It wasn’t until Greta started to go slack beneath him that he realized where he was, who he was. When he let her go, she ran to the bedroom and locked the door. He begged for forgiveness. He promised he’d go to counseling. She didn’t answer, just stayed away from him, wearing a necklace of bruises. When he called her name the next day, she jumped in fear. She did everything she could to avoid him. George took to sleeping in the baby’s room, because he knew Greta wouldn’t leave without Lil.
Until one night she did.
He glanced up at the television screen. It was dark now, turned off at his command—but he could still hear the words of the reporter ringing in his head.Dishonorable discharge is reserved for the military’s most reprehensible conduct,the man had said.Desertion, sexual assault, murder…egregious violence.
Egregious violence.
George felt sweat trickle down his back. He pulled at his collar. Egregious fucking violence. There was nothing egregious about it. They didn’t know what went down in Bosnia. They didn’t realize it hadn’t been Greta’s face he saw that night, when he tried to strangle her. They didn’t understand what had happened to Lil that had led him here.
He could not hear anything except that reporter’s voice, ringing in his ears. “Egregious violence,” George muttered. “Thisis egregious violence,” he said, and he slammed his boot into the injured leg of the doctor.
When George’s hearing returned, it was with the man’s scream.
—
THE GUNMAN WAS OUT OFcontrol. He was muttering to himself; he had stomped on Dr. Ward’s leg. Izzy bent down over the poor man, soothing, trying to do something—anything—to stave off the pain. Dr. Ward was shivering, sweating, in shock. The false comfort of the status quo had been shredded, and what would happen next was anyone’s guess.
She glanced over at Wren. The girl had her eyes screwed shut as if she was trying to will this into a nightmare, instead of reality. She must still be holding the scalpel. Izzy had known she had to get rid of it as soon as she saw the shooter doing full body checks before and after each woman went to the bathroom.
She blotted Dr. Ward’s forehead with a strip of gauze. On the pretense of ministering to him, she said loudly, “Ssh, it’s all right. It will help if you focus on something else right now…” Izzy looked up, as the other women turned at the sound of her voice. She made eye contact with each of them in turn. “Think of a nice beach maybe. Down on the Gulf Coast. I don’t get down there very much myself, but my boyfriend and I, we keep talking about taking atrip.”
If the shooter noticed that she stressed that last word, he didn’t show it.
There was a charged moment of silence. They had all read the missive in the bathroom, but there hadn’t been an explicit plan of action.
Suddenly Joy grabbed her belly and jackknifed forward. “Ow,” she moaned. “It hurts. It hurts likecrazy.” She began rocking back and forth.
“Shut her up,” the shooter commanded. He turned to Izzy. “Do something.”
Izzy moved toward Joy. “Do you still feel the pain?”
“Yes,” Joy said, squeezing Izzy’s hand three times. A sign. “Rightnow.” She screamed.
“Shut her up,” George said. “Shut her up or I’ll…”
He stepped forward, either to threaten or to coldcock her, but as he did Janine stretched out a foot.
Just like that, George Goddard went sprawling.
—
NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW.
Wren watched him trip, and when he did, he dropped the gun.
When she was very little, she used to imagine what it would feel like to fly. On windy days she would unzip her raincoat and spread her arms and leap into the air and know, justknow,that she was airborne for an extra heartbeat.
Now, she flew.
She leaped off of the couch and dove for the gun at the same time George did. Her hands were still tied so she went down like a stone and wriggled on her elbows. It was a tenth of a second and, at the same time, an eternity. She felt her fingertips graze the barrel of the gun and he knocked it away from her.
Wren raised her bound hands and slammed them down as hard as she could into his outstretched palm.
He howled, and the scalpel stuck deep in his flesh, sliding from between Wren’s palms.
“Youbitch,” he cried. He yanked the blade from his hand and then grabbed the gun.
Wren couldn’t get up. Her hands were still tied—the angle of the scalpel, when she had held it, had made it impossible to cut the tape, although she had tried like hell. She scooted backward on the carpet, slipping in the fresh blood from Dr. Ward’s injury. In that moment all she could see was the shooter’s red, red eyes and the twist of his face and his thumb pulling back the trigger. She wondered if it would hurt, when she returned to stardust.
