Darker Angels

Karen smiled at me.

“I’ve been planning that for years,” she said. “I’ve got it under control.”

“More to the point,” Chogyi Jake said. “We’re exhausted. Ex and Aubrey especially, but all of us.”

“All right,” Karen said. “It’s Friday. Why don’t we take the night off. All of us?”

Ex shook his head. No. His skin looked thin as parchment, and the severe ponytail was off center. The stubborn expression was one I recognized. If I’d slept more I’d have been more patient with him.

“Ex,” I said. “We aren’t any good to anyone if we pass out. You spent all last night getting the house ready. The night before that was casting Marinette out of Aubrey. How long have you been awake?”

“I’m fine,” he said, anger buzzing in his voice.

“Jayne,” Chogyi Jake said. He shook his head gently. I was pushing Ex, and he wasn’t in a mood to be pushed. Karen came to my rescue.

“Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath, and a glass of wine,” she said. To my surprise, Ex barked out a laugh. Karen grinned and held out her hand. “Come on, Preacher-man. I’ll drive you home.”

I mouthed thank you to her as Ex grunted and rose to his feet.

“I’ve got some cleanup still to do,” Aubrey said. “Just nails and saws, but…”

“I can come back,” Karen said.

“Don’t,” I said. “We’ll take the rental. We’re fine.”

“You’re staying?” Ex said.

“I want to spend a little time in the place,” I said. “Get to know it.”

It wasn’t entirely true, and Ex seemed to know that. There was a flash of something-disapproval, I thought-but it was gone as quickly as it came.

“Come on,” Karen said, taking Ex by the arm and leading him to the door. I watched them through the picture window as they got into Karen’s car and headed out along the long, winding driveway.

“Okay,” Aubrey said. “What exactly is his fucking problem?”

“Guilt,” I said. “He has once again failed to protect us. From ourselves, from the world. He feels responsible, and so he self-flagellates. And he lets us know he’s doing it because… I don’t know. Because it’s more fun that way? He’s pretty much always been like this, if you’ll recall.”

Aubrey made a low sound that might have been agreement or disgust or a little of both. Chogyi Jake yawned. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days either. Facial hair wasn’t his strong suit, but his scalp had grown a downy black stubble and he ran a palm over it now.

“I want to go over the cargo van,” he said. “I don’t think it would be wise to do more than that without some rest.”

“You need help with that?” I asked, hoping that the answer would be no.

“No,” he said, smiled, and walked out the back door. Leaving me and Aubrey alone together, which was what I’d thought I wanted.

“I’m going to have to kill Ex if this goes on much longer,” he said. “I just thought you ought to know that.”

“He’s really getting under your skin, eh?” I said, sitting on the couch. It creaked under me.

“I guess so,” he said. “You’re probably right, though. He’s just being Ex. I’ll get some rest. Things will look better.”

“If I hadn’t been pushing us all so hard these last few months, we wouldn’t have been so fried coming in,” I said. “I think there’s blame to go around.”

Aubrey chuckled and sat back, his fingers laced together, his exhausted gaze on me. I felt myself starting to blush.

“So, we should probably talk,” he said.

“I was thinking that.”

“You want to start, or do you want me to?”

I took a deep breath. Outside, Chogyi Jake started the van’s engine, then let it die. Through the picture window, I could see the soft grass, bright green with the first growth of spring. The back of our little Virgin Mary. Pray for us now and at the hour of our really awkward conversation.

“I’ll go,” I said. “I’ve been kind of avoiding… well, us. There’s a lot tied up in it, you know? You’re married, and I didn’t find out until after we’d fallen into bed. You’re separated and Kim’s seen other men, so it’s not like you’re married married.”

“You grew up in a particularly religious home,” Aubrey said. “Having taken vows means a lot to you.”

“And I hate that it means a lot to me,” I said. “All of that. But…”

My heart was ramping up, a slow leak of adrenaline giving my blood a little electric push. It felt like looking over a precipice, even though it was only really confessing.

“There’s something I haven’t been telling you,” I said.

“It’s okay,” Aubrey said, gently. “I already know. Eric told me about your mother. The affair. Everything. I absolutely understand why the idea of being with a married guy would be a deal breaker.”

