December Boys by Joe Clifford

in my wife’s ear isn’t helping.” Lynne couldn’t come right out and tell Jenny she was better off without me—Jenny, no matter how mad she was at me, would never tolerate her mom openly disparaging the father of her child—but Lynne could still snake the gardens, plant subtle seeds of discontent. Sow enough of them, then she sits back and waits for the things to bloom next time I say something stupid. Which, in my case, was only a matter of time.
    “What are you going to do?” Charlie asked.
    “What
can
I do? Jenny ordered me to stay away. I can’t go all caveman clubbing down doors and dragging her back. I can’t let Aiden see me like that again.”
    Charlie didn’t say anything.
    “I don’t get it. This was all I wanted, man. Jenny and my son. The three of us together. A family. And now that I have it, every move I make just seems to make things worse. Even when I manage to do something right—like breaking this case at work and putting myself in line for a promotion—I still screw it up. I went up there to tell Jenny the good news in person. We can move to Concord, get out of here. Get away from all—” I swept my arm out over the breadth of my hometown “—this.” I drained my pint. “Maybe it’s not meant to be.”
    “What?”
    “Jenny and me. A contented, regular life. Peace.”
    Charlie slapped me on the back. “You want to crash at my place again?”
    “No. Thanks, man.” I’d only had the one beer. “I have work in the morning.” I’d burned up whatever favor I’d curried with DeSouza by taking off the whole afternoon. I couldn’t do anything else to jeopardize this promotion.
    I wasn’t looking forward to going back to an empty house, any more than I was waking up at the ass crack of dawn and heading back into that claptrap of an office. In fact, when I gazed into my future, all I saw was dread on the horizon. That little light of mine, Concord, wasn’t a perk any longer. I now needed it for the win.
    Driving back to Plasterville, a song came over the radio. “Your Love” by The Outfield, this old song from the ’80s that had been a running joke between Jenny and me ever since high school. I used to sing it to her when we first started dating, and later on, too, because it always made her laugh. The song was about the singer’s girlfriend, Jenny, being out of town, and so he invites a younger girl over to spend the night. I’d tease Jenny, belting out the opening line: “Jenny’s on a vacation far away . . .” I have a terrible voice, and Jenny would tell me to stop, the song’s message awful, but she’d giggle anyway. Except when I listened to the words tonight, I realized I’d gotten it wrong all these years. The girl’s name in the song wasn’t Jenny at all; it was Josie. I’d been singing to the wrong girl.

CHAPTER NINE
    T HE MORNING HAD already gotten off to a rocky start. I hadn’t been able to sleep a lick the night before. Those kicks to my stomach had messed up something inside me. Hurt like hell every time I tried to take a piss. Which couldn’t be good. I contemplated a trip to the hospital, but dismissed the idea. I hated doctors. I didn’t even have a general practitioner, and no way was I visiting the ER in the middle of the night. I’d wait until I literally began pissing blood before I endured that freak show.
    Even though she’d cautioned me against calling, I still tried phoning my wife. Didn’t matter. Jenny wasn’t taking my calls. And my mother-in-law wasn’t looking to do any favors.
    Wet, cold slop filled the roadways, precipitation stuck between solid and liquid states, which only made a mess of things, weighing down the world. A felled tree and knocked-over telephone pole detoured traffic past the lumberyard, and the moron cashier at the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through added another half hour to my morning commute. I got to work late. Stepping into the office, pant cuffs stained with rock salt, my socks wet and toes squishy, I got a