Now that things were in motion, he wanted more than anything to stop it all. To beg the director to call it off. It was too much. The costs were too high.
But then he remembered what this was really about, and he put childish fantasy away.
He climbed out of the Charger—something else he’d have to abandon soon, his beloved car and its even more beloved license-to-speed transponder—and crossed the street. The night air nipped but didn’t bite. Everything smelled clean. He was sore and tired, but he tried to record every detail, to move with heightened awareness. It would be a long time before he could walk this path again.
At the front window, he paused just out of the spill of light. The curtains were parted a couple of inches, and through them he could see his children. Todd was staging an elaborate action-figure battle, the pantheons all mixed up, armored knights fighting alongside World War II soldiers and space monsters. The tip of his tongue protruded from the corner of his mouth as he mounted a robot on a horse. Kate sat on the sofa with a picture book in her lap, turning the pages backward and talking softly to herself. Through the open archway he could see Natalie in the kitchen, washing dishes. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her hips swayed as she scrubbed, semidancing to music he couldn’t hear. The quiet peace of the scene, the warmth and safety and domesticity, was a jagged knife through his belly. Cooper closed his eyes. You’ve already chosen sides.
He took out his phone and dialed. Through the window he saw his ex-wife dry her hands on a towel and pull her phone from her pocket. “Nick. Are you okay? I called you a bunch of times and left messages—”
“I know. I’m okay. But I need to talk to you.”
Even at this distance, he could see her stiffen. “Is it about Kate?”
“No. Yes. Sort of. Listen, I’m outside. Can you come out?”
“You’re outside? Why didn’t you knock?”
“We need to talk first. Before the kids know I’m here.”
“Okay. Give me a minute.”
Cooper pocketed his phone. Took one last look through the window, felt his stomach slip and his heart squeeze, and then stepped away. He moved over to the lone tree, a maple down to a last handful of leaves. Quick flash of memory, the tree as it had been when he and Natalie had bought the house, a runty little thing held in place by wires.
Natalie came out a few minutes later. She paused on the step, screening her eyes from the porch light, then spotted him leaning. The subtle shifts of expression on her face might have barely registered with a stranger, but each emotion was as distinct to him as if the words had been projected on her forehead. Happiness that he was alive. Guarded concern about the way he’d asked to meet her. Fear of what he had to say about Kate. A quickly overcome desire to run back inside and slam the door. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
She tucked her hands in her pocket and looked him in the face. Knowing him well enough to recognize that he had something to say, and waiting for him to start. That cool, levelheaded forthrightness that he had always loved. A siren sounded nearby, and it quickened his heart. He glanced at his watch. Tick-tock.
“Am I keeping you?”
“No, I—” He took a breath. “I have to tell you something.” He glanced at her, at the yard, at the window. Had that been motion in the curtain?
“For Christ’s sake, spit it out.”
“I’m going to be going away for a while.”
“‘A while’? What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe a long time.”
“Something for your job.”
“Yes.”
“Something to do with today.”
“Yes. I was there. Manhattan.”
“My God, are you—”
“I’m fine,” he said, then shook his head. “No, that’s not true. I’m pissed and I’m frustrated and I’m hurting. I was trying to stop it, Nat. I almost did stop it. But I didn’t, not quite, and all those people…”
“Did you try as hard as you could?”
“Yeah. I think so. Yeah.”