Rebecca Coleman - Heaven Should Fall

“Not right now, it isn’t. Hand it over.”

“No.” He began babbling a half-coherent version of the Rifleman’s Creed. “I will ever guard it against the ravinges of weatherman damage—”

I walked up behind him and lifted it off his back, ignoring his indignant hey, and unloaded it before securing it in the craft closet that was safely outside the door. Crouching on the floor, I peeked out through the thin gap between the bottom of the shade and the window. I squinted against the sudden swirling lights, red and blue, that pulsed in rhythm against the dark sky. Out on the main road sat two ambulances, three fire trucks, several other boxy emergency vehicles and a white van from which sprouted a satellite dish perched atop a long pole. At the end of the driveway, glinting beneath the moonlight and partially obscured by the trees, a large black truck blocked the exit. I sighed from deep in my chest. There was still the chance they would let me walk out with TJ and take us to the hospital if Cade put his son ahead of himself. He might, I told myself. None of this had been a part of his original plan. Surely he wanted his son to have this surgery as much as I did.

I sat with my back against the wall beneath the window and waited out the long minutes, watching the backs of the three little boys hunched over the laptop, the wanderings of TJ as he crawled across the rug. All of a sudden I had an idea. “Boys,” I said, and they startled at the sharpness of my voice. “Let me see that computer a minute.”

I took it from Matthew’s hands and checked the network connection. Our phones had been cut off long ago, but Dodge had kept up payments on the satellite internet to keep his eBay sales going. Relief washed over me at the sight of the little icon of expanding rays. I logged in to my email and sent off a quick message.

Dave—complication. We’re in trouble here at the house in Frasier. SWAT teams or FBI outside. Might not get to hospital but am trying. Help if poss.—Jill

I turned off the WiFi connection and handed the computer back to Matthew, who snapped the video back on. “TJ stinks,” he said as an afterthought. Sure enough, the baby needed a diaper change, and I had left the bag downstairs. I carried TJ down the narrow steps to change him in my room, where we kept extra diapers next to the laundry basket where he slept. As I laid him down on the bed, working hard to keep my touch gentle in spite of my anxiety, Cade stepped into the darkened room behind me. “Jill, Fielder’s lying about you and Stan, isn’t he?”

I looked over my shoulder and shot him a perplexed look. Of all the things he could be worrying about right now. “Of course he is.”

“I thought so.” He rested his back against the wall and looked toward the hallway, dimly lit from what little daylight was now creeping in around the shades. For the first time in all this I noticed the handgun holstered on his belt, just behind his right arm. “But he said—he said he saw you himself.”

I closed up the diaper and lifted TJ to my hip. “He saw that I slept in Stan’s bed sometimes, but never when Stan was home. It’s that simple.”

“I thought you were sleeping in the living room.”

“When he was home, yes, but his mattress was more comfortable and I was pregnant and my back hurt, so when he wasn’t there I didn’t see the harm in sleeping there. Come on, Cade. Drew’s just exaggerating to distract you, and it’s working. It’s ridiculous that’s even in your head at a time like this.”

“If everything was so up-and-up, then why didn’t I know about this before?”

“Because there wasn’t anything to say. Seriously, if it was like that between me and Stan, do you think I would have taken this as my best option in life?” My voice was rising. TJ thumped his fist against my chest and squirmed, but I lacked the restraint to lower my voice. “If I haven’t proven by now that I’m loyal to you, then God help me, Cade. Nothing would make you believe it.”

He broke eye contact grudgingly and looked toward the hallway again. Light splintered down in a broken pattern against the stairs, like kindling for a fire. “You know what, Jill—” he began, and the quaver in his voice was strange. “My old girlfriend, Piper…I almost slept with her about a week ago. I ran into her and it almost happened. Wait, no. That’s not the whole story.” He faced me, his eyes freakishly bright. I realized with astonishment that they were wet, almost overflowing with tears. “I was trying to find her. I couldn’t, though. And then I just stumbled into her, and one thing led to another, and I kissed her.”

I had no idea what to say. This was a fresh affront, this knowledge that I had stood through all of this beside a man who was chasing his ex-girlfriend in his spare time. I gave a short, sharp bark of a laugh and said, “That’s not cool.”

“I know. I stopped. I felt terrible. I’m such a piece of shit, babe. I’m going down so hard. I swear to God I thought I was going to die yesterday, once I walked into the office building with the stuff in my bag. I never planned to walk back out, no matter what Dodge thought. ‘The tree of liberty must be refreshed—’”

Impatience and boredom filled my voice. “‘With the blood of patriots and tyrants.’”

“Right, yeah. And now what am I supposed to do? Go to jail? What the fuck would I do in jail?” His voice was rising. “I’m too goddamn smart to be in jail.”

“I don’t have any idea what you’ll do,” I snapped. “I guess you should have thought about that several months ago.”

He leaned against the door frame, his head against the darkly stained trim, weary. His gaze caught the middle distance. “This is all Dodge’s baby,” he said. “He’s the one who knows. The man with the plan.”

“Dodge is a first-class moron. And you’ve always thought so. Do the right thing, Cade,” I pleaded. “If you love us, find a way to get us out of here.”

His phone rang, and he scrambled to answer it. “Yes,” he said as he hurried out of the room, skipping down the stairs toward Dodge. “This is Cade Olmstead.”

I sat down hard on the mattress and turned TJ around in my lap so his face pressed against my chest. He gnawed his fist, still so hungry, and submitted to my desperate cuddling with placid ease. I breathed shallowly, straining to hear his father’s words from far away. When I failed, I rested my cheek against his small downy head and, with dense, choking sobs, cried.

“There’s no reason for me to do that if you’re not going to let him get to the hospital anyway,” Cade was saying into his phone. I had strapped TJ against my hip in the baby sling and cautiously ventured downstairs. Despite all of Dodge’s warnings, an hour had passed and nothing had happened yet; it seemed harder to believe we were in imminent danger of a SWAT team invasion. “You’re not following what I’m saying here. He’s got surgery at eight a.m. My wife’s not involved in this. She just wants to take him down to the hospital in Laconia and get it done.”

He saw me standing at the door of the pantry and waved me away, but I only moved a single step back. The last of my loyalty to him had melted away with his confession, and even in the midst of far greater concerns I seethed from the insult of it. From the corner between the cellar door and the kitchen, Dodge stood watching the local news on the living-room television, using the remote to switch between channels. Of course our house was the central image on every station, either a straight-on shot from the road or an aerial from the helicopter I had been hearing overhead. The memory of my mother’s plane on the red desert floor unfolded itself in my mind, and a shudder flickered down my spine as I wrapped a protective arm around TJ. Our story wasn’t going to end the way hers had. It couldn’t. I was here and aware, moving about that house on the screen, and I wouldn’t let that happen.