John’s ears strained for the noise of Harry and Jack’s conversation. Perhaps they were just outside the door. He didn’t know, and didn’t have the energy, just now, to go and find out. Harry had interrupted them—just in time, in truth. John had felt himself on the verge of giving in to Jack, of bending under the pressure of his heavy blue eyes. Of telling him the truth. Thank God Harry had come in time, rescued John—even as, John could see, he had John’s destruction on his mind. Thank God Harry was a coward, though. Thank God he was the kind of child, still, who would do anything to try to please his parents. So John had glared at him, as if to say, Don’t you dare, and thought to himself, even as Harry pulled Jack out of the office, That should do it. He won’t say a thing.

He took a drink from the bottle, relishing the bitterness of the whiskey going down, shivering with it. Thinking, It was Jack’s will and not mine.

He set the bottle aside and leaned his elbows on his desk, his head in his hands, and closed his eyes. Seeing his first son at that age when he’d been so anxious to prove himself. Jack! With the miraculous bloom of immortality in his flushed cheeks, from the time he was born, the sound of his squalling filling the whole upstairs of the house. The sound, startling as a gunshot, traveling all the way to where John waited in the front hall, pacing, smoking a cigar. His ears perked, his heart quickened. Firstborn. Not quite conscious of his own father, Knute Mickelson, on the window seat, smoking a cigar of his own, who smiled and said, “Congratulations, son. Sounds like you’re a father!” Not quite conscious of his father’s eyes on him as he tossed his burning cigar into the bronze cuspidor and raced up the stairs toward the blood smell of the birth.

And into the room, to see the boy (he had known, somehow, that this, his firstborn, would be a boy, John Junior) swathed in white and cradled in the maid Terese’s arms, the boy with his eyes squeezed shut, beating his little fists against the air with an attitude of self-righteousness, impatience. This the boy destined to take John’s name, to be what I cannot. The insistent sound of his wailing, as though stating, I’ll be the man of this house.

And the boy did grow up brave, to all appearances; fearless, even. From his first steps, he ran, chubby arms flailing, hurling aside whatever happened to be in his way. And always he fought with his father: John’s position as king of the house was tenuous. John didn’t let on that he knew.