The Far End of Happy (5 page)

But those records were no longer in the woodworking shop.

They were in New Hope Farms. After he and Ronnie had completed their home renovation last winter, Jeff had planned the farm store as another project to work on with Ronnie. It was the perfect confluence of their combined skills, he’d said. Meant to be. It would bring them even closer to the farm they loved and to each other. Ronnie hadn’t been as sure. She had more than enough on her plate with the boys, the animals, and her magazine writing. But the project energized him, and after the store was built, he’d moved all their financial records into its office, as if from the dark to the light of day. So he could organize the records while he wasn’t waiting on customers, he said, and give her the sum of the credit card debt that she’d been awaiting.

That long-anticipated accounting, which he delivered seven weeks ago on a torn scrap of paper, had signaled the end of their marriage. He’d given it to her in the store office. She’d found him there again, distressed, yesterday.

For two weeks, since he’d agreed on the October 20 move-out day, he’d been banging pans around in the kitchen when he got home from work, waking Ronnie every night. So they could talk. Again. She’d argue for divorce; he’d argue against it. She wasn’t getting much sleep. Her therapist had cautioned her to stop entertaining such requests; Ronnie needed to guard her health and make it clear to Jeff that her mind was made up.

Refusing him at night had only inspired Jeff to find ways to monopolize her daytime hours instead, constantly interrupting her writing for help with house repairs. From replacing a water heater coil to securing an unmoored downspout to adding those unnecessary locks, the list of projects requiring four hands had grown and grown.

When they’d taken the air conditioners out of the windows the previous day and stowed them in the barn, it seemed their work together had come to an end. Jeff pulled out a swollen key ring to double lock the barn door, but his hands shook so badly he fumbled several times in selecting the right key. Big tears rolled down his face.

“I’ve tried to stop drinking,” he’d confessed, looking out over the cornfield’s stubble. “I can’t sleep. I’ve been vomiting. You know I never do that.”

Muscling through on his own—a prospect doomed to failure, and so unnecessary with support available. He looked pale, and thinner than ever. How easy it would be for her to pull him into her arms. But Ronnie knew all too well that her solace wouldn’t change a thing.

They went their separate ways.

Finally alone for an hour, Ronnie started to think of chores that only Jeff had ever handled. She very much wanted to be able to manage the place without calling Jeff at the hotel every day to find out how she’d know if the ultraviolet lightbulb on the water purification system needed changing or how often she’d need to add water softener salt, so she collected her questions and went in search of him. Down in the store, Amber was closing up shop.

“Jeff in there?” Ronnie said, nodding her head toward the closed office door.

“Yep. I’m heading out. See you tomorrow?”

“I might be a little late. I’ve been having trouble finishing an article. I’ll try to get here by ten, though. Barney will be dropping off more apples and cider, and we owe him money.”

Ronnie knocked once and opened the office door.

“What now?” Jeff had snapped, flipping down the yellow page from the legal pad on which he’d been writing. Covering it with his hand, as if Ronnie might steal his test answers. He lit a fresh cigarette. This fluid, practiced movement, which had ignited pheromones when they met but now suggested
potential
lung
cancer
and
hardening
arteries
and
I
don’t love you enough
, had taken on a substantial quiver. He took a long drag, then set it in the ashtray.

Beside it sat a drink in a cocktail glass.

The sight of it struck fear in Ronnie. “I thought you had work tonight,” she’d said. Jeff never, ever drank before a shift at work. Not even one cold beer with lunch on a hot summer day.

“And?”

And nothing. Soon, such issues would not be hers to worry about.

She tucked her list into the pocket of her jeans. If she could get away with asking only one last question today, it wouldn’t be about housekeeping. He hadn’t mentioned his offer to move to the hotel for some time. Why would he? He didn’t want the divorce.

