Hope stands in front of the hostages who, in a few minutes, won’t be hostages anymore. She feels a ridiculous sadness at the thought of parting with them, chalking it up to this being the one—and it will be the only—time she’s ever entered a barricade. Still, it has created some sort of bond. She likes these women and can’t help but think that if they’d met under different circumstances, they would’ve all been friends. She certainly has shared more with them today than she has with anyone else. She feels a mixed sense of exposure and gratitude as she explains to these women how she’s going to get them safely home.
“Tommy would like to walk out and surrender of his own free will,” she says. She glances at Tommy, who is sitting on the floor having a few last moments with Covey as Dale hovers over him, watching his every move.
“So we are going to have each of you exit before he does that. You will walk out of here and go straight out the front door, where there will be a couple of squad cars waiting. Just walk out and get in whichever one is closest. There’s a lot of press out there, and we don’t want you getting bombarded. The officers will take you straight to the police station, where we will take your statements and get you home just as soon as we can. Your family members have been instructed to meet you at the station.”
“So we’ll just say goodbye to one another there, then?” asksMorrow. She is, Hope thinks, feeling the same pang of parting. She’s glad it’s not just her. It’s probably collective trauma bonding. But a bond is a bond. It’s a place to start.
“Yes,” says Hope, “you can say your goodbyes after you give your statements.”
Blythe turns to them. “So let’s none of us leave the station until we’ve all given our statements. Then we can, you know, like, exchange numbers. Or whatever.” Sylvie, Morrow, and Nadine all agree.
Hope goes to the window to make sure the cars are indeed lined up and waiting for them. They are. She sees Robert, formerly known as Bo, standing by one of them. She gives him a little wave, but he doesn’t see her. His eyes are trained on the door that his wife will walk out of soon.
Morrow thinks about Maya banging on the window and wonders where they took her afterward. She can hardly wait to hug her daughter. She thinks of Kevin, who will no doubt say, “What am I, chopped liver?” And smiles at the thought of her family waiting on the other side of this. Her imperfect, exasperating, loving family. She looks at Hope. “Can we do one quick thing before we leave?” she asks.
Hope raises her eyebrows. “If it’s quick.”
Morrow nods and reaches into her tote bag, pulling the small package from it. She holds it out to Nadine. “Would you be able to weigh this and put the right postage on it? So I can mail it later?”
Nadine takes the package from her hand and smiles. “I’d be honored.” The women all move together over to the counter, back to where it all started. “I might be able to just run it through,” Nadine offers. “I guess it would go out with tomorrow’s mail if I did?”
“No, no,” says Morrow. “I want to show it to my daughterfirst. If we mail it—if that’s still what she wants—I’d like us to do it together.”
Nadine nods, then makes quick work of weighing and pricing the small box. That done, she starts to return it to Morrow but pulls it back as a grin crosses her face. She reaches under the counter and takes out a sticker that says, “Fragile: Handle with Care.” She affixes it to the front of the package and hands it to Morrow with a wink.
“Perfect,” says Morrow.
Beside her, Blythe pulls her own package close, grateful to have it back, ashamed of how close she came to mailing it off. Aaron will be waiting for her at the police station. She will tell him about the package, how sorry she is for what she almost did, and how glad she is that she didn’t go through with it. If it wasn’t for this situation, she wouldn’t have gotten it back. She would’ve mailed off Murphy’s ashes to someone who did not deserve them, who does not deserve her. She wonders if it would have changed everything. She’s glad that now she will never know.
Sylvie goes over to the windows, looking out to see where Robert is. She feels a little rush of nervousness at the thought of seeing him, like a schoolgirl. He will want to know all about today. He will want to dissect it with her six ways to Sunday. And she will tell him all of it, as many times as he needs her to. Even if he forgets and she has to tell him all over again, she will. She will also confess what she came here to do today.
And then it dawns on her. He was out there with the others in the NOC, the bugged pizza boxes broadcasting every word she said about what was in her envelope. Maybe, she thinks, it is best that he knows the truth. Maybe, once she’s finally by his side, they will just stand together and share the burden of an unknown future, just like she’s wanted to do all along.
Nadine comes out from behind the counter, then stops longenough to get one last look at the man she’s been married to for three years, which is nothing compared to what Sylvie and her husband have had. Compared to them, three years is a drop in the bucket. But she and Tommy had a bucket. It was one she was sure they would fill together one drop at a time. She thought someday their bucket would be full to the brim. She’d counted on it. But then Tommy, in one of his fits of anger, kicked that bucket over, and all she could do was watch their little bit of water spill all over the floor.
“Before I go... can I say goodbye to him?” She hears a sharp intake of breath from either Morrow, Sylvie, or Blythe. She doesn’t mind. She understands that they don’t understand. They don’t have to. The next time she sees her husband—and he is still her husband—will likely be when he is in jail. It will be different then, she knows. She wants one last moment before everything changes. Again.
Hope’s eyebrows shoot toward her hairline as she considers whether to allow this. “You’ve got two minutes,” she decides. She taps her watch, then shoos Nadine in Tommy’s direction.
The three hostages shake their heads in unison as they watch Nadine stoop down in front of Tommy on the floor. Beside them Dale is on high alert, shooting questioning glances at Hope, who ignores him. Covey rises in greeting, but Tommy keeps his head down, focusing on the dog instead of Nadine, who begins speaking in low tones the others cannot hear.
“Why’s she talking to him now?” Blythe asks no one in particular. “After all he’s done to her?”
Sylvie watches Nadine and Tommy for a moment, then looks back at Blythe. “Remember what I told you earlier about surrender? About how eventually a person just gets tired of the waiting and they give up?” She takes a deep breath. “They give up because they just want the hard part to be over.” She hitches a thumb inthe direction of Nadine. “That’s all she did. She got tired of being miserable, so she gave up.” She raises one eyebrow. “That doesn’t mean she stopped loving him.”
“But she slapped him,” counters Blythe.
Sylvie shrugs. “He kind of deserved it.”
“He held a gun to her head,” Blythe persists. “And a box cutter to her throat.”
“And yet she may find it in herself to forgive him,” says Sylvie. “I hope she does.”
“You hope she forgives him?” Blythe is incredulous.
“Absolutely,” Sylvie says. “He’s the father of her child. And as we learned today, he’s been through a lot himself.”
“Still,” says Blythe, “it’s dysfunctional.”
