Josie and Jack by Kelly Braffet

well.
    Raeburn’s fork paused for only a moment in its journey from the plate to his mouth. Then it shoved a mouthful of peas between his teeth. “You have somewhere else to be?”
    Jack shrugged. “Maybe I do.”
    Raeburn laughed. “Do what you like,” he said. “But if I don’t see you at that party, I’d better not see you back here either.”
    The big muscles in Jack’s jaw clenched tightly. I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to.
    “Do we understand each other?” our father said.
    “Go to hell,” Jack said. His voice was low and dangerous.
    Raeburn smiled gently. “You sound like your mother, John. I hope you don’t end up the same way she did.”
    Our mother had killed herself two weeks before my brother came to live with us. Jack said, “She ended up a long way from here.”
    “Sure. Decomposing in a pool of her own vomit. Isn’t that what the social worker said?”
    This was true. It was also one of my father’s favorite bedtime stories. It never lost its appeal for him.
    “Dead in a gutter,” he continued, “with the rest of the creatures that float on the surface. A little more residue making life slimy around the edges. A terrible waste, really.”
    “Speaking of slime,” said Jack, “fuck you.”
    Raeburn pointed at my brother’s face with the tines of his fork. “Your mother never bothered to use her intelligence, either. She counted on the pretty blond hair and the ethereal bone structure and all of the other biological trinkets you two see in the mirror to make her way for her. You’d find yourself as lost in the real world as she did.” His fork moved to indicate the room around us, and the house, and, presumably, the world itself. “I’ve built you two a lovely little pond where you won’t ever become what your mother was. I’ve taken away that variable. And all that I ask of you is that occasionally you show up at a party and play nice for my colleagues.” He grunted. “You should consider yourselves fortunate.”
    I watched Raeburn’s fork move from his mouth to his plate, again and again, while something there with us in the room formed a haze over the table, surrounding me, locking my muscles in place and forming a thin layer of ice under my skin. Jack, though—he was burning. I could feel the heat emanating from him. His hands gripped the edge of the table. The thought came to me dimly, through the icy fog in my brain, that he was using the table to hold himself down, that if he let go, the force of his rage would be all-consuming.
    “Fortunate.” His voice was tightly controlled.
    “I taught your mother and I taught you. There’s not a thought in your head that I haven’t put there.” Raeburn looked calm enough. But I saw the deliberate way he moved the food around on his plate. I heard the light, dangerous lilt in his voice. It was as if I were looking at a pressure gauge and the needle was trembling precariously at the farthest edge of the dial.
    And on the other side of the table was my brother.
    Don’t, Jack, I pleaded silently. Just leave. Don’t.
    If it was a prayer, it was to him and for him, I guess; but more than that, it was for myself. At that moment, I didn’t care about my mother, or how she’d died, or anything else. An argument between my father and my brother meant an inevitable firefight; in that house, even when the bullets were aimed at Jack they always seemed to pass through me first, and my father’s temper terrified me.
    Suddenly, without another word, Jack pushed away from the table, stood up, and left the room.
    Raeburn’s eyes—which were almost as green as my brother’s, and had the same intensity—followed him. The fog drained away like thick liquid, and the sudden release of pressure made my ears ring. My stomach was still sick and twisted in knots, but I could move again.
    Then the old man snorted. “Your brother spent nine years too long with that woman. He’ll always try to charm the world out of its basket and