He didn’t share his father’s enthusiasm and felt like a kid who’d won a trophy simply for showing up.
She led him down a hall to the kitchen, where he sat at a small table, luxuriating in the warmth of the house. She brought him a glass of water and a banana. He gulped the water and devoured the banana; the smell of the peel made him want to cry, the first real food he’d seen in who knew how long. She took the glass and refilled it for him. The boy danced into the kitchen, football helmet swaying loosely on his head. He spiked an imaginary football and dashed out again.
“I need that boy back in school already.” The woman chuckled. “He’s going a little stir-crazy.”
Gibson nodded—a topic he knew intimately. He’d been that kind of kid himself at that age. Ellie had inherited it from him. Her idea of sitting still was running in circles.
“Ma’am, what’s the date?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Well . . . you must have tied one on tight. Don’t know the date. It’s December 26.”
He’d wanted to know the year but feared that would be a bridge too far. He’d missed Christmas with Ellie by one day. One last fuck-you from the CIA. Well, Ellie and he could still celebrate. It wasn’t too late for that. What child wouldn’t leap at a second Christmas morning?
“My name is Cheryl.”
Gibson hesitated. “John,” he said. He didn’t know why he’d needed to lie to her.
“So where is home, John?”
“Virginia. Near DC. I have enough money for a bus ticket if I can get to Morgantown.”
She refilled his water while she thought that over. “Can’t be driving you to Morgantown. I’m on shift at eleven.”
“I understand. I appreciate your—”
“But maybe I could drop you at the truck stop up on the I-79. You could hitch from there.”
Gibson nodded gratefully. She left him alone in the kitchen and went to finish getting ready for work. He got up to refill his water glass, stood over the sink and drank it down, and then filled it for a fourth time. The clock on the microwave read “9:42.” It was 9:42 a.m. on December 26. Such mundane information, but it felt like an important gateway between the netherworld he’d been in and this place. Tempting to call it the real world, but he held off, at least for now. He still harbored doubts.
On the far wall hung a framed photograph of a young woman at attention in her dress blues. He raised his glass to her.
Semper Fi.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cheryl dropped him at the truck stop and refused the money he tried to give her for gas. He thanked her and shook her hand when she offered it. Her hand was strong, skin worn and calloused. His first human contact. It reawakened a sense of belonging to the land of the living. A profound difference for a man whose cell had been his whole world.
Inside the door of the mini-mart stood a rack of newspapers. Gibson picked up a copy of the Charleston Gazette-Mail and saw the year. Eighteen months. They’d kept him in that cell for eighteen months. He would have believed had it been eighteen years. However long it had been, it felt like a lifetime. How would he begin to explain it to Nicole? He’d missed two of Ellie’s birthdays. His daughter was nine. He was thirty-one. That his confinement could have lasted much, much longer offered scant comfort now.
“How do you think Damon Washburn celebrated his birthday?” Duke asked, leaning against the counter. “Bet he threw himself one hell of a party.”
The thought of it burned.
Gibson bought the newspaper and a tall bottle of water. He had the woman at the counter run his credit card, but as he suspected, it came back declined. Connected to the mini-mart was a simple restaurant; he seated himself and put twenty dollars on the table so the waitress would see that he could pay. The menu was a single laminated page, but it overwhelmed Gibson. Accustomed to eating the same food for every meal, he didn’t know how to choose for himself. How did something so simple become a life-or-death decision? When the waitress came around, nose wrinkled in distaste, he pointed blindly at the menu and held it up for her to see.
She took the menu and brought him a double cheeseburger. He ate it too fast and gave himself a stomachache. But like a dog that didn’t know when it was full, he ordered a second. Waiting, he read the newspaper front to back, and, even though it contained mostly local stories, it represented one more delicate strand tethering him to the world. Over the newspaper, he studied the truckers at the surrounding tables, looking for a kind face. Either none of them had kind faces or else he’d forgotten what one looked like.
It was Bear’s turn to play cheerleader. “You can do it. It’s Christmas. People feel generous at Christmas.”
Gibson didn’t know about all that, but took a deep breath and stood up.
“Excuse me,” he began. All heads swiveled to see who was disturbing their morning. He forged ahead. “I’m looking for a ride to Morgantown to catch a bus home. I’ve got a little money, not a lot, but I can put some toward gas. I’m a former Marine, a little down on his luck. If you could help, I’d be grateful. Thank you and merry Christmas.” He sat back down and stared at the newspaper, flushed with embarrassment. So that was what begging felt like; he didn’t think he’d ever look at a homeless person the same way again.
Bear smiled at him supportively, but no one leapt at the opportunity to offer him a ride. After a moment’s hesitation, the room returned to its meals and conversations, agreeing to erase the interruption from its collective memory and get on with its morning. Gibson finished his second burger and ordered coffee, thinking of alternate ways to Morgantown. In the end, he opted for the individual approach. He’d greet each new truck as it arrived and appeal to the driver. Make it personal. So much human interaction sounded painful, but he would do it if it got him home to Ellie.
Resolved, Gibson paid the check and headed out. A man stopped him on his way to the door and said he’d drop him in Morgantown. “That’s my rig,” he said, pointing to a semi at the far side of the lot. “Leaving in twenty.”
“See?” said Bear. “It’s Christmas.”