“I want you to do what you said you were going to do.”
“It doesn’t have to be over,” he said. “I just need more time.”
“Don’t.” And she hung up. That’s when the first shot rang out. The next one took him down.
It was hard not to see it as retribution, a harsh correction for all his many failures. If he’d never met Kristi, he wouldn’t have brought his family to The Hollows. If he hadn’t been on the phone, his kids so far from him; if he hadn’t introduced Blake to Kristi, Blake would never have told Claire, they wouldn’t have canceled. If he’d never booked that cabin without asking Merri. The parade of “what ifs” and “if onlys” was endless. If any of those things had been different, the most horrible thing would never have happened. Or at least it might not have. He’d let too much space come between them. He’d let them out of his sight. That day and long before that. It was his fault.
*
The distant wail of a siren brought him back to the dim TriBeCa street.
“I’m a person, Wolf,” Kristi said now. “You get that, right? I don’t just exist for your pleasure and amusement, to be shoved aside when you’ve used me up.”
It was hard not to hate her. But at least he was smart enough to know that, really, he just hated himself.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Those two useless words again.
“Everyone told me, you know?” she said. She laughed a little. “That you were using me, that you would never leave your wife, especially not now. I really didn’t believe them. I really thought that you just needed time.”
She looked up at the sky. “What a cliché, right?” she said when he didn’t answer. She lowered her eyes and smiled at him sadly.
He saw her then, maybe for the first time: a young woman who was not blank, not vacant, but na?ve maybe even a little foolish. If she had seemed empty to him, probably it was because all he saw in her was his own reflection. Poor Kristi was just in love with the wrong guy, trying to make something that started off cheap and tawdry into something real. Confusing him with the man she thought he was, she’d believed his promises, mistaken lust for love. She was just a little girl looking for the happily ever after, the redemptive narrative. She wanted to be able to say, “We had a rough beginning, but we came through tough times to find happiness.” But there was no redemption here.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’ve made mistakes. A lot of them. What can I say? I have to be here for my family now. I have to try to fix what I’ve broken.”
A siren wailed up the avenue. They both turned to look, then back at each other. He could tell that she almost understood, that she was glimpsing the truth about him, about life in general. That no matter how hard you tried, sometimes things were just as they were, not how you wanted them to be.
She lifted her palms, a helpless tear drifting down her cheek. “But what about me?”
“I never wanted to hurt you.” Wow. Did he really just say that? The only thing more pointless than “I’m sorry.” As if what we want or intend matters more than what we actually do. The truth was he never gave a moment’s thought to Kristi or what would happen to her in all this mess.
He watched her for a moment; her eyes were glistening and she bit her lower lip. Was there going to be high drama? Would she slap him? Try to seduce him? Would she weep and wail as he tried to get away from her? Would he let her lure him back to her apartment, abandon his plans to go up to The Hollows?
But no.
“I hope you find your daughter,” said Kristi. She shook her head. “I really do. I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I ever told you about that place.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “This is all on me.”
She gave him a little smirk. “I know that,” she said.
She bowed her head, shoving her hands into her pockets. Then she just walked away, her heels clicking on the sidewalk, echoing off the buildings around them. She turned a corner and was gone. He felt nothing, except a vague regret for everything that had passed between them. It certainly hadn’t been worth it, for either of them. But that was another truth of life that Wolf had only recently learned. Very often, there was no redemptive narrative. The consequences for some mistakes would not be undone. He headed toward the garage.
TWENTY-THREE