I play Pierce for a couple of games, then Yelp for one while Gunny naps into his hands in the corner. The girl in the car—Hannah, I learned my second day, Gunny’s youngest granddaughter—comes up once to check on him. She has a blood sugar strip in her fingers, and she slides her hand up under his sleeves to get the stick from his forearm. The device in her other hand is barely the size of an egg, but it reads the bloodied strip and gives her a number, which she notes into her phone.
I like Hannah, I think. Not that I’ve gotten to know her—she tends to stay in the car except when it’s time to test Gunny’s blood sugar—but because she never acts like this is a chore or an imposition. She bundles up and waits with her knitting or a book, occasionally looking up toward the pavilion to check on Gunny, and she seems to enjoy the other vets. They call her Miss Gunny, and she just rolls her eyes and tells me sensible people call her Hannah.
When Gunny wakes up with a start, he looks at me, his face still soft with sleep. “In the trenches today, Miss Priya?”
“Yes, sir. It happens sometimes.”
“It does.” He turns the board sideways so he can reach between the ranks of pieces. My heavy gloves are in my pocket, but it’s still cold enough that I’ve got a pair of knit arm warmers over most of my hand. I give it to him anyway, his skin coarse and paper-fine as his fingers close around mine. “You’re too young to stay there, though.”
He’s not asking. If I don’t want to tell him, I absolutely don’t have to, and he will not hold it against me in the slightest.
But Frank’s on my mind, Frank who had a hard time coming home after his war but was always unfailingly generous and wanted to help. Some days he couldn’t really deal with people, and that was fine, we let him be those days. He had a lot of those days after that night in the church.
“My sister was murdered a while back,” I whisper, hoping his ears are still sharp enough that I won’t have to repeat myself. Yelp and Jorge are focused on their game next to us. “I found her. Last night was a bit more . . . more present than past.”
He nods and gives my hand a gentle squeeze. “And now that you’re awake?”
“It’s still a bad day.”
“But you came out.”
“All of you know that kind of bad day, or you wouldn’t be here, either.”
He smiles, his entire face disappearing in crinkles and wrinkles and folds. “Thank you for coming on a bad day.”
I stay long enough to have a complete game with Gunny, then head into the store to get a drink for the way home. Landon follows me in.
Yay.
He stands behind me in line, and my discomfort ratchets up to anger when I realize I’ve got my thumb on the trigger for the pepper spray, my fingers wrapped around the leather case. I don’t like feeling vaguely endangered. I want a specific threat, something I can point to and say this and everyone understands, not a number of impressions that make women nod and men shake their heads.
“You look sad today,” he says eventually.
“I’m not.”
Sadness and grief aren’t the same thing. It’s why they have different words. Maybe it’s a subtle distinction, but we don’t keep a word in a language if it doesn’t still have a purpose of its own. Synonyms are never exact things.
“Are you sure?” he asks, stepping almost beside me.
“Yes.”
“It’s getting dark outside.”
“Yes.” And it is this time, the sky streaking indigo and the temperature dropping. I stayed later than I meant to, but it helped. The vets all helped, but I think I needed Gunny to reassure me that I wasn’t bringing them a burden.
“You shouldn’t be walking home all alone in the dark.”
I turn toward him a little and smile, too many teeth and not enough sweetness. “I’m fine.”
“There are bad people in the world.”
“I’m aware.”
I was only sort of aware of that before I was twelve. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it.
The sparrow woman behind the counter doesn’t ask for my name this time. She just takes my payment and starts making the hot chocolate, adding more syrup than she’s probably supposed to.
“What if someone hurts you?” Landon presses, following me to the other end of the counter without ordering a drink.
Eddison sometimes jokes about getting me a Taser for my birthday. I’m starting to think I should take him up on it.
I ignore Landon and accept my drink from the barista, whose name tag is always hidden under her apron. I don’t bother to add vanilla or sugar this time, preferring the bitterness to continued interaction. But he still follows me between the tables, and my keys—and my pepper spray—are now outside my pocket.
Then I hear him yelp, and turn around to see him dripping with what used to be a large, very hot coffee, most of it up near his face and the open neck of his heavy shirt. Another man, taller and in a cable-knit sweater, apologizes profusely but in a way that sounds just a little insincere. He brushes at Landon’s shirt with a tiny napkin that soaks up nothing.
“I’ve got it!” snarls Landon, and stalks away still dripping.
The other man turns to me and smiles, and I can place him now, a handsome guy who sits in the corner with a book and sometimes a stack of paperwork. He’s probably in his upper thirties, well put together without seeming vain about it, and he’s not trying to hide the way his dark auburn hair is silvering at the temples. “I’m sorry, but he seemed to be bothering you.”
I let my hand slide back into my pocket, hiding the pepper spray from sight, but don’t let go of it quite yet. “He was.”
He pulls a handful of actual napkins from his pocket and kneels down to sop up what coffee didn’t cling to Landon. Rubbing another napkin over his hands to dry them, he pulls out his wallet and holds a card. “I recently designed the website for a shuttle service here in town. It’s mostly to help homebound folks to the store or doctors or other errands. If you ever feel uncomfortable, think about giving them a call.”
It’s a straightforward card, a simple logo centered along the top with the information printed neatly below. It includes a phone number and website, something I can at least research.
“Tell them Joshua sent you,” he adds.
“Thank you. I’ll keep it in mind.” I let go of my keys to take the card, tucking it into my opposite pocket with the tissues. I glance around for Landon, but he must still be in the bathroom or wherever he stalked off to, so I nod in place of goodbye and walk off.
I’ll have Mum check out the card later. It might be a good number to know if the weather turns while I’m out. There’s a bus system on the other side of town, but it doesn’t stop near enough to home to be useful, and a cab seems a little too self-indulgent.
I take a different way home than normal, my hand back on the pepper spray, and look around me before entering the neighborhood. Mum taught us caution from a young age, and she’s worked to make sure good sense doesn’t turn to paranoia. I’ve got a strong instinct for creeps, but she’s better at deciding whether or not to trust a good thing.
To make myself feel better, once my nose is unthawed I dig out Special Agent Ken from the suitcase where he usually lives and set him up against the window in the breakfast nook with a tiny plastic coffee mug. The snow outside is old and will probably be gone in a couple more days, but the street lights reflect rather nicely off of it, and it makes Special Agent Ken look about as wistful as a male Barbie can manage. He’s in the tiny version of the ugly Christmas sweater Mum and I sent Eddison last year, and the tiny one is actually a lot less ugly. There’s not enough space for the horrific details.
I snap a couple of shots with my camera, so I’ll have a good photo for later, but I take one with my phone, too, and send it to Eddison.
Half an hour later, when I’m back in my pajamas and ready to dig into schoolwork for the couple of hours before Mum gets home with dinner, I get a message back.
He wouldn’t think that white shit’s so pretty if he’d ever had to walk in it.
It makes me laugh, something I know I don’t do enough anymore. Eddison’s breed of comfort may be strange—and not at all comforting to most—but it’s familiar, acknowledging the bad day without pressing.
I used to wonder if the Quantico Three catching Chavi’s killer would end the nightmares. Now I think it won’t matter, that the nightmares will always be mine.