“He’s fine.”
“Fine how?”
“Fine as in alive.Fed.Watered.Medicated.Your list was thorough.”
“My lists are always thorough.”
I grab my suitcase.Walk to the porch.He takes it from me without asking.Sets it inside the door.We stand there—the two of us, on a porch he fixed, under a sky full of stars neither of us is looking at.
“Luke.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to let him go.”
He doesn’t move.Doesn’t react.Doesn’t do any of the things a normal person does when someone says something that changes everything.
“When?”he says.
“Tomorrow.I’ll drive him to the airport.Let him go.”
“And if he goes to the police?”
“He won’t.”
Luke looks at me.Measuring.The way he measures everything.
“You’ve thought about this,” he says.
“Yes, a lot.”
He doesn’t ask what that means.He will.Later.But not tonight.Tonight we’re standing on a porch and I’m telling him I’m letting Charles go and he’s looking at me with something I haven’t seen before.
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
I go inside.The kitchen looks the same.The table.The counter.The prayer beads.Everything in its place.Everything exactly as I left it except for the feeling—something in the air, something in the way Luke’s shoulders are set.Not tension exactly.Something closer to a man who’s been sitting with a decision for too long.I notice it the way you notice a picture frame that’s slightly crooked—not enough to fix, just enough to notice.
59
Luke
She sets her keys on the counter.Looks around the room the way she always does—inventory, assessment, control.Everything in its place.Except it isn’t, and I know it isn’t, and in about thirty seconds she’s going to know it too.
“I need a shower,” she says.“I smell like LaGuardia and bad decisions.”
“I fixed the shower.”
She stops.Looks at me.
“You fixed the shower?”
“New head.Better pressure.You complained about it last week.”
“I complained about a lot of things last week.”