Ronnie hated like hell to press him. She should be the one to go. He needed this home more than she did, and not just because it had been in his family for generations or because he’d lived there for years before Ronnie moved in. Ronnie had put her share of sweat into this house, it was true, but that sweat had evaporated. She could rehydrate, live elsewhere. But it was as if Jeff bled into the house, and it owned a part of him.

A few weeks without his frantic eyes tracking her every movement and she’d be able to find a place for her and the boys, she was sure of it, and Jeff would be able to reclaim his home.

She’d said, “I’d like to keep the boys up-to-date on what’s happening. Are you moving out tomorrow like you said you would?”

Jeff’s eyes dropped to the legal pad in front of him. “God, Ronnie. Yes, okay? If you’ll let me get some work done here, I’ll be ready.”

She had her answer and walked away.

Are
you
moving
out
like
you
said
you
would?
Now, sitting in the fire hall, Ronnie could only hope these weren’t the last words she’d ever say to him.

Ronnie propped her forehead on her hands.

“I know where he is,” Ronnie told the policeman. “He’s in the farm store. In the back office.”

The officer left the room. The boys, done giving their statements, had noticed a TV remote and asked an officer for permission to watch something on the set situated over the bar. They flipped through the basic network channels, changing every time a news show came on. With few choices, they settled on a
Live! With Kelly and Michael
segment on extreme sports: “How far will we go?” Their grandmothers looked on, as if grateful for the distraction.

While they were occupied, an officer came to Ronnie with new information from the farm. “Our men broke down the office door in the farm store and found Jeff sitting at the desk.”

Right where Ronnie had pictured him.

“He was holding the shotgun with its stock on his thigh, pointing into the air.”

Ronnie sat taller. “And?”

The police had instructed Jeff to lower his weapon. He had.

He’d held the butt to his shoulder, lowered the gun, and trained it on the officer’s forehead.

The air stirred as Corporal McNichol strode into the room in a no-nonsense brown suit and black oxfords. She had an energy about her that said she was ready to run a marathon. Finally, someone who could get things done.

“Veronica Farnham?” she said.

Ronnie cringed at the name she’d been saddled with simply because her hormone-crazed mother had hooked up with a man in an alley behind a bar. At least that’s how she envisioned it. Her mother had a more romantic version, always delivered wistfully: “I went to the shore and fell in love at Veronica’s Grotto.” Apparently the man split by summer’s end, but his permanent impact had already taken root in Ronnie’s mother’s womb. Her whole life Ronnie had tried to find ways to bond with her missing father to distance herself from the notion that “Veronica” was simply an unintended souvenir of a vacation gone wrong.

“Everyone calls me Ronnie.”

The corporal extended her hand. “I’m the commander of the Special Emergency Response Team.”

“What’s that?” Janet said. She and Beverly moved toward the woman as if reporting for duty.

“SERT is a team of state police negotiators and tactical officers trained to deal with hostage situations.”

“Well, there’s no hostage.” Janet stood taller and straightened her Hello Kitty sweatshirt. Ronnie explained that Janet was Jeff’s mother.

When Corporal McNichol spoke again, it was with a markedly gentler voice. “I’ve been briefed by the officers on the scene. In a way, ma’am, your son is holding himself hostage. We’d like to get Jeff out of there, safe and sound.” She pulled out a chair for Janet and motioned for the other women to sit. “I have an update.”

“Is the officer okay?” Ronnie couldn’t wait another minute without knowing. “The one who found Jeff?”

“Jeff allowed him to back away and shut the door.”

Ronnie shook her head. “This is such a mess.” All the years Jeff had kept those guns locked in the house, never using them, but refusing to get rid of them—why? In reserve for this?

“It’s not uncommon for a person in this kind of situation to turn his weapon on the police,” Corporal McNichol said. “They have a name for it—”

The corporal clearly intended to say more but stopped short. The women leaned in. Ronnie prompted, “Which is?”

Corporal McNichol glanced over to Janet, then back to Ronnie, and said quietly, “Suicide by police.”

