My boy was smiling. At me. I nearly fainted again.
It wasn’t big—his smiles never were, not even when he was a little kid—but he was definitely smiling, and his gaze was warm, like I’d said something very amusing.
“Yes, mom,” he said. “I’m wearing my nightguard.”
“Because you know what the dentist said. If you don’t wear it—”
“I’ll wear down the enamel on my teeth,” he finished, his tone flat. Perhaps he found my question tedious? And yet, his little smile persisted.
“Well,” I said, wrestling with my own smile and returning my focus to my list of questions on the piece of paper. “I just wanted to be sure. You know I worry about you.”
“You mean you worry about my teeth.”
“Yes, and the rest of you, too,” I mumbled without considering my words, giving most of my attention to my list of written questions.
He spoke around a bite of food, “You shouldn’t.”
“That’s like telling the sun it shouldn’t rise, baby.” I scanned my hastily composed list. Satisfied, I passed the notepad to him. “It’s going to rise, no matter what you say or think or command it to do. The sun rises. Mothers worry.”
He lifted an eyebrow, his mouth flat as an ironing board. But Isaac wore his amusement in his eyes. He always had.
Taking another bite, he glanced down at the list.
1. How long can you stay?
2. Are you in any danger?
3. If I give you a letter for Jason, can you take it to him?
4. What’s going on with Miller? Any news? Did you and Jason talk to him? I’ve been fretting over his note. He’s so crazy about those cows, who knows what he’ll do.
5. Does Jennifer know about the surveillance?
Isaac, frowning thoughtfully at the list, held his hand out for the pen, saying, “I thought next time I might bring my laundry over. If I fix that squeaky step on the porch, will you do my laundry?”
I placed the pen in his hand, my heart fluttering and my insides warming with happiness at the mere thought of seeing Isaac again and getting a chance to do his laundry. I know, I know, mothers are weird. But we can’t just stop wanting to nurture and fuss over our chickens simply because they’ve hatched. That instinct will always be there, until the day I die.
“I would be happy to.” I took a sip of my juice, finding it tart and sweet. I frowned, examining the grapefruit juice. This was the first time food—any food—had tasted like anything at all in weeks.
Since The Event.
Standing from the table, I paced back to the fridge and opened the door once more. “I think I’ll have a sandwich too.”
Suddenly, my stomach rumbled, and I felt extremely hungry.
Chapter Twenty-Two
*Jason*
“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”
Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV
“I’ve always wanted to know something.”
“What’s that?” I glanced up at Isaac from where I sat, my back against the wall of the house, my butt on the deck. He stood over me, stared down at me, and held an empty rocks glass.
I’d come out to watch the sunset and hadn’t made my way back inside yet. Instead, I’d stared at the sky as the light faded, drinking whiskey and wishing time away. Dusk had turned to night. I couldn’t stop thinking about or anticipating tomorrow.
Twenty-four hours from now, Diane and I will have disappeared. It was bittersweet. She’d wanted to stay for her kids. I’d failed her. But we’d finally be together.
Isaac sat next to me on the deck, resting his back against the wall and gestured for me to pass the whiskey. “How did you end up here?”
Handing over the bottle, I stared at the younger man. If he wanted an answer, he would have to be more specific with his questions.
Seeming to understand, he added, “I mean, how did someone like you end up working for Razor Dennings and Darrell Winston? They are pure evil. But you’re . . .” Isaac poured my whiskey into his waiting rocks glass.
“Someone like me?”
“You’re smart, but you’re not evil.”
“Oh? You don’t think so?”
“I don’t.” He frowned. “You do your job, keep your head down, stay out of the way. But you draw a line with the recruits—you don’t let them beat up on women or bring in underage girls. You set boundaries for their criminal behavior, reigning them in when they go too far.”
“And that makes me not evil?”
He took a sip and didn’t wince at the burn. “It makes you something.”
“I’m not telling you my life story, cop.”
Isaac chuckled. “I didn’t ask for it, perp. But you could’ve done anything, and you chose this.”
I huffed a laugh without humor. “Oh? Did I? Did I choose this?”
“You break the law.”
“Fuck the law.”
Diane’s son grimaced, making a face so similar to his mother that a spike of something sharp and painful drove the air from my lungs. I missed her. Over my life I hadn’t allowed myself to miss much: Texas barbeque, catching glimpses of my daughter around town and seeing her smile or laugh, the thrill of traveling to a new place and learning how to blend into its culture, the taste of good whiskey, and everything about Diane Donner—even her grimaces.
I missed her so much, I hadn’t done anything but plan for our escape since the night of the murder. I missed her so entirely, even after many glasses of this fine whiskey, it was Diane that I tasted on my tongue with every swallow, inhale, and exhale. I missed her beyond reason; time had not dulled it. Time had honed it, sharpened it, and I’d started to wonder what I would think about when we were finally together and missing her didn’t occupy every moment of every day.
Twenty-four hours.
“You may’ve come from nowhere, have no people, but you were in the Army,” Isaac said, ignorant of my internal turmoil. “I know your record. You saved people, you made a difference. Out of all the places in the world, why are you here?”
“You’re right. I came from nowhere, I have no one.” I turned my head from the younger man and stared unseeingly into the dark forest.
“Most people your age long for their youth.”
“People who long for their youth, for a simpler time, are really just longing for an existence of blissful ignorance, where other people’s struggles and suffering are conveniently kept quiet so as not to ruin their good time, or their ability to sleep at night. No such time has existed for me.”
Isaac’s swallow was loud in the quiet night. But wisely, he said nothing.
I went on, “Subscribing to the rules imposed by a society that has always failed me has never seemed necessary. Law and order didn’t give a shit about me—not when I was a kid in those homes, not when I was a runaway, not in the Army, not when I got back from overseas. Never. They never have. Fuck society and fuck law and order.”
I felt his eyes on me, willing me to keep talking.
For reasons I didn’t understand, I volunteered, “I needed to live here. I needed to be in Green Valley to be close to someone.”