James’s eyelids fluttered and he looked at the floor. There was a swallow of whisky left in his glass, and he picked it up, bringing it halfway to his mouth before stopping.
“It was a little girl and a man. They were on the side of the road. He’d been shot. There was blood on his white shirt that had gone a rust color. You could see it drying in the heat and sticking to him. The girl couldn’t have been more than seven, and she was starving. Her skin was plastered to her bones like shrink-wrap, and her hair was falling out. She had these huge, dark eyes that watched us as we got closer, but she never moved. She was sitting behind him, kind of holding his head up, and he wasn’t conscious. His mouth was open, and for all I know he might’ve been dead, but I don’t think he was. My driver started to slow down, and I watched her look at us. I know she couldn’t see us since our windows were tinted, but she stared right at me as we came even with her. Those eyes boring into mine through the glass.”
James blinked and brought the drink to his lips, pouring the whisky down his throat with a toss of his head. Quinn sat in the chair on the opposite side of the desk and perched there, watching his father.
“I told the driver to just keep going. We had a huge cooler full of ice and bottled water in the back of the truck and there was probably enough money in my wallet to feed her and her village for a week, but I told him to drive.”
Thunder rumbled over the house and heavier rain pattered against the office window.
“Why?” Quinn asked. His father was a different man in the low light, not a dashing movie star but a haggard, weary soldier with dead eyes.
“Because of who I was then. That girl and the man on the side of the road might as well have been in another universe, that’s how distant I felt from them. They were dirty and starving and wounded, and I was none of those. I was riding in an air-conditioned truck with personal security and a soft bed to sleep in that night. I was rich and unconcerned with the world outside of my own. Those two people were part of that outside world that was so different I couldn’t relate to them. I got a sick feeling seeing them there, but it was the wrong kind of sick feeling. I felt sick at the thought of getting involved, of helping them, or leaving my comfortable world that I lived in. Being indifferent was easier. Forgetting was easier.” James set the empty glass down on the desk and reached for the whisky decanter. His hand rested on the crystal stopper, but he didn’t pour himself another drink. “At least I thought it was.”
He glanced up and watched Quinn for a long second before looking away.
“That is the world that’s waiting outside of these walls, son. That’s what it has to offer. There’s millions of people out there that are just like the person I used to be, who don’t think past their first impressions and don’t have the empathy to see who you really are. You’ll be shunned based on how you look by people that can’t relate, that don’t know how or care.”
“You can’t say that. Not everyone is like that; they can’t be,” Quinn said. His mouth was parched, and his heart knocked against his breastbone.
“I saw it, Quinn. I was one of them. They’re the people that do what I did every day. They’re the ones that appear normal but hide hate and resentment below the surface. They’re the ones that produce and read things like this.”