That must be hard for Janet to hear. Ronnie looked at her mother-in-law, but both of the older women seemed absorbed in their own thoughts.

“When Jeff was located, the situation changed from a manhunt to a standoff. That’s why we were called in. At the moment, the situation is stable—”

An angry scream erupted from two tables away. “Stop!”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You are kicking me, over and over!”

“Boys!” Ronnie snapped. The boys, Beverly, and Janet all turned to Ronnie, as if each were surprised that anyone else was sitting in this room. “Please. I need you to be good.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Andrew said.

“Neither did I!”

“I know,” Ronnie said quietly. “I know.”

“Hey, Mom,” Andrew said, pointing to the television over the bar. “Isn’t that our house? Look—there’s the store, and our house, and the swinging tree—”

“And the barn and the tool shed. And the woods,” Will said, joining in. To get a closer look, the boys went over and stood on the brass foot rail and clung to the edge of the bar. Ronnie could barely stand watching them belly up to it.

Ronnie moved to turn off the set as the boys identified Mr. Eshbach’s home up the road, the Schulzes’ across the street, and the woods down below. She was glad to see the boys’ natural enthusiasm restored, but she couldn’t have them watching this. As she reached for the remote, Will said, “But why are the soldiers there?”

“Soldiers? Where?” Ronnie paused and studied the scene before her, transfixed. This was her husband, their neighborhood, their mess. Now, perhaps, their war. How could she turn away?

“Where the leaves are moving.”

“Those are my men,” Corporal McNichol said. “Damn reporters. Does Jeff have access to a TV in your office?”

Ronnie shook her head no, never tearing her eyes from the screen. She sensed her mother and Janet drifting toward her, past the nearby table where Mr. Eshbach sat. She wondered if they too were trying to catch a glimpse of Jeff through the farm store office window. Ronnie wanted to rip the lens from the cameraman’s hand and zoom in.

“We have breaking news about the footage you are seeing,” said the news anchor. Ronnie felt relieved to hear the earnest voice of Rob White, who had so far impressed her with his balanced news coverage. “An armed, despondent man has holed up in the office of his family’s business and engaged with officers dispatched from two local barracks, state police, and Special Emergency Response Troops, in what a spokesman is now calling a suicide standoff…”

Do
not
identify
him, Rob White. Please leave us our privacy.

A circle appeared around their farm store. “It is confirmed that the individual in question is Jeffrey Farnham, age fifty. He’s the son of deceased Schuylkill Valley Sports Hall of Famer Jerry Farnham, who turned around a losing Potts Forge High School basketball team to win a number of state championships over a thirty-five-year career. Jerry Farnham also developed and administered a countywide summer playground program still in existence today. The younger Farnham has locked himself inside the store on the property, New Hope Farms, which sells organic vegetables in Bartlesville, Pennsylvania. He is armed with a shotgun. The family is safe and under police protection at an undisclosed location. Neighbors who were away when the barricades went up have not been allowed to return to their homes.”

It was not lost on Ronnie that White, who still straddled the divide between substitute anchor and weatherman, had been assigned to the story. In the larger scheme of things, Jeff was not important. Even though right now he commanded the community’s attention and Ronnie’s entire world, it would seem from this report that the most significant thing about Jeff was his relationship to his father.

“Earlier this morning, when Farnham’s whereabouts were unknown, officials locked down nearby Hitchman Elementary as a safety measure and canceled recess for the day.”

“There’s our school!” Will said, pointing at the screen.

“Parents with cell phones will receive texts concerning how this will affect afternoon bus service, and of course we will break into regularly scheduled programming with updates as events unfold. Again, a despondent Jeffrey Farnham has…”

Behind Ronnie, her mother-in-law said, “They’ve got it wrong.”

Ronnie too was already arguing with the report. Jeff would never—
could
never—walk all the way to the elementary school. That was over three hilly miles away. His bad knee would stop him. And he was drunk. He’d more likely curl up somewhere and take a nap.

