gary. Gary nods. Both of them turn their attention back to the yard, as if all the answers to life’s hard questions are spread out there on the hardscrabble dirt.

“You doing okay?” Gary asks.

Conrad swallows the gravel in his throat. He aches to tell Gary about that Memorial Day debacle. There was a time, before, when he would have been able to. He would have unburdened himself and believed that Gary was the kind of man so steeped in decency that he could absorb it.

“Yeah,” Conrad lies. “I’m doing fine.”

Later, at the dinner table, after they’ve had their fill of dressing and cranberries (Conrad skipped the bloodred cranberries), turkey and gravy, while they’re enjoying a lull before the pie is served up, the talk turns to football. The Cornhuskers are not having a good year. They flail the coach for a while. Conrad says nothing. He’s watching Laynie and Gary. She doesn’t touch him when she walks by with a pitcher of water. She used to trail her fingers alongside Gary’s arm, brush against him when she passed. He has to be asked twice before he realizes Irene is talking to him.

“Conrad, did you watch that game with Colorado?”

“No. I don’t get much time for football,” Conrad says.

“Not this again,” Irene’s husband mutters.

No one pays attention, except Granddad, who leans to Gary and shouts, “What did he say?”

Gary tries to dismiss the muttered comment, but Granddad tugs at his sleeve. Finally, Gary yells back, “Nothing, Pop.”

“Nobody tells me anything.” Granddad pokes at dribbled cranberries on his shirt.

Irene stays with Conrad. “There was a fight. Between one of our boys and a kid on their team. They’d been haranguing each other all day, one of them took a swing . . .”

“The other kid started it.” This from Terry, who knows everything.

Irene glares at Terry. “They both took a swing, and they were kicked out of the game.”

“As they should be,” Conrad’s mother says.

Conrad wonders where this is going. He notices Nick squirming in his chair, flinging green beans into the volcano of his mashed potatoes. Irene’s gunning for something. Or someone.

“They awarded the Colorado kid the Chevrolet Player of the Game. After getting kicked out for fighting.”

“He saved the game for the Buffs. If he hadn’t made that end zone catch in the first half, they’d never have won,” Terry says.

“I don’t care.” Irene’s got her teacher voice on, judging and righteous. “What kind of message does that send? It’s the same old thing. Wink-wink. Violence has no consequences.”

“It’s just a game,” Conrad says. He’s seen the consequences of real violence, eighteen inches away on a computer screen.

“No, it isn’t, Conrad. You of all people should know that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Irene?” His mother, her voice strident.

“You know very well what I’m saying.”

“I’m afraid I do,” his mother says.

“We all do.” Terry’s tone suggests they’ve heard it a million times before.

Irene cranks up the intensity. “Guns, condoned violence, war. They’re all of a piece.”

At that, several start shouting. Conrad hears his own name. The word “sacrifice” shimmers out of the fray. Terry, foaming, spits out something vitriolic about Irene and armchairs, ending in “easy for you” and “kids who cop out.” Conrad floats above, numb and unhurt, watching his mother’s mouth open and close, watching Nick slip away from the table unnoticed, watching Gary watch Laynie, who does not look up from her plate.

“It’s a damn shame we can’t find some other way to resolve conflict,” Irene says, getting the last word.

The whole table falls mute. Nobody looks at Conrad. His mind is on mucking out the barn, scraping up shit and hauling it outside. Backbreaking. He sees himself sweaty, the stench clinging to his skin. It occurs to him that they’re waiting for him to say something. He opens his mouth and only one word falls out. “Shit.”

He sees Irene redden; Terry suppresses a laugh. That’s not what he meant. He tries again to explain. “Fuck.”

He gathers his feet under him, every muscle straining to escape from this table. Before he can rise, Bill’s hand grabs his elbow. Bill
doesn’t press, but he doesn’t let go, either. Unless he wants to create an even bigger scene, Conrad has no choice but to stay seated.

“C’mon, now.” Bill affects a strained laugh. “Am I gonna have to wait all day for a piece of Kathleen’s pie?”

After dinner, the women head to the kitchen to do dishes, the men to the den for football. Conrad stands in the doorway to the den, leaning on the jamb. Through the window he sees the two younger boys shooting hoops by the barn. No sign of Nick, though no one seems concerned. He’s probably sneaking a smoke or texting a friend about how awful his parents are. Conrad waits through the opening kickoff, then goes out to the kitchen.

Irene hands him a dish towel, gives his arm an extra pat without looking at him. No one mentions the dinner table. He dries and stacks plates on the table while Irene, his mother, and Amalee natter on about recipes and local people and Christmas plans. Laynie says little.

Finally, all that’s left to put away are the big serving bowls that Laynie stores in the basement.

“Conrad, will you help me take these downstairs?” Laynie says.

“Need any more help?” Irene asks.

“Conrad and I can handle it. You three sit yourselves down in the living room. There’s still coffee.”

