I get in a cab.Pull out my phone.Call Luke.
“Yeah?”
“How is he?”
He sighs.“Quiet.”
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“I got the job.”
A pause.“That’s good, right?It’s what you wanted.”
“It’s remote.I’m staying in Texas.”
Another pause.Longer this time.“I see.”
I don’t tell him the rest.Not yet.Not from the back of a cab on the way to LaGuardia.Some things need to be said in a kitchen, face to face, with the basement door between you and the thing you’re finally ready to let go of.
“I changed my flight,” I say.“I’ll be home tonight,”
“I’ll be here.”
He’ll be there.In my kitchen.In his old house.
“Luke?”
“Hm?”
“Thank you.”
“Stop thanking me.”
I hang up.The cab pulls onto the expressway.New York disappears behind me one building at a time.
I’m not coming back.
57
Luke
In the early afternoon, I go downstairs again.Water.Charles drinks it without speaking.
I stand in the doorframe.Watch him set the glass down.
“I’m going to say something,” I say.“And I need you to hear it.”
He opens his eyes.Looks at me.Wary.
“You can’t stay here forever.We both know that.She knows that, even if she won’t say it.”
“Is this the part where you kill me?”
“This is the part where I let you go.”
Silence.The basement kind.The kind that has weight.
