“He’s gonna kill you. I mean it – you’re dead this time.”

They both stood back several feet, surveying the damage, each running through their own scenario of what had happened and trying to figure out a better way to tell him when he inevitably asked.

Jack couldn’t come up with anything. He scratched behind his ear and glanced at his brother sheepishly. “Think?”

“Jack, I’m serious,” Graem emphasized, hating the way Jack’s devil-may-care attitude surfaced at the least opportune times. “What the hell are you gonna do?”

“I’ll just fix it.”

Graem looked at him skeptically and peered through the patio window at the cuckoo clock his mother had bought last summer in Sweden. “It’s six o’clock – he’s gonna be home in an hour. Oh, Jesus.”

“Maybe he’ll be late,” Jack grunted as he turned the lawn mower over on its side and sat down next to it, trying to figure out what tools he would need to take the blade off. Flat head and maybe a pair of channel locks...

Rolling his eyes, Graem squatted next to him and peered through his glasses at the damage. “Since when is he ever late?” he mumbled under his breath. “So...it just broke?”

Jack reached into the belly of the machine and tugged on what was left of the blade to see if it had any give to it. It didn’t. “I think so. It didn’t sound like the engine got messed up – it was still running, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah – I think. Oh, God, Jack – he’s gonna go nuts. Absolutely nuts. He just got this lawn mower,” Graem panicked, already on his feet, pacing. His stomach was twisting in knots as he envisioned the veins blossoming in his father’s forehead, throbbing in time with his shouts.

“He’s not gonna do anything if we can get this fixed, Grae. Now quit going crazy on me and help - we still have to fix dinner.”

Forty-five minutes later, Jack had taken one of the blades from the old mower, sharpened it with a whetstone, and attached it to the new mower. The only problem was, there was half a yard yet to be mowed and Graem was still baking the salmon and cooking the rice.

After he pushed the bushy, decorative grass away, Jack loosened then pulled up the rock that had been the source of all of their problems that afternoon and hurled it toward the brush pile by the shed.

“Jack – what are you doing?” Graem asked through the kitchen window. “He’s gonna be back any minute.”

Jack brushed the question off with an annoyed wave of his hand and shouted back at him, “I got it, all right? Just quit buggin’ me.”

Graem slammed a lid on the pot with the boiling rice and flipped the heat down to medium. He hated the way Jack always did that, always discarded anything he had to say like it didn’t matter. He switched the temperature setting on the broiler to simply warm the salmon and frowned. “Hey, you know,” he shouted, turning back to the window, “why don’t you stop bein’ a jackass. If you’d been home on time, we wouldn’t even have this prob-”

“You said you picked up everything in the yard before I started,” Jack shot back. He grabbed the weed eater that Graem had left by the bird bath with a huff and set it on the patio where it wouldn’t be in the way. “I don’t see why I get all the blame heaped on me.”

“I did pick everything up,” Graem argued, checking the time before he stepped onto the deck.

“Obviously not if I ran over it with the lawn mower,” Jack pointed out, shooting Graem an angry look.

“I couldn’t see it. It’s stupid to mow over this monkey grass anyway – we should’ve cut it back with the weed eater first, like I said, but no, you wanted to just plow through everything in one shot.”

“Yeah, well, hindsight’s a bitch, Grae.”

Jack primed the engine once and yanked the tug-start, pushing out a relieved breath once the motor had run for a minute without any hiccups. Seeing that there wasn’t anything else he could do, Graem went back inside and tended to the food, leaving Jack to finish his half of the chores.

The next five minutes passed more quickly than either one of them could’ve imagined and the sound of the garage door opening prompted them both to stop what they were doing. Phillip Bauer’s car pulled slowly into the driveway and Jack could see that he was taking in the mess of tools and half-cut grass that was currently his back yard.

Graem hurried to fork the salmon onto a serving platter and lifted the strainer from the pot of hot water when he heard the question that both he and his brother had been dreading for the past hour: “What happened here?”

Graem stepped quickly through the back door and cleared his throat. “It-it was an accident.”

Phillip turned his attention to his youngest son and frowned. “I didn’t ask if it was intentional or not, I asked what happened,” he clarified, resting his briefcase on the railing of the back porch steps.

“I ran over that,” Jack explained, pointing to the decorative landscaping rock that he’d tossed by the garage. “I didn’t know it was in there and I just hit it. It broke the lawn mower blade, but I put a new one on and I...”

Jack’s account slowly trailed off as he recognized that his father wasn’t really listening anymore.

Phillip tapped his fingers lightly over the locks of his briefcase and sighed, his eyes narrowing. “I told you boys to have this finished by the time I got home.”

Graem stepped further out onto the deck and held his hands out to his father. “Dad, we would’ve if this hadn’t happened.”

“That’s not the point, Graem,” Phillip interjected sharply, giving the boy a harsh look as he spoke, causing him to stop in his tracks. “The main issue here is that you didn’t finish what you were told to do when you were given ample time to do it.”

“I got out of practice late,” Jack supplied quietly, knowing that was probably the worst reason he could give his father at that moment. “Coach ran us over – I got home as soon as I could, but then...with this...I didn’t finish it. It’s my fault. Graem was in charge of dinner and he finished that – I should’ve handled this.”

Phillip set his briefcase on the steps and turned to face his oldest son, clasping his hands behind his back as he moved. “So...in your rush to finish everything, you neglected to properly check the yard, which resulted in the mower being broken. It seems as if you have much to learn in the way of respect for other people’s things.”