He grabs an armload of stacked bowls and follows Laynie down the steps. They walk through the finished part of the basement, past the train table, into the storage area. He hands Laynie bowls that she stacks into niches on the shelves. She doesn’t speak. Neither does he. He moves to stand directly behind her, closes his eyes. She smells of lavender and sunlight.

She turns to him. One hand flutters at her neck, fusses with her collar. She reaches up and brushes a stray lock of heavy dark hair off her brow. He’d like to kiss the tiny crow’s-feet springing from her eyes. His body’s jazzed being this close to her.

“I know about the fight you and Gary had before you left,” she says.

Conrad lets out a slow breath. He’s not sure where to put his hands. They feel awkward and heavy hanging on the ends of his arms. The space is so cramped.

“I know,” Laynie says. “I know about the affair.”

Conrad’s surprised, though he shouldn’t be. The lack of touch. The tension between them.

“I’m sorry.” She looks stricken and small. He fights the urge to put his arms around her.

“Yeah, everybody’s sorry.”

He stands, mute. What’s he supposed to say?

“Anyway. I don’t want you tiptoeing around us. Me.”

“He doesn’t think you know.”

She shakes her head. Looks down. To the side. Anywhere but at him. Once, not that long ago, he’d dreamed of making her happy. Of being happy himself. He’d let himself think that if she found out, she’d let him take care of her. Now, she can’t even look at him.

“You just going on like nothing’s changed?” His anger is bigger than he meant to show, but it’s outside him now, launched. There’s nothing he can do to stop it.

“Oh, Conrad.” She looks like she might cry. He raises both arms, grabs the shelves behind her, pins her body between his and the shelves. His breath heaves. She looks scared, and he wants to hit her to get rid of that look on her face.

“Don’t cry.” His grinds his teeth, speaks through a slotted mouth.

She shakes her head, eyes wide like a panicked doe. “No, I won’t.” Then, pulling herself more upright, she puts both hands on his arms and tugs them down to his sides. “You don’t cry either,” she says.

That makes him laugh, and he takes a step back. His breath evens out. Soon, he’s miserable. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She wipes at her face with her hands, wipes her wet hands on her sleeves.

He runs one hand along his jaw, rough, behind his neck. His thoughts race around. It’s hard work to tug them back to Laynie, but he does it. He finds the thread of their conversation and yanks on it.

“Why? Why let him get away with it?”

“At first, I wanted him to know I knew. To punish him.”

“And now?”

She looks sideways, away from him. “I want us to be able to go on. If it gets called out between us, then we’ll have to do something about it.”

“It don’t seem fair.”

“I don’t expect you to understand.” She reaches out to him, places her flat hand on his chest. His heart cries out beneath her palm. “This will fade. All of this. Don’t . . . don’t stay mad at him, for my sake.”

Conrad lifts her hand from his chest and kisses the inside palm. He leans into her until their foreheads touch. He feels her warm breath on his mouth, her hair on his cheek. He closes his eyes to dream of her and sees explosions, people running for cover, the desert, his life.

“I was younger, then,” he says, his voice husky.

“Me, too,” she whispers, and they stand that way a minute, maybe two, before she pulls away to head upstairs.

While Laynie joins the women in the living room, Conrad puts on his jacket and slips outside. He decides to take a stroll around the farm, revisit the old stone well, Laynie’s garden, the barn where the two boys try to snare him into playing horse with them. He fends them off, walks down the lane to the machine shed. He runs his hand along the weathered siding. He’s about to step around the other side to stride along the fencerow when he hears sniffling. He
peers around the edge of the building. There’s Nick, sprawled on the ground against the shed, face in his hands, shoulders heaving. He’s crying full out, and Conrad quickly withdraws.

He slowly lowers himself until he’s hunched against the shed wall, listens to the boy sob. He guesses it’s the hunt, his first kill. Or Terry, a complete asshole. Maybe just being fifteen. Conrad squeezes his eyes, but the sounds of Nick’s crying unnerve him. He shudders and tries to ignore the images crowding onto the screen of his mind. He trembles, and for a time, he doesn’t know how long, he’s not in charge of his present life.

Propped against the machine shed, Conrad waits for his pounding heart to quiet, the cold sweat on his brow to evaporate. He doesn’t try to fight the nausea, just turns his head and spews his turkey dinner onto the ground. He wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket and sits motionless. He stares straight ahead, steeling himself in case the images reappear. Nick is still crying, though quieter now. Conrad stays with him. On the far side of the machine shed, where Nick can’t see him, he sits with the boy, because he doesn’t want Nick to be alone. Because he doesn’t want to be alone. Because, given all of this, it’s the best he can do.

About the Author

Pamela Carter Joern’s
debut novel,
The Floor of the Sky
(Nebraska, 2006), was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and winner of the Alex Award and the Nebraska Book Award. Her most recent book is
The Plain Sense of Things
(Nebraska, 2008). Visit her website
pamelacarterjoern.com
.

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