The Bodyguard (70)

“I didn’t get anyone killed!” Jack shouted—so loud that the silence afterward felt as brittle as crystal.

“Well,” Hank said next, downshifting to a low tone that was somehow a hundred times more menacing. “I think there’s one dead person in this family who might disagree with that.”

At those words, Jack grabbed his dinner plate and smashed it to the floor so hard I half expected it to leave a crater. Then he shouted, “I didn’t kill Drew!”

“Really?” Hank shouted back, his voice saturated with bitterness. “You’re giving yourself a pass?” He held up fingers as he counted off: “You got in the car—drove too fast—hit the bridge going eighty-five—spun out on the black ice—crashed through the railing and plunged yourself and our baby brother into an icy cold river! Which part of that didn’t kill him?”

“The part”—Jack shouted—“where I wasn’t driving!”

The room fell quiet.

Jack blinked at the floor, like he couldn’t believe he’d actually said it.

Hank took a step back and shook his head, like he was trying to clear it out.

“Honey, you…” Connie said, looking up at Jack utterly bewildered.

“I wasn’t driving the car that night,” Jack said again, quieter. “Drew was driving.”

Hank’s voice was quiet now, too. “You’re saying…”

“I’m saying I didn’t realize Drew had been drinking until we were already on the road. And when I told him to pull over, he went faster. I’m saying that the whiskey bottle they found in the car was Drew’s.”

“But Drew didn’t drink anymore,” Doc said, squinting up like he couldn’t make it all fit. “Not since high school. He was in AA. It had been years.”

Jack let his eyes rest on the floor. “I guess he was having an off night.”

Connie’s face was now bright with tears. “Why didn’t you tell us, sweetheart?”

“Because,” Jack said, “Drew asked me not to.”

Everybody waited.

“When we crashed through the railing,” Jack said, “and hit the water, we floated at the surface for a minute. I was rolling down the windows and popping our seatbelts, but all Drew could do was shake his head and say, ‘Don’t tell Mom and Dad. Don’t tell Hank.’ He said it ten times—maybe twenty? Over and over. And I was just trying to get him focused and get him out, so I just kept saying, ‘I won’t, buddy. Just roll your window down.’ In the end, when the water came in, I pushed him out of the window. And when they found him drowned, all I could think was, That was his last request. That was the last thing he wanted. To not let them down.

“And so I honored it. It seemed like the least I could do for him—for all of us. To not make things worse. Even after the rumors started that I was the one who’d been drinking, I didn’t feel like I could break that promise. I was going to take it all to my grave, whatever it took. But I guess I couldn’t even do that much.”

He pushed out a sigh like he was disappointed in himself.

For a minute, we all just stared.

I thought about how, in his dream, it was always Jack who had to drown and not Drew. Maybe Jack was still trying to save him. Or, maybe he wanted to take his place.

He seemed like the kind of guy who would do that, if he could.

Then, in decisive steps, his ropers crunching over broken bits of Jack’s dinner plate, Hank walked straight over to his brother.

“That’s why you’re wearing his necklace?” Hank asked.

It was Drew’s necklace.

Jack nodded, and then he leaned in and pressed his forehead against Hank’s shoulder. Hank brought his arms up and crooked them into a hug.

And then I could see from Jack’s shoulders he was crying.

That’s when Doc helped Connie stand so they could go to the boys and put their arms around them.

And just as I was thinking I should probably back away quietly and let this little family have a moment to themselves … Connie reached out for my hand and pulled me into the group hug, too.



* * *



NEXT, HANK TOOK Jack outside to get some air. A long overdue brotherly moment.

It was only after they were gone that the rest of us remembered that I’d been right in the middle of saying goodbye.

After a beat, Connie turned to me and asked, “Does this whole pretend relationship thing mean you won’t be coming to Thanksgiving?” She was blotting her teary face with a napkin.

I shook my head. “I won’t.”

“Will you and Jack still see each other?”

“No. Not after I go.”

“Not even for fun?”

“I’m not very big on fun,” I said.

At that, Connie burst out with a laugh and said, “You’re the most fun Jack’s had in years.”

I thought of Robby telling me I was no fun, and I felt so grateful to Connie for contradicting him.

“You’re always welcome to come visit us,” Connie said then.

But I shook my head. “That’s not how it works,” I said, noting how tight my throat felt. “I really won’t see any of you again after today.”

Connie shook her head, like she just couldn’t make sense of that.