Break Through

There was a hint of color suspended in the ice. Jimmy scuffed at the frosty surface, trying to identify the entombed flash of red, an arrow pointed toward the sea. “I think it’s a flag.”

James squinted. “It’s a marker for a man-made channel. The ice’ll be thinner on that side.”

Polluting light from the nearby harbor clung to the low-hanging clouds. The thick shelf of ice seemed to glow on the edge of the wide river, black water softly lapping beneath a murky amber sky. James strode boldly over the displaced glacier, keeping to the safe side of the marking flags, and Jimmy had to hurry to keep sight of that grey shape in the eerie half-light. Thunder rumbled over the distant bay, and the gathering wind made Jimmy stop, crouching to keep his footing on the shifting surface, but James just kept walking.

Jimmy scrambled to keep up, sneakers slipping on the warped terrain. James held out an arm, keeping back from a fresh crack in the ice. “That’s as far as we go.”

The ice stretched thin as it reached across the river, scarred with dark holes where the water seeped through. Jimmy put an experimental sneaker over the line and pressed down, feeling the ground shift beneath him. James grabbed a fistful of Jimmy’s coat, his other arm clamped tight around the urn.

“This is not like when you see it in the movies,” James said. “One little surfboard of ice is not going to hold you.”

Jimmy twisted his coat out of James’s grip. “We’re still so far from the water, though.”

“I’ll make it work.” James’s face was silhouetted against the grey light of town, his shoulders high and tight. “If that’s still okay with you.”

“No, no, of course, of course.” Jimmy rubbed his hands together, tucked them under his arms. “Go ahead.”

James held the urn in both hands, turning it slowly as thunder rumbled in the dark. “I’m building up to it.”

It was difficult to stand in respectful silence while Jimmy’s teeth were chattering. “Did you want to say something, or…?”

Tucking the urn under his arm again, James grumbled, “You know what? You start.”

“I’ll start.” Jimmy rubbed his hands together, resisting the urge to stamp his feet on the ice. “Uh, we are gathered here today…you know what? Harder than I thought.”

“I thought so.”

“Okay.” Jimmy glanced down at the urn, smooth and featureless in James’s grip. “Well. Dad. Guess I didn’t know everything about you.”

James sighed and shook his head. “This was a bad idea.”

“No, don’t, I’m happy you’re here.” Jimmy grabbed James’s arm, then quickly let go, holding empty hands open in the cold. “Look, I’m not sure how to say this. Meeting you finally made a whole lot of things make sense.” It was hard to read James’s expression. “Look, if I can just say this, I think it’s going to help us both.”

A skeptical scoff floated away as pale mist, and James folded his gloved hands around the urn. “Go ahead.”

“I’m building up to it.” Jimmy chewed on his trembling lip. “Dad. You hurt me. You hurt everyone around you, especially the people that loved you. I spent so much of my life trying to get through to you, and blaming myself when I couldn’t. I thought there was something foul and rotten inside of me that made me impossible to love. Then, I find out you had a whole other family that you hurt just as much.”

James shifted from one boot to the other. “Thanks for that.”

“I’m not done,” Jimmy said. He held out his hands, and James passed him the urn.

Wind strafed the river, pushing back the black waves. The ponderous clouds grumbled with an inbound storm, slivers of silver lightning flickering over the sea. Jimmy looked down at the urn, cold and heavy in his hands. “You have no idea what you were missing. It took me so long to figure it out, but I am a worthwhile person. I met this James three days ago, and I already care about him more than you ever did.”

“Aw, come on, man.”

“But the thing I’ve come to know, Dad,” Jimmy went on, shooting James a quick flash of a smile. “Is that I love you anyway.” James took a step back, tugging at his gloves.

Jimmy glanced at him, but quickly turned back to the urn. “I’ve put a lot of thought into this, because staying angry wasn’t doing me any favors. But it didn’t help to pretend it didn’t happen. I honestly believe you were doing the best you could with the tools you had, and you were not trying to hurt me. But that does not mean I did not get hurt.” He sighed and shook his head. “Is any of this making sense?”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, James said, “Yeah, it makes sense. Somebody with covert narcissism who was aces at triangulation developed a defense mechanism with extreme avoidant attachment. So, you spend your whole life feeling like garbage because hurt people hurt people, and the compassionate thing to do is let go of your grudge and forgive.”

