Plain and simple, Nadine reached a point where she couldn’t take it anymore. It wasn’t that he was violent or threatening toward her. For a time she consoled herself with that—it could be worse, she reminded herself often. And yet his anger felt insidious, a poisonous gas filling their home a little more each day with adark heaviness. Despite her love for him, Nadine didn’t want to spend the rest of her life living with the anger. It dwelled in their house like a terrible roommate they couldn’t evict.
For so long she was resigned that Tommy’s anger was part of their life, something unavoidable, like balancing the budget or cleaning the toilet. Then one day things changed. She saw things differently, felt hope—the barest suggestion of it, but there—within her, waiting to unfurl. Quietly, intentionally, she started feeding the hope, and as with anything you feed, it slowly grew. Until one day it was large enough to sustain her, large enough to move her past being stuck in a situation she couldn’t get out of. It took some doing, but she convinced Tommy to leave, that they’d be better off apart than together. She thought he thought so too. She looks over at Tommy. But now here she is, stuck again.
As if he’s read Nadine’s mind and wants to give her more proof that she was right to end things, Tommy snaps his fingers at all of them, getting their attention. “I can’t get near those windows,” he says to the four women. “But you can.” He smiles at whatever he’s thinking. “You bitches can stand up there and remind them that I got hostages and they’d better back up. Otherwise I might just do something crazy.” His smile goes wider.
Might do something crazy?Nadine thinks that at this point he is only piling crazy on top of crazy. With a shudder she wonders when—and how—this is going to end. She hears her mother’s voice in her head, telling her to take charge of this situation. She just has to figure out how. Nadine is not the take-charge type, but it seems she might have to be today.
“Get on up there!” he hollers, and Nadine sees Blythe’s back go ramrod straight, her eyes go wide. Slowly, they all obey him, moving grudgingly, cautiously, toward the bank of windows. Sylvie has a hard time sliding from the stool, and Morrow gives her a hand. Nadine sees that Tommy see this and hopes he is thinkingof his own grandmother, whom she knows he spent Easter with if this year was like all the others. Nadine always enjoyed going to his family’s house for holidays. To part with him was to part with them too. It was a trade she accepted, but not without the pang of loss. People always ask why women don’t leave terrible situations. Nadine can tell them. It’s because you never just leave a man. You leave a whole life.
Tommy goes to where shipping envelopes in various sizes are displayed for purchase, yanking down four of the largest size.He is stealing those envelopes, Nadine thinks. When this is over, she will tell the postmaster about this, offer to have him take the cost out of her salary. This is her fault, after all. Tommy wouldn’t be here doing this if she didn’t work here.
She watches as he goes to the counter where she was sitting when all of this began, worrying he’s going to see the bottle of liquor where she stashed it, way back, tucked behind some rolls of packing tape. But he’s too focused on whatever it is he’s going to do with those envelopes.
He gropes around until he finds a large black Sharpie marker and writes something on the back of each envelope, in the white space where nothing is printed. He is turning the envelopes into placards. On one he writes, “Back away!” On another he writes, “I have hostages!” On another he writes, “Am armed!” Then on a fourth and final one, he writes, “No cops!” He examines his efforts like a child admiring his artwork before handing an envelope to each woman.
“Hold them up against the windows!” he demands. When they don’t do what he’s instructed, he repeats himself, but louder. This time they comply, obediently pressing his makeshift signs to the glass with shaking hands. Behind them, Tommy marches like a drill sergeant, back and forth, supervising their performance while they serve as his human barrier. He nods to himself,pleased as he peers over their shoulders. The cops are using binoculars to see what the envelopes say. They begin nudging one another, stepping farther back from the building.
“That’s right, you sons of bitches!” Tommy hollers, drunk on this bit of power he’s achieved. “You damn well better get back!”
Sylvie keeps her eyes straight ahead, focusing on the retreat of the people who are supposed to be helping them. As time passes, her arms and shoulders begin to ache from holding the envelope. She can feel a fight-or-flight sensation filling her with a hot, pressing urgency. She steals a longing glance at the barricaded door. She wants to go home. She wants to see Robert, to know he’s okay. It is wrong to leave him unattended with no word as to where she is. She longs to find a way to get in touch with him, to hear his voice.
