“Samuel 2:6,” George said.
“Is that why you came here today? Because you felt people in this clinic didn’t have the right to end a life?”
There was silence on the line.
“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” Hugh said softly. “Not yours. The Lord’s.”
“That’s not why I came,” George said. “It’s why you came.”
“I came to talk to you—”
“You came,” George interrupted, “to decide who lives today, and who dies. So, tell me … which one of us is playing God?”
—
GEORGE WAS SIX YEARS OLD when he learned how fine the line was between life and death. It had been one of those beautiful fall days in Mississippi. The colors had peaked, and the trees were a jeweled necklace wrapped around the lake. He was walking through the woods, liking the crunch of the red maple and hickory and bur oak leaves under his sneakers. He was kicking an acorn when he found the bird.
It was not a baby, but some kind of sparrow that had broken its wing. It hopped in small circles on the ground.
He picked it up as if it were made of glass and carried it all the way back to his home. There, he found a cigar box and lined it with Kleenex. For three days, he hid the little bird under his bed, trying to give it water, and bringing it leaves and grubs and anything else he thought might be appetizing.
The bird did not improve. It barely moved. He could hardly see the rise and fall of its breast.
He needed help, so he went to his father.
What he hadn’t known, at the time, was that his daddy was in one of his moods, sleeping off last night’s excesses.
It’s not getting any better, he explained. Can you fix it?
You bet. His father lifted the bird with the gentlest of touches. One long finger stroked from the crown of the bird’s head to its crooked tail. And then he snapped its neck.
You killed it! George cried.
His father pushed the limp creature back and corrected him. I put it out of its misery.
George couldn’t stop sobbing; he hadn’t stopped, not when he buried the cigar box in his mother’s melon patch; not when she made him catfish for dinner; not when he lay down in his pajamas after saying his prayers for the departed soul of the bird. He could hear his parents arguing in the hall.
What kind of father does that?
Back then he had wondered if his father truly thought he was doing the right thing by ending the bird’s suffering.
Now, George looked around the clinic waiting room at the motley collection of people whose fate he held in his hand.
Violence, from one angle, looked like mercy from another.
—
TEN YEARS EARLIER, HUGH HAD been one of a dozen cops on the ground twenty-two stories below the Regions Plaza. He squinted up at the roof, where a slight guy in a windbreaker wavered on the edge. The chief was talking into a bullhorn. “Step away from the edge,” he said. “Don’t jump.”
It seemed to Hugh that the last thing you wanted to say to someone in this situation was Don’t jump. It was like you were planting the seed more firmly in his head, when what you really needed to do was distract him.
“Chief,” he said, “I’ve got an idea.”
Within minutes, Hugh had climbed a set of stairs from the twenty-second floor to the roof of the building and crept to the edge where the man sat. Except he wasn’t a man. He was a boy, really. Eighteen, if that.
Hugh sat down beside the kid, facing the opposite direction, away from the edge. He turned on the digital recorder in his pocket. “Hey,” Hugh said.
“They sent you?”
“They didn’t do anything. I came up here because I wanted to.”
The boy glanced at him. “And you just happen to be wearing a cop uniform.”
“My name is Hugh. How about you?”
“Alex.”
“Is it okay if I call you that?”
The boy shrugged. The wind ruffled his fine hair.
“You okay?”
“Do I look okay?”
Hugh thought back to when he was a teenager, and such a smart-ass that once, Bex had made dinner and set an extra plate at the table. That’s for your attitude, she had said, and feel free to leave it behind when you’re done eating.
Hugh noticed the familiar colors of an Ole Miss T-shirt peeking from behind the boy’s half-zipped windbreaker. “Ole Miss, huh?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Because if you were a fan of Mississippi State I might have had to push you off.”
A laugh burst out of the kid’s throat, surprising him. “If I was a fan of Mississippi State I would have jumped.”
Hugh leaned back a little, like he had all the time in the world, and started talking about who was going to replace the quarterback after he graduated. It went on from there, like they were just two guys shooting the breeze.
After a couple of hours had passed, Alex said, “You ever wonder why they call them stories? The floors of a building?”
“No.”
“I mean, then why isn’t a building called a book?”
Hugh laughed. “You’re pretty smart,” he said.
“If I had a dime for every time I heard that,” Alex said, “I’d have a dime.”
“I find that hard to believe. Come on. You’re funny, and intelligent, and you clearly root for the right football team. There’s got to be someone out there who’s worried about you.”
“Nope,” Alex said, his voice catching. “Not a single one.”
“Wrong. There’s me.”
“You don’t know me at all.”
“I know I was off the clock an hour ago,” Hugh said.
“So go.”
“I’d rather stay here. Because your life, it’s important,” Hugh said. “I can’t pretend that I know what’s going on with you, Alex. And I won’t disrespect you by claiming I do. But I do know that my own shittiest days were usually followed by better days.”
“Well, tomorrow, I’m not gonna be any less gay. It took me fifteen years to figure it out and another two to get the nerve to tell my parents.” Alex picked at a thread on his jeans. “They threw me out of the house.”
“If you need a place to stay, I can help you figure that out. If you need someone to talk to, we’ll get you someone to talk to.”
Alex looked into his lap. “I wish my dad was like you,” he said softly.
“That’s nice of you to say,” Hugh replied. “Especially since my dad was the biggest asshole on this planet.”
The kid’s head snapped up. “What did he do to you?”
“I’m not real comfortable talking about it … but I think you’d get it. I’ll just say that no kid deserves to be hit all the time. And no parent should be drunk all the time.”
“How did you … do you still talk to him?”
“Nope,” Hugh said. “Once I told people what was going on, they were willing to help me. I took their good advice, and their support.” He looked at Alex. “The world turned out to be a whole lot bigger than my dad.”
For the first time in over two hours, Hugh reached out his hand. Alex looked down at it, and then grabbed on. Hugh pulled the kid away from the edge, and into his embrace.
It wasn’t until a week later that Chief Monroe called Hugh into his office and said he was recommending him as a candidate for hostage negotiation school. “You’re a natural,” he said. “What you did on the roof with that kid …” He gestured at the transcript from Hugh’s digital recorder, the conversation between him and Alex. As Hugh started to leave, the chief’s voice called him back. “I didn’t know about your dad. I’m sorry.”
Hugh paused in the doorway. “My dad was the greatest guy. He never touched a drop of alcohol in his life, Chief.” He inclined his head. “I was just selling hope.”
—
BETH WATCHED THE STRANGER WHO was supposedly going to be able to keep her out of jail. And based on what had just happened in front of the judge, it didn’t look promising.