“Damn, dude!” Jimmy sniggered as a shiver ran through him. “See, Dad, you could’ve had this the whole time! This James is awesome, not because of what you put him through, but in spite of it. You never wanted to be better, and now you’re out of time. You’ll never change. And I forgive you anyway.”

A thick wad of emotion pushed against Jimmy’s throat. He swallowed it, and held the urn out to James, who took another step back. “I don’t want to go, now.”

“Aw, come on, man.”

James took the urn, running his glove over the smooth surface. “Mine’s not gonna be as good.”

Jimmy shrugged. “Prove it.”

With a misty sigh, James looked out over the water, rocking the urn back and forth in his hands. “Obviously, I didn’t know him that well, either.”

“Talk to him,” Jimmy encouraged. “Tell him what he missed.”

James chewed on his lip. “What he missed. I dunno, twenty-three birthdays? Twenty-four Father’s Days? Every single time I made honor roll because they print those names in the paper, and maybe you might see it and miss me. Completely failing to anticipate you’d just give my name to your other son. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” said Jimmy. “Fair point.”

Pacing on the ice, James tossed the urn up and caught it again. “Gosh, getting my driver’s license. Getting my first DUI. Watching Mom disappear in a hornet’s nest of anxiety. Trying to write you out of my life, but every day seeing more of your face in my mirror. Your name on my ID. Wondering how much of my garbage personality is your bullshit genetics, wishing I could abandon myself, just like you did.”

Jimmy reached forward when James’s pacing took him over the crack in the ice, one step widening the jagged fracture in the slick surface. James failed to notice, clutching the urn in shaking hands, completely incapable of standing still.

“Why did you put such a heavy stamp of yourself on my life, and then walk out of it? So thoroughly possessive of my identity, just to throw me away? Take a Mulligan, try and get it right this time!” James stamped at the ground, shaking the urn by its brushed metal throat. “Well, you got what you wanted! He’s a better son than I am, Dad! I will never forgive you! You can go to Hell!”

James spiked the urn down through the ice. The ringing metal punched through the frosted glass, plunging into the swallowing blackness.

Deep cracks sliced through the gleaming landscape, water surging up from the river to flood the breaking ice. “Oh, shit!” James stumbled back, wide eyes crashing into Jimmy’s. “Run!”

Jimmy did run, sneakers slipping on the shifting ice. The dark stripe of the shore was a thousand miles away, the arctic expanse indifferent to the little feet racing back to land. “James!” Jimmy shouted. “Not that way!”

A single second froze, trapped in time, as James caught sight of a little red flag, sliding by him on the wrong side.

Brittle ice swept away under James’s boot, his body thrown forward as the river bubbled up to meet him. Searing knives stabbed every inch beneath the surface, James’s breath sucked away and then screaming back, punching his lungs. Prickling fire needled up his spine, his fingers numb and useless as he started to sink.

Wrenched across the shattering ice, James clutched blindly at the arm that seized him, scrabbling to get up out of the water. Jimmy stayed flat as he pulled James across the line of red flags, their wet coats dragging, thick with frost. Hauling James up on rubber limbs, Jimmy steered them both back toward the shoreline, staggering off the ice and dropping onto the sandy bank. The channel was a dark wound beneath the stormy sky.

Jimmy shepherded a shivering James back to the car, turning on the heat and wrapping him in rough blankets from the trunk. “Well,” James stuttered. “That is not the way I wanted that to go.”

Rubbing his hands by the hot air vent, Jimmy watched James’s face in the rearview mirror. “He left when he was still your whole world. I got to watch him fall. To watch him fail, and get called out, and get put down. I saw him humbled. And I saw him helpless. At the end, he was just a man.”

James shook the icicles out of his hair as lightning flickered across the harbor. “Just so you know,” he said. “It really sucks to rip the stitches off an old scar.” Thunder rumbled through the swollen clouds. “But I’m glad you found me.”

“Just so you know,” Jimmy said. “We’re family. And I’m not going anywhere.”

The clouds burst, and rain washed over the melting ice. Warming slowly, the brothers turned away from the river, the storm, and the urn floating out to sea.