Empire Falls

little doubt that he would eventually adjust to its loss, as he had before; no, the difference was that now he was less inclined to make the sacrifice. The first time he had trusted that what his father wanted him to do was probably for the best, whereas now he was simply being informed that he was no longer permitted to be happy. And informed not by someone he loved but by the one person he loathed above all others in the world, the woman he’d promised to love, honor and obey all of his days, till death did they part. On the flight home he considered his grandfather and his father and then concluded, so be it. Meaning death. Namely hers .
    In Boston he was met by a limousine driver, an agreeable fellow who didn’t at all mind waiting in Fairhaven while C.B. shopped for a present for his wife. If the driver thought it strange that he should have chosen a pawnbroker for the occasion, he kept his misgivings to himself .
    His deliberations did not take long. When the shopowner asked what sort of handgun he had in mind, C.B., having developed over his fifty-nine years a healthy respect for his own incompetence, replied, “Something foolproof.” The pawnbroker produced a clean, basic revolver, showed him how to load and unload it, then watched him practice with dummy cartridges, until he was certain C.B. had the hang of it, and finally reminded him that the gun wouldn’t fire with the safety on unless you were counting on the safety being on, in which case it just might. It also wouldn’t fire without bullets, so C.B. put a small box of them in one jacket pocket and the revolver in the other .
    “Where to now?” the driver wanted to know when C.B. Whiting climbed into the back of the limo .
    “Home,” C.B. said, loading the revolver. “I’m anxious to see my wife.”
    S O WHAT PREVENTED HIM?
    When the limousine pulled up in the driveway of his former home, C. B. Whiting was neither conflicted about his intentions, nor doubtful of his ability to fulfill them. He had not waited too long, as his grandfather had, nor in his father’s manner had he grown so accustomed over the decades to denying homicidal impulses that he no longer recognized them for what they were. When he stepped out of the car, he felt as certain of his purpose as he ever had about anything in his life, and when he reached into his jacket pocket for the gun—heavy and reassuringly solid in his hand—he felt not the slightest revulsion at the actuality of taking a human life. That what he’d determined to do would be considered a crime by the vast majority of his fellow citizens seemed irrelevant. For one thing, the act he intended was not motivated by malice. Not really. He didn’t want his wife to suffer, as she had caused so many others to suffer. Nor did he want her to feel pain. He merely wanted an end to her existence. He hoped only for a steady hand, so that a single shot would do the trick .
    Again he asked the driver to wait. If he was lucky, they might make it back to Boston before Francine’s body was discovered. If he was very lucky, he might make it all the way to Mexico, where he could disappear with the woman and the boy. But getting away mattered less than making sure he didn’t somehow botch the job. When he opened the door to the house he’d had built so long ago, which had turned out to look so little like a hacienda, really, he could feel his father and his grandfather smiling down upon him .
    N O ONE HAD HEARD the car pull up, and of course C.B. didn’t ring the bell. He had simply let himself into his own house, as men do the world over. Inside, it was so quiet that when he flipped the gun’s safety off with his thumb, he half expected the resounding click to be followed by an explosion, but it wasn’t. Luck, it began to seem, was finally going to smile on a homicidal Whiting male. No doubt he would find his wife outside, probably down at the gazebo. If he quietly slipped out the patio door, he might even be able to make it across the broad lawn before she became aware of his arrival, and he would remove her from the mortal coil without her ever knowing what hit her. The limousine driver, listening to the radio with the windows rolled up, wouldn’t hear the report. Afterward, he surely would wonder why they were returning immediately to Boston, but limo drivers were trained to obey, not question, people who paid them .
    But luck was not on C. B. Whiting’s side any more than it had been on his father’s or