Janet said, “He’s not fifty. He’ll be forty-eight next week. I ordered his cake.”

Two dozen SERT troops, Will’s “soldiers,” looking like dull green ants on the aerial view, swarmed onto the farm. Another shot zoomed in on the horrific details: sidearms strapped to their thighs. Pockets swollen with ammunition. Camouflage uniforms whose jackets were 3-D leafy and said
POLICE
across the back. Pants tucked into laced-up boots. All the men wore bulletproof vests, helmets, and goggles. Out in front of the store, troops crouched behind black body shields. Others took cover behind Ronnie’s house and outbuildings and trained the telescopic sights of their rifles on the doors and windows of the store office.

Ronnie turned her sons away from the screen.

Will strained to turn back. “What’s going on there? What are they doing to Dad?”

Behind them, Rob White announced the return to regular programming. The disbelief Ronnie felt was reflected on the faces of her mother and mother-in-law. Bile rose within Ronnie’s throat against the background of Rachael Ray’s perky, raspy voice: “So is it possible to cook a delicious meal with items from a dollar store? We’ll see! On today’s show, two chefs go spatula to spatula—”

Someone on Jeff’s side had to take charge.

Ronnie went to the bar, hit the remote, and returned to Corporal McNichol. “You’ve got to put an end to this,” she said. “It’s too much. He doesn’t stand a chance.”

“We aren’t here to engage with him. We’re here to encourage him to stand down.”

“That would not be my guess if I were looking out that office window.”

Corporal McNichol laid her hand on Ronnie’s shoulder. “We have a lot of experience with situations like this—more than any of us have ever wanted to have. These conflicts can end peacefully. Our negotiators are compassionate people who will do all they can to appeal to your husband. But we have procedures we have to follow.”

“Like what? What are you doing?” Beverly said.

“For one, we’ve issued a mental health warrant for Jeffrey.”

“Why on earth would you do that?” Janet said.

Corporal McNichol turned to the boys. “We adults have to discuss a few things here. Why don’t you two go play?”

Andrew looked around the hall. “Where?”

“With what?” Will added. “We don’t even have a ball.”

“Come on, Will, use your imagination,” Ronnie said, hoping her son had more creative energy to tap than she did at present.

Andrew circled to Corporal McNichol’s side. “Can we have a piece of paper?”

“Sure.” Corporal McNichol flipped to a fresh sheet and ripped it off the pad.

“Three would be even better,” Will added.

The corporal smiled and obliged. Andrew wadded the papers together and told his brother to go long. Soon they were tossing the makeshift ball back and forth, making the happy sounds of the recess their classmates had been denied during the school lockdown.

“Boys,” Mr. Eshbach said, pulling himself to his feet. Ronnie wondered if he knew their names—he even referred to his deceased spouse as “the wife.” The boys paused as he waddled over, no doubt expecting a reprimand. He patted his ribs. “I believe I could use some exercise too.” Andrew lobbed the ball in his direction. The old man caught it with a deft snatch and a smile and encouraged the boys to relocate the game to the other end of the room.

“Why don’t we sit back down?” Corporal McNichol said.

“You mentioned a mental health warrant,” Ronnie said.

“Yes. It’s for people like Jeff who need immediate intervention because they are at serious risk of harming themselves or others. The warrant allows us to take Jeff into custody, evaluate him, and get him the help he needs.”

“That sounds good,” Janet said.

“My god, Janet, you sound like this is a new idea,” Ronnie said. “I’ve been trying to get him help for some time now and you keep acting like I’m hysterical. You only believe it once the state police swarm in?”

“Now calm down, Sunshine,” Beverly said. “We’re all on the same team here.”

Ronnie turned to Corporal McNichol. “There’s something you need to know.”

Janet said, “That’s enough, Ronnie. It won’t do any good to air private affairs.”

Ronnie deflected the slice of Janet’s glare. “This isn’t the first time he’s threatened to kill himself.”