Heaven Should Fall

Heaven Should Fall - By Rebecca Coleman



Through the open door I could see my husband hard at work just outside the shed, a column of sweat staining his T-shirt in the June heat, his solid arms shedding flecks of grit and sawdust as he twisted down the metal vise. He wore a ball cap with the brim tightly rolled and heavy leather work boots, and when he stepped back and held his small, lethal project up to the light, the ease of his broad shoulders and smoothness of his belly made him lovely in spite of his efforts. Truly, Cade could have been anything. With his passion for his country and whip-smart intellect, he could have been the congressman he had once aspired to become. He could have been a pastor or a diplomat, a marine, or, thanks to his sincere charm and beautiful eyes, a very successful womanizer. But instead he stood alone outside this shed in northern New Hampshire, loyal and angry and probably not entirely sober, building a pipe bomb.

I caught his eye, and he waved and commenced to shake powder into the pipe from a narrow-topped bottle.

“Lunch is ready.”

“Be there in a sec. Is the baby awake?”

“Yeah, he’s in the high chair. Candy’s watching him.”

“How’s he feeling?”

“Better. I put some drops in his ear and they seem to be helping.”

“Good. Poor kid.” He slipped in a fuse, and then, with a cautious hand, slid a palmful of nails down the center. “You know what we need, Jill?”

I could think of many answers to that question, but Cade answered it himself.

“A weekend away,” he said. “No whining kids, no animals to feed, no parents in the next room keeping things all quiet and inhibited. No sitting watch at three in the morning like we’re the goddamn Branch Davidians. Just you and me in a motel room someplace, getting friendly.” He set the other end of the pipe into the vise and tightened it down.

“There’s an alumni weekend at our alma mater next month. We could go to that, if you haven’t blown yourself up by then.”

He laughed. Carefully he set the completed bomb into the box with the others, then came over to kiss me. Not to my surprise, he tasted like beer.

“‘Let justice be done though the heavens should fall,’” he quoted, low voiced, smiling.

I smiled back stiffly. “Come eat. The family’s waiting.”

He turned on the garden spigot and crouched to wash his hands in the crashing water. It flowed away from the house in a narrow river, carrying away steel dust and explosive powder, the grime of farmwork and sloughed dry skin from his calloused hands: the slow erosion of my husband.