Chapter 8 - The Envelope in the Gravel
Thanksgiving dinner didn't happen.
Alyssa walked out of the house forty seconds later without her coat. Jared ran after her down the gravel driveway, shouting her name into the cold November wind, his fancy Italian loafers sliding in the mud while the front door swung open and banged against the casing.
Mom sat down on the hall bench and cried into her apron, repeating over and over that Dane had always been jealous, that Dane had ruined the only family holiday they had left before Rodney’s surgery.
Dad came out of the den, looked at the untouched pumpkin pie on the lace cloth, looked at Mom, and then looked at me.
""Screen latch is still loose, Dane,"" he said.
""I'll fix it before we leave, Dad,"" I replied.
And I did. I got my screwdriver out of the truck, straightened the brass strike plate, and drove the screws into fresh wood. Maeve stood on the porch with her arms folded against the wind, watching the tail lights of Jared’s Lincoln disappear down the section line toward Mason City.
Three days later, on Sunday morning, the frost had turned the grass outside our house in Ventura into white needles.
I was out by the woodpile with an eight-pound splitting maul, working through an ash log that Norb had dropped off with his flatbed. The sharp thwack of the steel through the dry grain was the only sound for two miles around.
The crunch of tires on gravel made me pause.
Jared’s Lincoln Navigator pulled into my driveway, stopping twenty feet from the woodpile. The chrome on the grille was caked in dried road salt. The driver’s side door swung open, and Jared stepped out.
He didn't look like a district coordinator anymore. His eyes were rimmed in red, his collar was crumpled under a heavy coat he hadn't zipped, and his hair was uncombed, sticking up on one side where he’d clearly been sleeping on it.
He didn't look at the house. He walked straight toward me, his boots crunching in the frozen limestone.
In his right hand, he was holding a thick, brown manila envelope, sealed with a piece of clear packing tape across the flap.
""She went to her mother’s,"" Jared said. His voice was raw, raspy, like he’d spent forty-eight hours screaming in an empty room. ""She took her bags and her dog and she went to Ventura. She won't answer my calls. Her father called the farm store yesterday and told me if I come near the dental clinic he’ll have the county sheriff trespass me.""
I rested the maul on top of the log, my gloved hands crossed over the hickory handle. ""Sounds like you got business in town, Jared. What are you doing out here?""
He held out the brown envelope.
""There's five thousand dollars in here,"" Jared whispered, stepping into my personal space until I could smell the stale coffee and cigarette smoke on his breath. ""Cash. Hundreds and fifties from my personal savings account. I went to the drive-through yesterday morning.""
I looked down at the paper packet. ""For what?""
""For her,"" he hissed, jerking his chin toward the kitchen window where the curtains were drawn tight. ""She tells Alyssa she made a mistake. She tells her she got the dates mixed up. She tells her it was some other guy in a corduroy jacket, that she was confused because it was five years ago and the restaurant was dark.""
I stared at him. I really stared at him. For ten years, I’d thought my brother was some kind of mastermind—someone so smooth and dangerous that he could manipulate the world around him with a flick of his wrist.
May you like
Standing in the freezing gravel, holding an envelope of cash like a frightened kid trying to pay off a broken window, he just looked small. Pathetic. Empty.
""Five thousand dollars,"" Jared repeated, his voice cracking with desperation. ""That’s seven months of propane delivery money for you, Dane. You take the money. You tell your little waitress wife to fix what she broke.""
