The 14th Day by K.C. Frederick Page A

turn out. How little either of the brothers understood about him.
    Both men were reacting to the catastrophe that had shaped their lives, the plane crash in which their parents were killed when Jory’s own father, the oldest child, was nineteen. The young man took over the leadership of the family of four boys as if he’d been preparing all his life for this responsibility. A tall, grave youth, he was determined to preside over an orderly world that couldn’t be disrupted by accidents like the one that had so precipitously turned him into an adult. It was no surprise that he would gain a reputation for steadiness in his job with the government. His brother, younger by a year, took a different lesson from his parents’ tragedy. The estate the older man had left turned out, after many legal battles, to be much smaller than anyone had imagined. Though accusations were made that their father’s business accounts were hopelessly scrambled, which was the charitable view, or deceptively inflated, which was the more common, the younger brother was convinced that the family had been cheated out of a large share of its money by sharp lawyers acting for an unscrupulous partner. Now he had a mission: to become a lawyer himself in order to ensure that others wouldn’t be taken advantage of in the same way. Yet as a lawyer, Uncle Jory’s successes came from finding tax advantages for wealthy clients rather than from righting the wrongs of the oppressed. Occasionally, during one of his serious talks about life when he’d had too much to drink, he spoke dolefully of himself as a failure and it was clear then that he hoped his nephew would follow the path from which he’d strayed.
    His uncle, his father—they had lives. Whether successes or failures, they were lives. While he has what? Once more he thinks of Fotor, who had a way of getting under the surface. What would he say about Jory’s present situation? You’re terrified, Jory. Don’t try to deny it. What happened to you up north, why did you snap toward the end? Was it that you lost the heart to keep going on? The voice would be soft, even gentle, with no accusatory edge, just a man who was curious, asking questions. Didn’t you even feel a sense of relief for a moment, he’d go on, at the thought of going to prison, ending this pointless existence of waiting? He’d pause for a while, as if expecting an answer, then he’d go on. And what is it like here, now that you’ve left that place, your name itself changed? Hasn’t it become harder to keep up your personal religion of hope and memory? Doesn’t your being a fugitive allow you still another distraction? Aren’t you sometimes tempted by the idea that you’ll simply disappear?
    No, Jory answers, no. You have it all wrong.
    â€œHey, Jory, we’ve got to get this job done today.” It’s Carl, of course, who’s caught him the one moment he’s stopped to catch his breath.
    â€œO.K.,” he answers with a jerk of the head. Ox, Jory says to himself, keep your eye on your own work. As if he doesn’t get at least as much done by the end of the day as the other man does. He breathes deeply, calming himself. Better to block Carl out of his mind and keep within the tunnel of his work.
    He pushes a wheelbarrow of freshly-turned earth up a slight incline. He remembers the pleasantly harsh smell of his uncle’s tobacco, which vividly brings back those long afternoons in his study: the decoys, the whiskey, the hunting prints—he even remembers fondly the roses he was asked to admire. Carefully, he maneuvers the wheelbarrow to the place where the bushes have been planted; he lifts it and the thick, moist earth slides out, some clumps adhering to the blue metal even after he’s shaken the wheelbarrow several times. How would he have resolved the questions about his career if he’d have been allowed to stay in the