CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Renee’s muscles were damp rags. Her tongue was swollen in her mouth, her throat tight. The ringing in her ears was so intense she might have misheard Jacob.

Mattie was Joshua’s?

The revelation made the horizon blur on the edge of her vision and the sky was an obscene and smothering ocean above her. Her head throbbed, her eyeballs ached, her jaws clenched. Her intestines felt as if they had been yanked from her gut and knotted around her larynx. But beneath the sick pressure in her rib cage was a small and sick glow of joy—she bore no blame for Mattie’s death.

It was all Jacob’s fault.

But what was Joshua saying about Christine?

She couldn’t understand, didn’t want to. The pounding on the shed door was like the beat of a bruised wooden heart, and Carlita’s Spanish curses and screams came in muffled arrhythmia behind it. The sun cast doomsday lava over the land. Renee closed her eyes and put her hands over her ears, but it was too late. The knowledge had entered and could never be purged.

Jacob had killed their children.

“Get up,” Joshua shouted at her in his rough, smoky voice. She opened her eyes to the scarred tips of his boots. She lifted her head, though gravity was an unforgiving enemy.

“Hear what he just said?” Joshua said.

She couldn’t speak. Words had become gravel in her lungs.

“He torched our kid,” Joshua said. “Ain’t that just like a Wells?”

She shook her head and an impossible smile came to her lips. The sunset was warm on her face, the air pine-sweet, the river churning and cold below. This was the far end of the world, this land that had created the Wells twins. The gates of hell must surely be somewhere nearby, waiting for them all to enter.

“Our kid.” Joshua snorted with derision. “Reckon my seed took where his wouldn’t.”

She tried to arrange his words into a sensible structure. Language had become an elusive snake burrowing into a moist hole in the riverbank. All she knew was the song of the river, its sibilant rush, its bright splashing against stones, slithering toward a place far away.

That August night when Jacob had taken her by force, had spent his passion into her again and again, when she’d fully opened herself to him and let him reach and join in that most sacred sanctuary. It hadn’t been Jacob after all. It had been Joshua.

Even in that drunken darkness, she should have known. Maybe she had known but deceived herself. Maybe she’d craved that side of Jacob he would never let slip from his control. And the wanting had brought Joshua to her.

Wish me, cooed the mad voice in her head. Wish me that two Wells are better than one.

“Come on,” Joshua said, reaching down and grabbing her arm. He pulled Renee to her feet and put an arm around her. His sweat drowned out the wet smell of the river. She leaned against him, a rag doll with a hot wire girding its spine.

“Well, Jake, let’s get ‘er done,” Joshua said. “Sounds like Carlita’s getting a mite restless.”

“Wait a second,” Jacob said. “Don’t you get it? I killed your goddamned kid.”

“Big whoop-dee-shit.”

“I won, see? I fucked you over harder than you ever fucked me. I’m more of a Wells than you are.”

“Oh, I get it now. That blame thing. It’s all my fault you killed Momma, right?” Joshua slipped a cigarette between his lips and lit it. When he exhaled, the smoke strangled Renee. “You won nothing,” he said to Jacob.

“Carlita,” Jacob replied.

“You could have had her for a few thousand, dumbass. My first time, it only cost twenty bucks. But four million ain’t bad.”

Jacob nodded at Renee. “Paid in full, brother.”

Renee’s legs trembled. Her mind was crushed by the wild clouds above, the fog of God’s breath, the rising twilight that darkened the eastern horizon. Joshua eased her toward the Chevy.

Two million.

Her line on Jacob’s M & W insurance policy.

Jacob was getting rid of her, too. Cashing her in, just as he had done their children.

Means to an end.

And Jacob’s end was to become his brother.

“I figure the bridge,” Joshua said.

“Not bad,” Jacob said. “She lost her footing in the dark, fell into the river, and smashed her head on the rocks. Blacked out and drowned. Another tragedy.”

“Them Wells sure do got bad luck.”

“The grieving husband and father. No one will blame me for marrying Carlita so soon after my loss.”

“And the money suits me. Carlita’s kind is a dime a dozen. I don’t know what it is about her that drove you so donkeyshit.”

“She was yours.”

Joshua opened the car door on the rear driver’s side. Renee tried to pull away, but he shoved her into the stinking seat amid the fast-food wrappers and empty beer cans. Jacob climbed in behind her and slammed the door while Joshua got behind the wheel. Renee sat up but Jacob put his weight on top of her.

His mouth pressed against her ear. “Sorry about the kids. But this is the only way.”

“You’re crazy,” she managed to say.

“No, Joshua’s crazy. Because this is the kind of thing I would never do unless I was him.”

Joshua started the car with a rumble of pipes. Music blasted from the speakers, Johnny Cash singing about the green, green grass of home. She crawled across the seat and lunged for the door, but the handle was missing. She tried to climb over the seat but Jacob grabbed her hair and yanked. The engine gunned and the car lurched forward, bouncing on sprung shocks as it crawled along the narrow dirt road.

Renee slumped against the rear of the seat, her head turned toward the dark window. Only the outlines of the trees were visible and the ridges were black humps against a violet sky. Johnny Cash hit the last verse of the ballad, awakening from a dream to find himself in prison facing a death sentence.

“Why, Jakie?” she said to the window. In the dashboard’s dim glow, she could see his reflection in the window. His twisted face, narrowed eyes, and bright scarred skin made him look like a demon.

“Because you wanted me to,” he said.

Joshua reached down to the floorboard and pulled out a can of beer. He steered with his elbow while he popped the tab. Foam sprayed across the windshield, lathering the twin troll heads that hung from the mirror. “No, she wanted me to,” Joshua said. “Ain’t that right, honey?”

“Shut up,” she said. “You made Jake do this.”

“It was his idea. All I did was nudge him along. See, I always wanted what was best for him. Not like you.”

“I gave him everything.” She turned to Jacob. “I gave you everything.”

The tears came and it was as if she was looking through greased glass. Jacob sneered at her and said, “You gave Joshua everything. You had Mattie for him.”

Her voice cracked like her mind was cracking. “I didn’t know.”

“I thought Christine would make up for it. But she wasn’t as perfect as Mattie. She wasn’t a Wells.”

“How could you?”

“Christine was easy. No whimpers with a plastic bag, no blood, no questions asked.”

Renee said nothing. She was next to die, but she didn’t care anymore. Perhaps in heaven she would have her children back. She could spend an eternity begging their forgiveness, and maybe one day on the far side of forever, they would love her again.

Johnny Cash went into a song about a highwayman, dying and coming back again and again. The vocal part was taken over by Willie Nelson, then by someone she couldn’t recognize. She lost herself in the slick guitars, a “Wish me” game of dissociation and despair.

Joshua finished his beer and tossed the can behind him. The car hit a rut and he bounced high enough that his head hit the roof. He cursed and slowed down a little. The night had become liquid and the Chevy moved through it like a bottom feeder.

“I mean, you’re sweet and all,” Joshua said to her. “But you ain’t as sweet as money.”