Disintegration

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Dark.

Where the Sock Monster lived.

And all the other beasts, the hundreds of creatures that had once crawled from beneath the bed and clutched at him, digging into his flesh, pulling him to pieces.

That's what Jacob had told the first doctor, shortly after his mother died.

No, not "died, " came the Sock Monster's voice from an unseen corner of the closet. She was killed.

The original diagnosis had been an identity disorder, attendant paranoia with an underlying persecution complex. But the doctor consulted with Warren Wells and agreed to change the diagnosis to "adjustment disorder," a temporary failure in the coping mechanism. That way, Jacob could recover and go about his business of becoming a Wells.

Two years later, on the lost Saturday, Warren Wells had found his son unconscious in the barn, surrounded by the headless corpses of two dozen guinea hens, a bloody hatchet by his side. That time, the doctor had suggested a borderline personality disorder with sociopathic tendencies. Warren Wells had trumped it with his own diagnosis: "Boys will be boys."

And that was the last doctor, until Rheinsfeldt.

A couple of the trailers in the migrant camp had burned down the next year, but that was in the late winter, when most of the Mexicans had gone to the coast to work soybeans and cotton. The only family living in the camp had been Carlita's, but she and Joshua had recently married and moved to Tennessee. Jacob slipped out of the big, frigid house that night, tired of the brooding air that surrounded his father after his "only son" had married outside his own ethnic group. Jacob had spent the evening with a stolen bottle of tequila, sipping in the shed and staring at the blank, black window of one of the trailers.

The fire wasn't his fault. It was like anger, or seeing red, something that burned so hot inside that it caught fire to things on the outside, too. A match that lit itself.

Then off to college, where excessive drinking brought endless rounds of fugue states. Except those were easily explainable, and as far as Jacob knew, he never committed any violent acts during them. Sure, sometimes he'd wake up with blood in his mouth, or bits of broken glass in the creases of his clothes, but he'd never been arrested. Then he'd met Renee and the rage dissolved.

But she didn't know Joshua.

The half of him that could be neither restored nor excised.

In the dark, Joshua was always with him, whispering, taunting, tempting.

Jacob had never been able to explain it to the doctors. Even shrinks like Rheinsfeldt were too smart for their own good, thumbing through their thick manuals looking for Latin words to describe him. If they had only listened, they would have known it wasn't his words he spoke. He only said what Joshua would say.

Carlita understood that part. Carlita was primal, carnal, an animal spirit. She saw that Jacob and Joshua were the same, and could love them both. Not even their mother and father could do that. Where everyone else tried to pull them apart, make them separate beings, Carlita accepted them the way they were.

She was the only person Jacob could ever trust, the only person who seduced him into letting down his guard.

And, like all mistakes of love, this one carried a deep price.

Now, curled in the darkness, his nose in the dust and mildew, he knew he was foolish to ever think he could escape Joshua. Even if he killed his brother, the voice wouldn't go away. Even if he paid him millions of dollars, and Joshua moved to Mexico, Jacob would still be wed to his twin. Joshua was part of him. Sometimes he even thought he was more Joshua than he was himself, because only Joshua would be afraid of the dark like this.

Not Jacob.

Because Jacob was brave, wasn't he? Jacob took care of business. Jacob did the dirty work for both of them.

Had he really hit Joshua, just before the closet door had slammed shut? He spread his fingers and moved them slowly across the floor. He touched the heavy eagle head of the cane. The hooked beak was slick and wet. He lifted the cane and smiled.

You didn't have to be afraid just because you were in the dark.

When there were two of you, you were never alone.

Right, Joshua?

Footsteps.

Coming up the stairs.

Mother. You've had a terrible fall. Why don't you lie down and rest?

He giggled in the dark, the sound swallowed by the dead air of the closet. Your imagination could get the better of you if you weren't careful. As Dad always said, "Dreams are for dreamers, but the rest of us have to live in the real world."

The footsteps came closer.

It must be Joshua, that other one that lived outside his head, coming to taunt him some more. Or demand more money.

But Jacob would be ready this time.

He gripped the cane.

Kill him then burn the house down.

Closer footsteps.

Then her voice. "Jacob?"

His stomach clenched.

Her. Did she know?

He'd kept Joshua a secret because she wouldn't understand. They never did.

And he had sacrificed everything for her, hadn't he? Moved back to Kingsboro, took over the Wells holdings, tried to build up some momentum in a tough market. All so she could say she had made him successful. Gave her children so she would find the ultimate female fulfillment, the most obvious and unbreakable sign of commitment.

But even those commitments could be broken.

He loved her, and when you loved somebody, you owed them everything.

Carlita understood that, but Renee never would.

"Jacob?" She was across the room now, probably near the window. Or the bed.

He raised himself onto his hands and knees. He heard the swick of fabric as she parted the curtains, and a sword of light appeared at the base of the closet door. How long had he been here? Days?

No. The blood would have dried. He hadn't forgotten anything. This wasn't a fugue state.

He was… confused, that was all.

That silly Joshua stuff was the kind of thing a scared kid would dream up. He was a grown man, his own man. He called softly through the door. "Carlita?"

The sword of light was broken by her shadow. "Jacob? Are you in there? Are you okay?"

"Yes. Joshua locked me in here. Let me out."

"There's blood everywhere."

How many times had he hit Joshua? He couldn't remember. Obviously not enough, or Joshua's body would be lying in the room.

The door handle turned then the door rattled in its frame. "It's locked."

Jacob stood the cane in the corner. No need for her to see it, or the blood that spattered the eagle head of the handle. She wouldn't understand. They never did.

He raised himself on his knees and fumbled for the eye-hook he'd installed as a teenager, so he'd have a place to hide from his family when the barn was too cold. Nobody ever expected a closet to be locked from the inside. Joshua had found out, though, and had installed a latch on the outside, too.

"The door swings both ways," Joshua had said. "You can lock me out, but I can also lock you in."

Jacob pushed the metal latch up and it fell against wood. As the door opened and the sudden daylight blinded him, he stared up at the figure before him. Blinking, he said, "I did it for you."

"What, Jake? What did you do?"

Not her. It was the other one.

Renee.

Blood dotted the floor like the footprints of a rabid animal. The sunlight made crazy rainbow diamonds on the window glass. The sky was a mirror, the sky was a mirror, the sky was a mirror.

"I did it for us," he said.