“But, Dad, I –”

“Yes. Yes, Jack, I know – you fixed it, but the fact of the matter is, if you hadn’t been so careless in preparing the yard, there wouldn’t have been any need for you to fix anything, would there?”

Jack was silent, biting back the point that Graem was in charge of clearing the yard. It wouldn’t do them any good to have their father mad at both of them and Phillip still would’ve somehow brought it back to Jack’s irresponsibility.

“There wouldn’t be any need, would there? Don’t make me repeat myself, Jack – you know how much that displeases me.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack apologized immediately. “No, sir.”

Phillip tipped his head toward his son. “No, sir, what?”

“No, sir, I wouldn’t –” Jack paused to clear his throat of the lump that was slowly rising in his windpipe before continuing, “I wouldn’t have needed to fix it if I hadn’t broken it.”

He glanced over to Graem, who was squirming uneasily by the doorway, and gave him a look that told him to keep his mouth shut. Graem simply shrugged and slipped back into the kitchen, pulling the door closed behind him. A few seconds later, Jack heard the sound of the window over the sink being pulled shut and locked.

“So,” Phillip started, taking in the yard with a sigh, “what are you going to do about this, Jack?”

Jack took a deep breath and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Well...I’m going to finish the yard and make sure I check everything more carefully next time. I’ll stop by Haversham’s tomorrow and get another blade – I sharpened the one I put on, but it’s not -”

“That...isn’t what I’m talking about, son,” Phillip interrupted.

Jack looked up at his father, confused. He’d already repaired the lawn mower, the grass could be cut in half an hour, he would get a new blade at the hardware store... “I-I don’t know,” he faltered. “I fixed it. What do you mean?”

“There’s a bigger picture here that you’re not looking at, Jack.”

Jack’s shoulders sagged once he realized what his father was insinuating.

“I leave you here and you’re in charge. When I’m not home, you’re the one who assumes control.” Phillip placed his arm around his oldest son’s back and let his hand rest heavily where Jack’s shoulder curved up into his neck. “I...I don’t have to tell you how difficult a time this is for me, Jack. With your mother gone, I have a thousand other things on my mind. I don’t have the time to worry about whether you can handle the small measures of responsibility that I’ve given you. What you’ve shown me here today says that you can’t.”

As Phillip spoke, the hand he kept on his neck began to squeeze more tightly and Jack grimaced under the pain – he’d taken a rough hit in practice and the added pressure wasn’t doing it any good.

“Graem looks up to you, he goes to you for guidance,” he continued, walking his son toward the garage. “What kind of example are you providing him with failures like this?”

Jack wanted to yell that it was just the damn grass and that it would be finished in time for the world to continue turning, but he knew that they weren’t really talking about the yard anymore. He stumbled a bit as Phillip nudged him through the side door then steered him toward the back.

Phillip’s voice was loud, almost booming in the stillness of the garage. “I think it’s time you start evaluating the priorities you have right now, make sure they fall in line with the bigger picture.”

It was then that Jack realized they were standing in front of the shelf where his father made him keep all of his gear. He turned quickly, confusion coloring his words. “You mean quit football?”

His voice cracked on the last syllable, but Jack didn’t care – was he being serious?

“If that’s what it takes. Things aren’t the same anymore.”

“I know that, but...Grae’s still on the debate team,” Jack reasoned, desperate to avoid sounding like he was whining.

“Graem’s position on the debate team will ultimately serve him useful as he pursues his career in the business field. I’m sorry, Jack, but, no matter how fast your forty is, I don’t see you playing for the Raiders any time soon. Do you?”

Jack felt the tips of his ears burn and looked down. “No, sir.”

Phillip clapped him on the back soundly and smiled. “Then it’s moot at this point – you’re not a child anymore. You’ll be a junior next year and you’ll need to buckle down even more with your studies. I don’t see how football fits into that plan.”

Jack held off, keeping to himself the comment that maybe his plan didn’t exactly follow the lines his father had set and if he ‘buckled down’ in any further in his studies he’d turn into a fucking hermit.

They were both silent as they left the garage and, as Jack locked the door behind them, Graem stepped onto the back porch, dishtowel in hand. “Dinner’s ready.”

Phillip nodded and headed swiftly for the porch while Jack started to pick up the tools he’d used to fix the mower.

“I’ll help.”

Graem slung the rag over his shoulder, jumped off the porch and headed for Jack, but Phillip stopped him with a hand to his chest. “No. Graem, this is Jack’s mess – let him clean it up.”

Knowing it was best not to argue, he kept his eyes averted from his brother’s and simply nodded while his father added, “Jack, you’ll shower and we’ll have dinner – as a family – then you can finish this.”

Phillip started up the back steps, but stopped, turning once more to face Jack, who had stooped to replace the screwdrivers and vice grips he’d already had in hand. “After you...wrap up everything here, I expect you to take care of what we talked about in the garage. Is that understood?”

For a half-second, Jack contemplated telling him no – that it wasn’t understood, that even though he’d never deluded himself with dreams of a professional career, he kept playing because football meant something to him, that it didn’t take up any of his father’s precious time because he never came to the games anyway, that it was the one thing he enjoyed doing, the one thing that was still his.

But then he remembered that his mother was dead and none of that mattered anymore. His father was right. The time for playing games and wasting time was over months ago and he’d been holding onto it like some foolish child.

“Understood?”

The question was delivered heavily, the threat of punishment unspoken, and it was enough to make Jack drop the tools he was still holding and stand.

“Yes, sir.”

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