“Had to. The little girl spoke up.”
I look out at the rain and think back to the flashing blue lights in the parking lot of Jane’s Diner. I knew I wasn’t his first. And if I’m honest with myself, I knew I wouldn’t be his last.
But I could’ve been.
I could have said something. I could have saved that little girl myself, made it so it never happened. But my Objective had come first. And now—because of me—some little girl will never be the same.
I slip on Albert’s aviators and let the tears come, hard and heavy. Life can be a real son of a bitch sometimes, bringing things back around long after you’ve said good-bye. Not only am I selfish, I’m a coward. That little girl spoke up. She did what I couldn’t do.
She did what you wouldn’t do, Mary.
“We should go,” says Walt out of nowhere.
Honestly, I’d forgotten he was even here. I look at him—he’s wide-awake, smiling like a kid on Christmas morning—and fight the urge to throw my arms around his neck, just kiss his cheeks for all of eternity.
Beck looks at me quizzically, then back at Walt. “Go where, buddy?”
“To the game,” Walt says, turning up the radio.
“. . . and now that the rain has finally stopped, I can’t imagine a more perfect day at the ballpark. So once again, if any listeners are interested, we still have seven innings of baseball to play, and I’m being told there are plenty of tickets available.”
At that moment, the rain stops.
Walt looks up and points through the windshield. The entire city of Cincinnati is spread before us in a breathtaking panorama. I take in this new clearness of the day with my good eye, in absolute awe of the sudden and wonderful metamorphosis. It’s a landscape worthy of documentation.
“Beck,” I whisper.
“On it,” he says, raising his camera, snapping away.
How strange—only minutes ago, Beck was aiming in the same direction, documenting something else altogether. The city, in all its grandeur, had been there the whole time, hidden by the storm.
Walt claps his hands, squeals, bounces in his seat. Before I have a chance to settle him down, Beck turns his camera from the Cincinnati skyline to Walt, and for just a moment, the scene eases into slow motion. Beck’s smile is intense and sincere, a smile with, not a smile at. Mom used to say you could tell a lot by the way a person treats the innocent, and Walt is nothing if not innocence personified. Ricky was, too. I think about Ty Zarnstorff and all his little bully clones, united in their mutual disdain for kids who strayed from the pack. No matter that the stray was harmless, gullible, weak. No matter that Ricky eventually gave up trying to make friends and settled into a pathetic desire to be left alone. No matter that I was a friend to Ricky that one summer, then, God save me, ignored him on the playground, and in class, and in the cafeteria, and in the gym. Son of a bitch, I can’t believe I did that. And my instincts are no better off now. Rather than join in the laughter, the unadulterated joy, as Beck did, my knee-jerk reaction to Walt’s excitement was to calm him down. Minimize his embarrassment. Minimize my own.
I turn to look out the window, smiling my own smile, more timid than I’d like. And I cry. I cry thinking about the Rickys and Walts of the world, smiling in the face of all those Ty Zarnstorffs. I cry because I’ve never smiled like that, not once in my life.
I cry because I love. For some reason, I always have.
25
Our Only Color
September 3—late afternoonish
Dear Isabel,
“Your mother and I are getting divorced.”
Seven words. All it took to wash away the millions that came before. I’d heard them in movies, on TV, read them in books. I’d heard them probably dozens of times in my life, yet somehow, never . . . in my life, you know? Mom said a few words about “taking care of herself.” Dad nodded during that part. Ironically, this was the most evident display of unity I’d seen from them in years. After Mom’s bit, Dad gave a little speech about doing what was right for our family, no matter how difficult, and they hadn’t worked out all the specifics yet, but it didn’t change how much they loved me, and blah, blah, blah. It was the kind of speech where the first line was the only one that mattered. Your mother and I are getting divorced. Done. Ball game. That is the speech.
The night they told me, I barely slept. And when I did, it was uneasy. (This letter contains no Reasons, so if you’d like to skip it, Iz, go right ahead. Honestly, I’m not even sure who these words are for: you or me.)