“Yours too, now.”
Peter didn’t say anything, but he was resting on his side with a pillow in his arms. I went over, tugged the pillow free, and took its place. Peter didn’t smile at me, but his eyes softened a bit, and that was enough for now.
“If you want to talk—”
“I don’t,” he whispered. “Not about any of it.”
“But I’m here. You cannot talknear me. I won’t push. I promise. You can be quiet by my side all day.” I tickled a finger over his lips.
His face crumpled and he nodded. In the end I had him in my arms, not the other way around, and he rested mostly on my chest.
“I didn’t want to be out there, alone.” He shivered and nestled his lips against my neck. “I was afraid of what I’d say or do to you if I was near you.”
“I can take it.”
He pressed his forehead to my jaw, and I held him, staring at the ceiling for the longest time, wondering if I could get away with murdering Tatum Black.
14
Peter
Drew was amazing,end of story. The other shoe never dropped, and he never turned into a nightmare monster. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d thought for sure he’d wake up one morning and realize what he had in his bed—a mean, used-up man who wasn’t worth his time. I kept waiting for something, anything, to happen, some crack to show in his shiny personality to let me know that there were bad times on the horizon. Each morning he woke up, and before he even said a word, he placed a soft kiss on my mouth.
The pain never came.
Gradually I began to relax. I spent a month with Drew while ignoring the world—more or less. During that time, Detective Hanlon called and asked me to clarify parts of the statement I’d given him the day he dragged us into the woods. Frequently I didn’t remember telling him the things I’d rambled about because that day hadn’t been a good one for me. It helped me to think about things as I took my time to explain whatever the detective wanted to know. It was a small relief to have all the horror put on a timeline and helped me distance myself from it, somewhat.
None of the cops stopped to see me in person again and I was glad. It had taken me about a week after the last damned time I’d seen Detective Hanlon to feel human again, and it had been scary. I’d felt like a zombie that day, ready to take a bite out of any human who stepped close to me and infect them with my unholy terror of that graveyard in the woods.
And then the dread I’d been carrying around slowly disappeared as Drew spent time each day letting me keep to myself and be quiet.
Each night he held me tight.
I didn’t deserve his care—none of it—but he didn’t seem like he agreed. Instead of fists I got strong, muscled arms around me and quiet questions about how I was feeling. My stomach kept twisting and telling me these good feelings couldn’t go on. I’d loved my ex-wife in my own way, but we’d never beenin love. One or the other of us had constantly cheated, and there were always quiet accusations back and forth about who was ruining the other person’s life more. The peace Drew and I had in each other’s company was so alien, the lack of hostility sometimes had me on edge.
The dark hours we shared disappeared and became sweet mornings spent in bed together, and most afternoons I found an NA meeting and went, with Drew’s encouragement. It was strange to be driving and mobile in the world again. Some days my back hurt, and as Drew’s leg got better, he drove me. He even sat with me when I was having a bad day in my head and held my hand through meetings where people talked about problems he never had.
Drew always sat respectfully and squeezed my hand when I leaned against his arm. I couldn’t ask for more from him. I also dragged myself to a local physical therapy place that Dr. Bond had written me an order for after I left the prison. It was about five miles from Drew’s house, with a couple of small doctors’ offices on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere, but it was always busy. I’d have to get to a regular doctor in New Gothenburg at some point, but for now I was having less trouble walking than I had been, and the cane was less of a nuisance.
We hadn’t needed to figure out where I could get a wheelchair, and I kept holding my breath on that. One slip, one fall, one wrong step, and I could be set back. Each time I mentioned my fears about my body giving up on me, Drew kissed me and said, “If it happens, it happens, and I’ll help you,” as if that wasn’t a monumental statement. He said those steady words like it was a given he’d take care of me and I was being a fool for worrying.
At some point, Laken had gotten Drew’s phone number from one of the guards at TFC and had begun calling his phone—to talk to me. It became a regular thing. I always enjoyed our conversations, however brief or long they turned out to be. The bad part about talking to Laken, though, was that he reminded me of my Angel and the responsibilities I’d never lived up to as a father. I thought about my son a lot.
By talking to Laken, it had also solidified in my mind that I had another problem surrounding Angel. When I thought of my Angel, I thought of a little boy—always. I didn’t think of the man he was now. It was almost like the last decade hadn’t happened. At first thought, I usually imagined the somber boy he’d been when he was nine or ten, and then I had to force myself to think of the man he’d become. I didn’t have a child anymore. I had no idea how to fix anything between us.
There were also times at night when it was clear Drew was worried. I liked to watch boxing but he didn’t, and if I had an old match on the TV or his laptop that I’d missed and found recorded online, he would go out on the deck and pace. If I asked, he would tell me he was thinking about his buddy Rowdy, whom we hadn’t heard from since the day I was out of jail.
After the first few times this happened, I stopped asking, since that seemed to make him even unhappier. Drew didn’t say much on the subject. I caught him looking sad from time to time and figured the silence from Rowdy was the reason for that, too.
He also didn’t talk about his job that he clearly wasn’t getting back to, and one day I’d had enough. He let me ramble about all the bullshit bothering me, but I didn’t know how to be nice about things.
“Are you fired or what?” I asked one afternoon. We’d just finished dragging his kayak to shore, and I dropped the rear while he let go of the front. I tugged up the waistband on my borrowed purple swim trunks dotted with white outlines of tropical fish, because they slipped almost all the way off my hips if I didn’t pay attention. I’d tied the knot in front in a huge loopy bow. As much as it irked me, I’d never been an especially large man.
He took a long time answering, knocking the sunglasses on top of his head down onto his nose to stare out over the water. I dug my toes into the sand while he walked out and kicked at a piece of driftwood that had made its way onto the beach. He kept going until he had the wood back out into the water.
“Drew?”
“I quit. I had to or I would’ve been fired.” He didn’t look at me, and instead, turned to come back to the shore. He bent and scooped up a rock, and in a swift motion, spun his entire body around to skip the stony missile across the water. He shielded his eyes to watch the stone bounce on the waves, then plunk to the bottom of the lake when it lost steam. He lifted his sunglasses back to the top of his head and glanced at me. His brown eyes weren’t happy, but they weren’t upset, exactly, and that had my heart slowing out of panic range.
