Jessup thinks about trying to go back to his homework. Thinks about joining Jewel in the living room—it sounds like she has a sitcom on the television now—or even calling Wyatt and seeing if he wants to do . . . something. Jessup doesn’t know what. Doesn’t know if he can face Wyatt again. But he hears the sound of David John working the woodpile, the heavy thud of the maul.
He goes out and pulls Earl’s borrowed coat off the hook, slips on his sneakers. He doesn’t see his mom, and Jewel doesn’t bother looking up from the television, just grunts when he says “hey” to her.
The cold air feels good. The ground is slippery with new snow, and he wishes he had his boots, but he can feel some of his anxiety lifting simply from exiting the trailer. He follows David John’s footprints around the side of the trailer. His stepfather has the floodlight on, a glare across the cleared ground in the backyard. There’re two cords of wood stacked up here, wood that Jessup bought from Kaylee Owen’s parents—her dad and brother cut wood during the winter, when the farm is quiet, hard work but good money—at a discount and hauled himself last spring. Enough to get them through the winter, the next, too, if they are careful, so much cheaper than the electric baseboards, turned on only as a last resort, the thermostat kept at fifty degrees so the pipes don’t burst if it gets too cold during the day when he and Jewel are at school, his mom at work, the fire in the stove burned down.
David John lifts another log onto the stump, hefts the maul, slams it down. It hits true, splitting the log. He takes the larger of the two pieces, lines it up, hesitates, turns.
“We’re good for kindling,” Jessup says. “I split a bunch in the spring, when I stacked it.”
“I know,” David John says. “But I needed to get outside. Feels good, you know?”
“The exercise?”
David John is breathing hard. Jessup’s not surprised. Splitting wood isn’t easy. He drops the head of the maul to the ground, holds onto the handle with one hand, coughs, and then spits in the snow. “No. Yeah, sure, the exercise is good. That’s pretty much all I did in prison. Worked out in my cell, worked out in the yard when I could, wrote you guys letters, read. I’m in the best shape of my life. I haven’t done anything since I’ve gotten home, and I’m itchy, but no, I don’t mean the exercise. I mean being outside. No fences. Nothing. I can go anywhere. Hard to believe I’m free.”
Jessup blurts out, “I saw you hit Earl.”
David John nods. “Yep.”
“He okay?”
“Probably. He’ll have a heck of a bruise.” He holds up his right hand, flexes it theatrically. “I should know better than to punch him in the face. My hand’s pretty sore.”
“Why’d you punch him?” Jessup asks.
“You could have been killed today,” he says. “Your mom. Jewel. I don’t know. I punched him because I was angry. He told me he knew what he was doing, convinced me he and Brandon could take care of things, keep you safe. I shouldn’t have done it, though. It was unchristian of me.”
“But you helped him up. You hugged him after,” Jessup says. David John looks at him keenly and Jessup blushes. “I was watching through the window.”
“Yeah, well, I also told him to tell Brandon that if he ever comes to my house again I’ll gut him.”
“But you hugged him.”
“He’s my brother,” David John says. “Look, you could have been killed. And Jewel. And your mom. That church has been . . . It doesn’t matter. I—no, we—need some distance. You’d think that being in prison would have given me time to figure that out. That I wouldn’t need to learn a lesson. But that’s beside the point. What matters is that Earl’s family.”
David John looks miserable. “You know I’d do anything for you, right?”
Jessup nods.
“And your mom and your sister?”
Jessup nods again.
“Earl’s my brother,” David John says. “That don’t change. But I told him that we’re done with the church. We’re not going back there.”