pay for the privilege of letting his wife keep most of his worldly possessions. He had these last few boxes in her house—along with his dog—and he was certain that he was going to get none of them. His books and his dog—imprisoned in a house that he had, in many ways, built.
He stood on the step, wondering what to do. Behind him, Thor had renewed his scratching, the activity punctuated by the occasional plaintive whine. It was almost a full two minutes that CJ stood on the step before he realized that he wasn’t building up a righteous anger as quickly as he would have liked. The phone call from his father was responsible for that.
The simple fact that his father had called had been enough to put him off-balance, with how many years had passed since they’d worked opposite sides of the same phone call. But the news he’d called to deliver had been the real blow. Sal had been CJ’s favorite relation, the only member of the family he’d missed since leaving Adelia for college back in ’93. That first year he’d spoken with Sal every few weeks from the pay phone in the student union at Vanderbilt, and his grandfather had always accepted the charges. While that level of communication had tapered off under the weight of CJ’s class load, his commitments to the student paper and the requisite collegiate social schedule, Sal had remained CJ’s only link to the family, which lent the relationship more intimacy than it might otherwise have had. CJ thought too that his grandfather was probably the only member of his family who’d read all of his novels with anything other than a suspicious eye.
The man’s death made all of this business with Janet—these little games she wanted to play just to vex him—seem childish. Which they were, even if they served to cover up the deep hurt he knew she felt over the dissolution of their marriage. He knew her well enough to see that, at least, even if one of her accusations was that he didn’t really know her at all.
CJ had canceled lunch with Matt, and true to form, his editor had turned CJ’s loss around until CJ almost felt the need to console him. While CJ was in Adelia for the funeral, he would miss two promotional opportunities for The Buffalo Hunter. But he’d convinced Matt that the trip might finally get him in the mood to do that piece on his brother that The Atlantic had been asking for. It made sense, their asking. How many occasions did a magazine have to publish an article about an exciting young politician, written by an award-winning writer who just happened to be the man’s brother? When they first inquired—more than a month ago—he’d told Matt to extend his regrets, but his editor had been on him at least once a week about doing it, if for no other reason than to position himself to benefit from the publicity associated with rising political power. CJ didn’t seriously entertain the idea of actually writing the article—not with the things that lay between Graham and him—but the possibility was enough for him to assuage his editor’s worries. And he’d assured Matt that when he returned, he would devote himself to the marketing trail with renewed vigor. But he couldn’t return if he didn’t go, and he couldn’t go if he continued to stand on his wife’s porch.
He breathed a deep sigh and turned to give Thor a departing wave. The dog wore a pitiful look, his large head turned to the side as a question. When CJ began to walk away, heading toward the car, Thor uttered the most mournful bark CJ had ever heard.
Before CJ knew what he was thinking, he had passed the car door and headed for the trunk. From inside, he pulled a tire iron. He looked toward the side door, and at his dog on the other side of it. Thoreau had stopped barking and was watching him.
Janet liked to play games; that he knew. He didn’t necessarily begrudge her the need to play them. The problem was that CJ had always embraced his inner child.
He couldn’t go through the door because Thor wouldn’t know enough to move out of the way of the falling glass. And the dog would likely follow him to any window in the house, which would present him with the same problem. But one of the things that came from living