Just that quick I wanted to tell him it was okay, that I was sorry, too. He looked so weak, so vulnerable and lost that I wanted to hug him. I didn’t want him back, though, not even then. I was sorry—not stupid. It was a cruel twist of fate. A goddamned shame. But I still didn’t want him back. “I’m sorry, too,” I whispered. “Dr. Christe says there’s medicine, things that—”
“That’s why they did this.” His voice was low and the words were almost too fast to process. “They did this thing to my brain. An implant or a beam or however the hell they do it. They did this because they wanted me to take those pills that kill everything. Do you hear me? They kill everything inside. They know how important my ideas are, and they want them without the threat of having to pay me. They know my ideas could change everything. Everything. I just have to write them down. And when I take their damn pills I can’t write a damn thing. Too shaky. Too dead. I’m going to write it, though. I’m going to make enough to take care of you and the kids. I can support my wife. You know that, right? You know I can.”
In the early days I had traveled right along with him on his path to madness, believed the little tales that built into something so fantastical that I realized it was impossible. Even then I’d been generous when I tried to sort fact from fiction, giving him the benefit of the doubt when a story had reasonable evidence. The day after his diagnosis of schizophrenia I’d even wondered briefly if it was all a trick, if he was fooling them somehow in order to save us from real bad guys who wanted the things in his brilliant mind. I wanted to believe that because it would be so much nicer than the ugliness of what had really happened, so much happier than the sad truth of schizophrenia. Watching him now, I had no doubts. He had rarely talked to me like this; he’d been a little paranoid sometimes, but usually believable, sane enough to pass muster. A wave of pity hit my stomach with such force that I dropped both hands there and gagged. I took a step forward, toward the house. I needed a glass of water, something to settle my stomach and drown my guilt. Maybe he knew that and wanted to stop me, or maybe he thought I was taking a step closer to him.
He took three steps, scissoring sideways to cut in front of me. The dandelions he’d stood on leapt up. They can breathe. They can finally breathe. But I couldn’t. I froze. His breath puffed across my face, hot on my eyes. Even though he wasn’t touching me, I could feel his heat. His eyes were clear with the intensity that used to melt hearts but had mine building heat and speed.
“The kids are done with school? I’m going to kill you.” He was as matter-of-fact as if he were telling me what he had for dinner. “I know they did well. They’re smart.”
He may have said more, but my ears were washed over with heat, and my heartbeat, and a scream that sounded real in my head without ever passing my throat. I looked at my feet, expecting to find the perfect rock, one that would fit in my palm and against the side of his head. Cave it in. End this.
“What’s wrong? I’m going to take care of you. I can take care of my wife.” He stepped back, hands up by his shoulders as if to say, I got this.
“You’re scaring me,” I yelled, but it came out as a tear-coated whisper.
His jaw dropped, reminding me for a split second of what he looked like in the hospital room when his feet were too heavy to lift off the tile. He was not only surprised, but hurt, so unaware of what he had said that I looked away, evaluating if there was some way I had misheard him. I hadn’t.
“I’m going to kill you.”
Clear as day. Sharp as night.
“I’m going in. The kids—I’ve been out too long.” I swallowed hard, hating the familiar tiptoeing around, weighing each word before handing it over like a peace offering.
“I don’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry about—all of this. You know which words I mean.”
I had started walking and couldn’t stop even though I knew I should stay and say more, that I should smooth this over. Walking away was just the sort of thing to set him off. I waved over my head, flapping my hand like I’d been attacked by a plague of gnats. But I didn’t look back; I couldn’t turn, even though I was half convinced that he was following, stomping up the driveway, crushing dandelions along the way.
Hershey appeared next to me, a shadow materializing like a phantom. I wondered where she had been while I stood under the manic shower of Adam’s words. I didn’t blame her for disappearing; it was the smartest move when he came around. Maybe she would have jumped up to defend me if he had lifted his hands around my throat, or maybe even that wouldn’t have penetrated her own post-traumatic reaction to the scent of him. “Good girl,” I breathed. “Stay close. I won’t let him hurt you.” I tapped my thigh and made a soft click with my tongue.
The garage door had never taken so long to close. I imagined him rolling under it like Indiana Jones, crooked smile and all, grabbing an imaginary fedora.
When I walked into the dining room, I expected the kids to be pressed against the windows, terrified of all the things that might have happened. The downstairs was empty, and I could hear thunder over my head in Jada’s room, which meant she was jumping from her bed onto her furry purple beanbag chair. Tiny white balls would be puffing out the zipper like snow.
I ran to my closet, Hershey sticking close. My .38 Special—plain-Jane instead of plastic pink—was on the top shelf. I had to climb my sweater shelves like a ladder to reach her and then had to reach behind a dusty pair of five-inch heels for the bullets. My fingers were steady when I slipped the shells into the chambers and swung the barrel closed.
Locked and loaded. A phrase from one of my dad’s stories from the Honor Guard in DC. I hefted the gun, remembering his lessons on aiming and shooting so many years ago.
My hands started shaking then, jostling Karma like popcorn in a popper. Not cool. Not cool at all when I had hard decisions to make and no room for nerves. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The gun was cold and heavy. I had bought it thinking I could shoot anyone threatening my kids. Even him.
Adam wasn’t just anyone, though, and the reasons he had for being there were understandable even if I didn’t like them. It wasn’t hard to imagine shooting the person leaving knives in my bed, or torturing my dog, but he wasn’t that person all the time. In some moments he was still the yesterday Adam. The one who had sat with me, dreaming of our future at beaches and mountain cabins, of growing old together.
How could I ever reconcile him with the person who had looked me straight in the eye and said he was going to kill me?
I put Karma back on the top shelf without unloading her. Rest up, girl.