She hopes he hasn’t wandered out of the house or tried to take a shower and slipped or turned on the stove and left it on. She hopes he’s watching golf, unaware of how long it’s been since she left the house. But she knows that is likely not the case. On his worst days he is still aware of her, only instead of a husband being aware of his wife, it is more like a child being aware of his mother, needy and anxious instead of forthright and take-charge like he once was. It breaks her heart a little more each time it happens, seeing this man she loves going backward, retreating into a time before she knew him. Having someone leaving you even as they’re standing right in front of you is an odd experience.
She feels tears, hot and stinging, fill her eyes, turning the post office parking lot into a watercolor landscape. A tear runs down her cheek, and she lowers the envelope so she can wipe it away. Beside her she hears sniffling and turns to see that the others are also trying, and failing, not to cry.
“Old lady!” Tommy says, oblivious to the emotional state of his captives. “Hold that sign up higher!”
When he speaks his voice sounds far away. A whistling noise fills her head. She knows she must move fast to keep from falling. Tommy has gone too far, pushed her past what she can bear. She lets go of the envelope, and it drops to the floor. The high-pitched whine in her head drowns out all other sound. She sees Tommy coming toward her but focuses instead on the stool she was sitting on. She needs to get to it. If she can just sit down, then maybe she will be okay.
This is what she is thinking as the floor, once inert, rises toward her.
Chapter 16
Outside, Hope has walked back to the staging area. She eyes the post office in the distance, picturing the four women who were lined up inside, forced to stand on display in the windows like puppies at a pet store, holding signs with brief, bold threats etched across them, the words penned by a panicking, cornered man trying to buy more time. Hope does not think the suspect realized all of the women were crying as they faced the windows. But Hope saw. And now she can’t unsee. She walked away from them, but only to make a call to Hank, to tell him about the escalation she just witnessed, to find out when help will arrive.
She dials the number and holds her phone to her ear.
Hank answers. “I was just about to call you.”
“I know you’ve got people on the way, but I don’t think we should wait to make contact much longer,” Hope says, keeping her eyes on the windows for any sign of the women returning.
Hank exhales. “I know. I heard. And I agree, we can’t keep waiting around. The county is en route, but there’s been a massive car wreck on Highway 17. Several cars are involved and some serious injuries. Maybe even a fatality. The traffic’s backed up in both directions and nothing’s moving. It’s bad enough that if it weren’t for the situation at the post office, I’d have sent some of my people up there to help them. 'Course I can’t do that withwhat we’ve got going on down here. It’s all hands on deck everywhere. When it rains it pours and all that.”
Hank sighs into the phone. “Since the county team is stuck in that traffic, some of 'em have exited their vehicles to help. I’m afraid it’s gonna be a while longer. The FBI still might join, but that’s a cluster of its own. I thought about scrambling a team farther up in Wilmington, but they’d still have to come through all that 17 mess, and if they take the back roads to avoid the traffic, that’ll end up taking even longer. I could try to access the folks down in Myrtle, but that’s crossing state lines, and you know what a predicament that can be.”
“Are you telling me to hold off till they get here?” Hope asks, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice.
“No, I’m telling you that you’re going to have to fly solo. Except”—he pauses—“and I’m not sure how much help this is going to be, but there’s a guy who got in touch with me a bit ago. I know him from golfing. He was FBI, retired now. He and I have shared some war stories. Enough for me to think he could be of assistance. I know you’re not exactly, uh, comfortable with being put in this role. And certainly not without a team around you. If—”
“It’s okay,” Hope rushes to say. She doesn’t want to talk about whether she’s comfortable or whether she’s capable. She’s just here, in this place, doing this job. There is, it would appear, no one else to do it.
“Anyway, he said he wouldn’t mind coming over there. His name’s Bo. Like I said, I don’t know how much help he’ll be, but if anything he can serve as moral support.”
“Sure, yeah,” says Hope. She doesn’t really want some retiree hanging around looking over her shoulder, but it doesn’t seem like she gets a choice. She was relieved when Brower, who’d been her shadow ever since they arrived, got called on to go directtraffic out front. From the sound of it, she’s going to get a new shadow.
She hears the clatter of Hank’s fingers on a keyboard, then he speaks. “We’ve shut down the phone line going in or out of the post office so the only calls going to or from will be between us and the people in there. I’m sending you an access line and a code that will enable you to dial in from your cell.” He sighs, then adds, “The county’s got the technology we need, but for now this is the best we can do.”
“I understand,” says Hope.
