In eight months, you’re going to be someone’s father.
A twig snaps to my right. I turn, expecting that Matvei’s sixth sense has drawn him to me.
But I’m wrong.
It’s not Matvei.
It’s Raymond.
He’s making his way toward me along the orange-flagged line, shotgun broken open over his forearm, cheeks ruddy from the cold and whatever was in Bill’s flask. If you asked him, he’d say the wax cap he’s wearing makes him look like a country gentleman from a Ralph Lauren ad. If you ask me, he looks more like an aging frat boy on his way to a Vineyard Vines wake.
He’s grinning. There’s something strange about that grin. It’s not a happy grin, that’s for sure. It is the grin of a man who has just gotten some very good news that is going to make a lot of people who are not him very, very unhappy.
He hasn’t seen me yet. He’s peering up at the branches overhead as he meanders down the edge of the woods. The snow crunches under his L.L.Bean duck boots.
He’s twenty feet away.
Fifteen.
Ten.
My vision sharpens and slows. I’m vaguely aware of every small thing: the cold on my eyelashes, the weight of the gun against my ribs, the smell of pine and gunpowder and woodsmoke from the heated tent, the distant thud of my own pulse in my ears.
I become aware, also, that there is no one else within line of sight. Raymond and I are alone in a slot of empty woods. Hepicked a route that took him out of the eyeline of the rest of the men. On purpose, I wonder? I bet it is. Old habits. Hitting me is less obvious if there’s no one to see.
But.
But also.
But also: There is no one within line of sight.
I repeat:There is no one within line of sight.
He’s ten feet away, I’m holding a gun, and there’s no one around to see what I might do with it.
A high, white noise begin to keen between my ears. Panic? Glee? Bloodlust? Who’s to say? What’s the difference, really?
Could this be the window?!
I mean, it could be closing right now. What if Susan is, in fact, in the tent right now telling Bill? What if Bill is, in fact, on his way? What if the next minute, the next thirty seconds, is the last unwatched moment I will ever have with this man? What if the universe is doing the thing it’s been doing for me lately—handing me the same gift twice, dressed up a little differently each time—and this is it?
Here you go, Cassandra. Here he is. He came to you.
A hunting accident. How clean is that?
A tragic, unspeakable hunting accident. A wife, untrained, clumsy with cold, mishandling a firearm she should never have been allowed to hold in the first place. Who would look at a grieving widow weeping into a Hermès scarf at the funeral and cry out,Murderer?No, that would never happen. The coroner would understand. Open and shut. Heartbreaking stuff, really.
My thoughts jump to Matvei. This will be the end of whatever I’m supposed to call the thing between us. Our deal done, our contract severed. Baby or not, I can’t imagine he’ll stick around. He’s just not that kind of man.
I think:He’ll be furious.
I think:He’ll forgive me.
I think:Or he won’t.
But either way, I’ll have done what I came here to do.
Eight feet now. Raymond is still squinting up overhead.He won’t even know which direction it came from,I realize, with a cold-blooded clarity that surprises me.And by the time he figures it out, I’ll be on my knees beside him, screaming.