There have been a few times in my life that a few syllables-just words in sequence-felt like being hit in the head with a brick. When my supposed best friend in college confronted me and blew up my carefully constructed life. When my lawyer had explained that I had inherited the equivalent of a small nation. When I’d crawled out of his bed and discovered that Aubrey was still married.

And now.

“Wait,” I said. “What?”

“Your mother’s affair,” Aubrey said. “Eric told me about it. How your folks almost got divorced.”

“My mother had an affair?” I said, standing up. “When the fuck was this?”

Aubrey’s eyes went wide.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It sounded like it was just after they were married, but I didn’t-”

“My mother? Had an affair?” I said. “You don’t understand. My mother doesn’t have a sexuality. She’s like a Stepford Wife.”

Aubrey looked up at me from the floor, his arms crossed.

“So, I guess that wasn’t the thing you weren’t telling me about,” he said.

“No,” I said. “I wasn’t telling you that I’ve got your divorce papers. Kim left them in Denver, and I never handed them over to you because I felt… conflicted or something. My mom had an affair? My mom? Who with?”

“Eric didn’t know,” Aubrey said. “He only knew about it because your dad went to live with him for a few months after it happened. Well, after it came out. Apparently your dad was pretty wrecked by the whole thing. Kim has divorce papers filled out?”

I couldn’t imagine my father and Uncle Eric in the same room, much less living together. But the big break between them hadn’t happened until I was in high school. Of course they’d had a history before that. They’d grown up together, gone to the same schools, known the same people. They were brothers.

If it was true, if something had happened, maybe my father would have turned to Eric. Maybe they’d had the kind of relationship back then that would allow it, even if it had all gone to hell later. But my mother?

All my life, I had seen her as a pale shadow of a woman. She’d made dinner, cleaned house, taken me and my two brothers to church. She had done as Dad, the full-on patriarch of the house, told her. The few times she had talked about a life before marriage, it had been when Dad wasn’t around. Mousy, repressed, controlled, and oh-my-God asexual. I’d always been amazed that my folks had managed to have three kids. And my father-razor-cut hair, starched shirt, reading the Bible and scowling-had seemed like the perfect match for her.

And she had had an illicit affair that almost ended the marriage? The idea of her wrapped in some lover’s embrace, risking her reputation-her soul-in order to have sex, was insane. She would never have done it. It wasn’t possible.

Or maybe it was. A lifetime of interactions between my parents suddenly shifted focus. My father’s gruffness and need for control suddenly looked like a constant need for reassurance. My mother’s submission became a kind of years-long apology. Everything about my childhood-love, family, sex-came into focus.

“Jayne?” Aubrey said again. I was only vaguely aware he’d been repeating my name for a couple minutes.

“Sorry,” I said. “What?”

“Where are the papers?”

“What papers?”

“The divorce?”

“Oh. In my pack.”

Aubrey levered himself up with a grunt and passed into the kitchen, returning a minute later with the papers in hand. I watched him as he flipped through them, nodding to himself now and then, sometimes smiling wryly.

“And you’ve had these since Denver?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“And you just didn’t mention it because…?”

“I was afraid you might still be in love with her and not sign them,” I said. Apparently being in shock had a clarifying effect. I had barely admitted that fear to myself, and I sure as hell hadn’t intended to bring it up here, with him.

Aubrey stood framed in the kitchen doorway, the light from behind him making him seem larger. Like a still frame from a movie, projected on a huge screen. Then he shrugged and took a pen from his pocket.

“Okay,” he said as he signed them, “I can see that.”

“Kim still loves you,” I said.

“I know. And she’s great, but…”

He folded the papers and tucked them into his shirt pocket. The urge to explain why she left him- that she’d been sleeping with Eric and her conscience couldn’t take it anymore-rose in me, but I couldn’t tell if it was because I wanted him to know everything or if it would only have been to cement his decision.

“My turn?” he said.

“Um. All right.”

He squatted down in front of the couch and took my hand. His eyes were bloodshot and there were circles under them like bruises. The wounds on his collarbone