Page 135 of The Frozen River

It is important, though I cannot fathom why.

We continue like this for another quarter of a mile—Brutus meandering very much like my thoughts—until the bridge comes into sight.

I press against his side with my left knee.

Tug gently on the reins with my left hand.

Home.

Sleep.

That’s all I want.

But, as so often has been true in the last three decades, I cannot have it.

I wait up for Jonathan. Long after his brothers and sisters get home and go to bed. I wait up so long that my eyes are heavy, and the fire is low. A clever move on Jonathan’s part. See if he can wait me out, sneak in once I’ve finally given up and gone to bed. No doubt he’d be up early and off to work before dawn to avoid me again. But I’ve been thinking about what I want to ask him all day, and I won’t miss this opportunity. Not even if it means that I must sit here until dawn.

It is after midnight when I hear the squeak and rattle of the wagon coming down the drive, and another fifteen minutes before he’s done putting up the horse and makes his way to the house. I count his footsteps—seventeen—slow and wary, as they approach the door.

Then the latch.

The hinges.

A breath of cool air at the back of my neck.

And, finally, a heavy sigh.

“Hello, Mother.”

“Jonathan,” I say, then sniff. “Are you drunk?”

“I’ve had a few pints. You’d be in your cups too if you’d a mother waiting at home to scold you.”

“I am not going to scold you, Jonathan.”

He looks up through eyes that are heavy with drink, uncertain whether to believe me.

“That’d be a first.”

It would be easy to arm myself in return, fire off a wounding shot. But I am too tired for that, and besides, it would do no good. What’s done is done. Instead, I pour two fingers of brandy into a glass and hand it to my son. A peace offering. He takes it warily. Downs half in one greedy, desperate swallow.

“Did you know?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “It was as much a shock to me as everyone else.”

It is the first time he makes full eye contact, and I see that he’s not entirely drunk after all, wrapped up in warm flannel, perhaps, but there’s no cloud drifting across the blue sky of those eyes. They are every bit as bright and clear as an October afternoon.

“But when I found you two in the woods in January, she had to have been near six months. Maybe you couldn’t see it under all those clothes, but certainly you could have felt it.”

Jonathan has the good grace to blush. “It wasn’t her belly that I was touching at the time. Not that you need the details.”

“I’m not asking for details, Jonathan. I’m asking how something that important could have escaped your notice. She got pregnant in July.”

“And every stolen moment since has been rushed. Hasty. She gave plenty, and I took what I could get, and that time in the woods was about as much privacy as we ever found. Now you know. Are you happy?”

“Happy? I’m the farthest thing from it.”

“You and me both.”