Page 80 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

The agreement should soothe him. Instead, some old, ugly thing stirs under his ribs.

Because his mother is always talking about women knowing their place, but look at her. Standing in another man’s kitchen, telling him who he should want instead of the wife that’s rightfully his.

Telling him when to drink, what to say, what to do, like he is still a boy curled up beside her in bed while August screamed from the nursery and Dad’s key scraped drunk against the lock.

He remembers that sound with sudden clarity.

Metal missing metal.

Again and again.

Then the door opening with no way of knowing which version of his father had come home until it was too late.

Dad wild-eyed and grinning, wanting ice cream for dinner. Dad dark and silent, smelling like outside. Dad gone for days. Dad back with presents. Dad asleep on the couch before supper.

And August crying through all of it.

Colicky, needy, red-faced August, ruining the only thing Jake had managed to make stable: his mother’s arms around him. Holding him tight and telling him he was the man of the house now.

He’d been five years old.

Of course he’d believed her.

Maybe that was where everything went wrong. Not because she lied, but because everyone else kept forgetting it was true.

Jake looks at his mother now and the old rage sharpens into something new.

“She’s my wife,” Jake says. “It’s my marriage and my problem to handle.”

For once, his mother has no immediate answer.

That feels better than the beer.

He takes out his phone.

The map loads. There she is. Still at the RV park. Still near August.

Fury burns in his belly. Even if she didn’t know who August was at first, she knows he’s Jake’s brother now. She’schoosingbetrayal now.

Kathy looks at the screen and then at his face. “Jakey.”

He closes the app before she can say anything else.

“I’m done asking her to come home.”

“You need to be smart.”

“I am being smart.”

“You need to think about how this looks.”

“I am thinking about how this looks.” He slips the phone into his pocket. “I’m thinking maybe everybody needs to see what I’ve been dealing with.”

Jake finishes the beer and sets the empty bottle in the sink because he is still the kind of man who cleans up after himself in someone else’s home.

Then he turns back toward the kitchen door, toward the yard and the women who have been picturing him crying.

By the time he steps outside, his smile is back, perfect and steady. Downright husbandly.