Now That Charlie is Gone

My sister-in-law, Beth, showed up at my door four days after we put my brother Charlie in the ground. I’d expected her, just not that soon. I was hoping for a few weeks to grieve but she’d been waiting for almost forty years for answers. I couldn’t blame her. I knew the weight she was carrying was heavy…I carried one, too. We both had questions.

“Come in. Want a drink?” I asked.

“I’m not here for a drink,” she said.

I nodded, motioned her toward the kitchen table. She took her coat off, sat down, and set her purse on the table.

“I know. I need one for this…before you start asking questions,” I said.

I grabbed a bottle of bourbon and a glass and sat across from her. She looked tired but better than she had at the service; still attractive. She looked at me, cleared her throat.

“You know why I’m here,” she said.

I knew. For years, there were things unsaid that had hung over us, a darkness pregnant like storm clouds ready to break loose and drown us.

“I’m guessing it’s not because you’ve been craving round two with me for all these years,” I said.

It was a dick-head thing to say, but it broke the tension and set her up to say her piece, ask her questions.

“No, Hank. I haven’t craved any man for a long time…I know we never talked about us. We probably should. But that’s not why I came here today,” she said.

I’d figured as much. And part of me didn’t want to know why it happened. Over the years, I’d built a narrative, a series of convenient lies, a fantasy that I held close.

“Jimmy?” I asked.

She sighed, looked past me like she was staring at the ghost that haunted us both.

“Yeah. Jimmy. I need you to tell me what the hell happened to Jimmy,” she said.

It’s funny, but after years of running this conversation through my head I still didn’t know whether to tell her or lie. Would the truth set us free? Or would telling her simply finish it, and take what was left of us with it? Fuck it. Tell her. She’s not yours to protect.

“I’ll tell you…but there’s no coming back from it.”

She looked at me, flat and cool.

“Pour me a drink, first,” she said.

I got up and grabbed her a glass from the cupboard and sat back down. I filled her glass and handed it to her, then topped my own off.

“You mind if I smoke in here?” she asked.

“No, I don’t mind. Give me one, too,” I said.

“I thought you quit?”

“I did.”

She pulled a pack of Winstons from her purse, lit one and slid me the pack and lighter. I took out a grit, tapped it on the table, put it to my lips and torched it. I took the first big hit of nicotine I’d experienced in three years and blew it out. I looked out the window at the patches of green grass peppered with snow and ice, the gray March sky, a day as ugly as the truth that needed saying. She broke the silence.

“Listen…I need to know. Jimmy is…was…Jackson’s real father. That’s why I need to know what happened to him,” she said.

My gut turned over, but I wasn’t sure if it was relief or disappointment. I’d wondered for years whether Jackson was my son or my nephew. I took a slug of booze.

“Okay…When Charlie found out about you and Jimmy, he told me it was going to be ok. He wasn’t leaving you…He knew he was hard to be with…but he just couldn’t find it in his heart to forgive Jimmy. He was like a brother to us both,” I said.

“So, what happened?” she said with an edge.

I took another gulp of whiskey.

“He killed him, Beth. Charlie killed him. He took him out on his boat and killed him,” I said.

She looked down at her hands and squeezed the glass before making a guttural sound that came from someplace deep and dark and hidden far too long. She looked up at me after a beat, her eyes moist.

“Did you…did you have anything to do with it?” she asked.

“No. He told me when they started searching for him. I never thought he’d…”

“Do you know where he is? What Charlie did with the body?” she asked.

I looked out the window then pointed in the direction of the lake. That image of Jimmy’s corpse, wrapped in anchor chain rotting on the bottom, barged back into my mind’s eye. I felt sick again.

“He’s out there someplace. I don’t know where exactly. I never asked. I didn’t want to know.”

She shook her head and drained her glass. I did the same, refilled them both. She ran her shirt sleeve across her eyes, then lit a second cigarette. She slid me the pack again.

At that moment it felt as if the stone covering the tomb of our secret had been rolled back. It was out in the world now, and what came next was, in part, a horror story of our own making.

“Jackson doesn’t need to know any of this…Hank, he can never know.”

I nodded. Nobody needs to know.

“You want to know why I slept with Jimmy?” she asked.

No. I want to know why you slept with me. Did I mean anything to you or was I just another payback fuck? I looked into her green eyes, the fire that once sparkled in them now a tiny ember.

“Sure.”

“His bitch wife, Shelly, fucked Charlie. She did it just to spite me, too. We’d always been competitive…She even told people at the gym. So…I fucked Jimmy. It was payback. I didn’t expect a kid…”

“All these years, I thought you loved Jimmy,” I said, wishing I could take the words back.

I took a gulp of whiskey and looked back out the window, trying to decide if I could handle this final truth.

Then I felt her warm hand take mine from across the table. She gently squeezed it.

“I never loved Jimmy. I loved you. It was always you, Hank.”

I closed my eyes, feeling the heat build in them. Then the cloud, once so heavy, let loose and it was finally over.

BIO: JD Clapp is a writer based in San Diego, CA. His creative work has appeared in over 70 different literary journals and magazines including Cowboy Jamboree, trampset, and Revolution John. His work has been nominated for several awards including the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions. He is the author of two story collections—Poachers and Pills (2025), and A Good Man Goes South (2024). His debut novel, Grit Before Grace, will be published by Cowboy Jamboree Press in fall 2026.