“It feels wonderful,” he said, and shoved her hand away.
Silence descended again, and the two feet between them in the car felt to Cork like the empty distance between two stars. Jo drove the car around behind the school and pulled it up next to Cork’s Bronco. Lindstrom’s Explorer was still there.
Jo spoke quietly. “Haven’t you been happy at Sam’s Place?”
“I don’t think that’s the issue here. Look, Jo, what are you really afraid of?”
Her hands still gripped the steering wheel, tightly. “If you run, all the dirty laundry will be dragged out.”
“Ah.” Cork nodded. “You mean your dirty laundry. Because everybody already knows about mine.” He looked away, across the football field. The moon was rising behind the deserted bleachers. Eventually the grass on the field would turn silver, but right now it was a sorrowful gray. Cork remembered a game against Hibbing his senior year when he intercepted a pass and ran seventy-five yards for a touchdown. He remembered the sound of all those people in the stands cheering for him and how, for a little while, he felt huge and invulnerable. “I can win, Jo.”
“I know you can. And that’s the hell of it.” She sat back but still wouldn’t look at him. “Everybody here loves you. You walk down the street and it’s ‘Hey there, Cork.’ ‘How’s it going, Cork?’ ‘Good to see you, Cork.’ Aurora’s like a big family and you’re a favored son.”
“Prodigal son.”
“That’s my point. You’ve already been forgiven. What’s a little extramarital affair? Men will be men. It’s different for me. In fact, it’s different for any woman here.”
“I’d stand beside you.”
“Right. We’ve both done so well that way in the past.” Her voice was low and bitter.
“Don’t measure everything against the past.”
“What other measure is there, Cork? If you become sheriff, all I can see is us going right back where we were.”
Cork stared at her hard, dark profile. “You’re saying it was my fault?” Something-like the tip of a knife- seemed to prick his gut. “It was my job as sheriff that caused all our troubles?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Funny. It sure sounded that way.”
“What I’m saying is that your job as sheriff often brought you into conflict with the interests of my clients. It brought us into conflict. I don’t want that to happen again.”
“Fine. Change your clientele.”
“I can’t do that.”
“But it’s perfectly all right for me to throw away something I might want.”
“You’re shouting.”
“I’m pissed. Jesus. I just kept a man from getting his ass blown to bits. You know, it was like this before, Jo. No matter what I was going through, what you were going through was more important.”
“That’s not true.”
“It feels true.” He stepped out and shut the door hard behind him. “I think I’ll stay at Sam’s Place tonight.” He glared at her through the window.
“Is this where I’m supposed to plead, ‘Don’t leave’?”
“Damn it.” Cork swung away and went to his Bronco. He drove off, leaving Jo’s Toyota sitting in the parking lot like an animal too stunned to move.
20
WHEN JO WALKED IN THE BACK DOOR, the women of the O’Connor household were gathered at the kitchen table. They were partaking of Rose’s remedy for all emotional ills-milk and cookies.
“Where’s Daddy?” Annie looked at her anxiously from under a spill of wild red curls.
“He’s fine,” Jo assured her. “He’s just fine.”
“Everybody’s been calling,” Jenny said. “Annie and I wanted to go to the marina, but Aunt Rose wouldn’t let us.”
Rose looked unperturbed. “I figured there was no need to add to the confusion.”
“Your Aunt Rose was right.” Jo headed to the refrigerator, opened the door, and leaned into the cool air that flowed out.
“What happened?” Jenny asked.
Jo felt weary, so weary she could barely stand. She took nothing from the fridge, closed the door, and leaned against the big appliance. “It appears that someone tried to kill Karl Lindstrom.”
“With a bomb,” Annie stated. “We heard it was a bomb.”
“That’s right.”
“But Dad saved him.”
“Did you hear that, too?” Jo asked.
“Sort of,” Annie said. “He did, right?”
“Apparently.”
“And he’s okay?”
“Yes, Jenny. He’s okay.”
Rose took a plate full of crumbs to the sink. “Where is he?”
“He had some business to take care of.”
“Police business?” Annie asked.
“He’s not a police officer anymore, damn it.”
Jenny’s blue eyes grew huge. “Whoa, Mom. Chill.”
Stevie came into the kitchen, in his pajamas, looking sleepy. “I woke up.” He shuffled to his mother and leaned against her hip.
Jo put her arm around him. “We’ll get you back to sleep.”
Annie and Jenny exchanged a glance across the table.
“Is it okay if we go out for a little while, Mom?” Jenny asked.
“To the marina,” Jo guessed.
“Please. We won’t get in the way,” Annie pleaded.
“There’s nothing to see.”
“Then there’s no harm,” Jenny said. “We’ll just be wasting our time. We promise to be back by midnight.”
“Eleven,” Jo replied.
“Eleven-thirty,” Jenny countered.
“All right.”
The two girls left in a blur.
“You look beat,” Rose said. “I’ll be glad to put the little guy back down.”
“That’s all right.” Jo bent and hefted Stevie in her arms. “Come on, kiddo. It’s back to dreamland.”
She laid him in his bed and covered him with a sheet. She kissed his cheek. “Want me to stay a while?”
“Yeth,” he murmured.
That was fine by Jo. She sat down in the chair by the window.
“How about a song?” she asked, although she didn’t feel much like singing him a lullaby.
“‘Are You Sleeping,’” Stevie said.
The night-light was on and it bathed everything in the room in a soft, warm glow. Jo began singing quietly, “Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Brother John?…” Stevie closed his eyes. After a few rounds, Jo saw that he was breathing deeply. She closed her own eyes and wished someone would sing to her. Before she knew it, she was crying softly. She realized that what had happened-Cork’s retreat to Sam’s Place-was a move she’d been anticipating since the day, months before, when Cork had finally come back home. She remembered a statement she’d heard once about murder. After the first time, it was easy. Maybe all transgression was that way. Maybe once a marriage had been violated, it was forever flawed and at risk of breaking apart. Maybe it was inevitable.
