Page 12 of The Code

He reaches the stairs up to his room, hesitates, and then moves past them to eavesdrop outside Jack’s study. Warmth from the fire emanates from the room, flickers against the hallway wall, making it glow. He knows he shouldn’t be here, that this is an unspoken violation.

“… if you know she’s the one, then what are you waiting for?” Jack is saying. “There’s never the right time for it. There’s never a right time for anything—getting married, having a kid, deciding to move. It’s up to you to fill up your life. You make your own timing. You make your own stability. You make your own family.”

Bare in the hall, Evan recoils as if stung. It’s not just the words. It’s the tone Jack is using. Gentle.

He never uses that tone with Evan.

Evan creeps upstairs, wincing with every other step, and plunges himself into a steaming shower. He knows he should hurry since there is still wood to chop before he can sleep but instead he leans in, letting the nozzle blast the top of his head. With enough water running down his face, he can pretend he isn’t crying.

By the time he’s out and dressed, the Silverado is gone. He stares out the dormer window as fresh snow layers over the tire tracks.

The record player is going downstairs. Evan cocks his heads, listens. Dvorak’s New World Symphony. Jack loves its trills and turns and falling fourths, its references to Beethoven’s Ninth and black spirituals.

He tapes his toe and hobbles downstairs. Jack remains in his armchair, swirling liquid amber in a cut-crystal lowball. Within view on the side table, framed in tarnished silver, rests the photograph of his late wife with her seventies oversize eyeglasses and the curtain of brown hair that falls to her waist.

Evan knows already that when Jack is dead and gone, this is how he will most remember him, sitting in his armchair among the crowded bookshelves with his single-barrel, listening to an orchestra played by needle.

“I heard you,” Evan says.

An accusation.

Jack does not react. His eyes alone shift over to take him in.

Despite Evan’s best efforts, the volume of his voice ticks up: “I heard the advice you gave him.”

“Control your mood,” Jack says.

“‘A full life.’ ‘Stability.’ ‘A family.’”

“Mind your emotion,” Jack says.

“You’ve never given me advice like that. Not once.”

“Check your vitals,” Jack says.

“No!” Evan shouts, the stress of this unending mission piling up inside him. “I heard you. You want that for him. Not for me.”

He has never shouted at Jack.

He does not know what will happen next. Perhaps the world will implode.

The rocks glass rests on a coaster to Jack’s side. He tents his hand above it, turns it precisely 180 degrees, sets it back down. “So you heard me talking to Court.”

Court. Stupid rich-kid name.

“And,” Jack asks slowly, “you think my advice was a sign of what? Respect? Care? Affection?”

Evan’s face burns, his nonverbal tells spilling out everywhere. He is wildly out of control.

He says, “Sure.”

Jack lifts his gaze to meet Evan’s. “That I don’t have toward you.”

Evan musters courage. “Yes.”

“Because you’re just an Orphan. And I’m just your handler.”

“Yes.”