He flashed on that morning, his irritation at the sight of Anton, the melancholy he’d felt as he inspected his sagging stomach. As depleted as he was, her insinuating tone made Clint want to punch something.
“Your feelings are normal, Clint. Don’t get down on yourself.” She turned sympathetic, gentle. “Every man wants to be the Man. The one who rides in, says nothing but yup, nope, and draw, cleans up the town, and rides away again. After sleeping with the prettiest wench in the saloon, of course. Which ignores the central problem. You men butt your horns and the banging gives the whole planet a headache.”
“Can you really end it?”
“Did you kiss your wife goodbye?”
“Yes,” Clint said. “Just a moment ago. We’ve had better ones, but I tried. She did, too.” He inhaled. “I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this.”
“Because you believe me. And I actually know you kissed her. I was watching. I’m a terrible peeper. I should stop, but I’m a sucker for romance. I’m glad you worked everything out tonight, too, got it all on the table. It’s what’s left unspoken that can really damage a marriage.”
“Thank you, Dr. Phil. Answer my question. Can you end it?”
“Yes. Here’s the deal. Keep me alive until, oh, sunrise next Tuesday. Or maybe a day or two later, I can’t tell for sure. Should be at sunrise, though.”
“What happens if I—if we—do that?”
“I might be able to fix things. So long as they agree.”
“So long as who agrees?”
“The women, silly. The women from Dooling. But if I die, no agreement they come to will matter. It can’t be one or the other. It has to be both.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about!”
“You will. Eventually. Perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow. And by the way, she was right. You never discussed the pool with her. Although you did show her a few pictures. Guess you thought that would be enough.”
“Evie—”
“I’m glad you kissed her. I’m very glad. I like her.”
Evie broke the connection and placed Hicks’s cell phone carefully on the little shelf meant for her personal belongings—of which she had none. Then, she lay down on her bunk, rolled onto her side, and soon fell asleep.
9
Lila fully intended to go directly to the sheriff’s station, but when she backed down the driveway and swerved onto the street, her headlights spotted a white thing sitting in a lawn chair on the opposite side. Old Mrs. Ransom. Lila could hardly blame Jared for leaving her there. He’d had the little girl to think about, the one now lying upstairs in the spare bedroom. Holly? Polly? No, Molly. A fine drizzle was falling.
She pulled into the Ransom driveway, then went around back and rummaged through the crap in the rear seat for her Dooling Hound Dogs baseball cap, because the drizzle was thickening to a steady light rain. It might put the fires out, and that was good. She checked Mrs. Ransom’s front door. It was unlocked. She crossed to the lawn chair and lifted the cocooned woman into her arms. She was prepared for a burden, but Mrs. Ransom weighed no more than ninety pounds. Lila could press more than that in the gym. And what did it matter? Why was she even doing this?
“Because it’s the decent thing,” she said. “Because a woman is not a lawn ornament.”
As she climbed the steps, she saw fine threads detach themselves from the white ball surrounding Mrs. Ransom’s head. They wavered as if in a breeze, but there was no breeze. They were reaching for her, for the sea of sleep just waiting behind her forehead. She blew them away, and struggled backward down the hall to the old lady’s living room. Open on the rug was a coloring book with a scattering of markers around it. What was that little girl’s name again?
“Molly,” Lila said as she pulled the encased woman up onto a couch. “Her name was Molly.” She paused. “Is Molly.”
Lila put a throw pillow beneath Mrs. Ransom’s head and left her.
After locking the old lady’s front door, she went to her cruiser and started the engine, reached for the gearshift, then dropped her hand. Suddenly the sheriff’s station seemed like a pointless destination. Furthermore, it seemed at least fifty miles away. She could probably get there without hitting a tree (or some woman trying to jog away sleep), but what was the sense?
“If not the office, what?” she asked her car. “What?”
She took the contact lens case from her pocket. There was another wake-up shot in the other container, the one marked L, but the question recurred: What was the sense in fighting it? Sleep would catch her eventually. It was inevitable, so why postpone it? According to Shakespeare, it knitted up the raveled sleeve of care. And at least she and Clint had gotten some of that fabled closure he was always going on about.
“I was a fool,” she confessed to the police car’s interior. “But Your Honor, I plead sleep deprivation.”
If that was all it was, why hadn’t she confronted him sooner? With everything that happened, it seemed unforgivably small. It was embarrassing.
“All right,” she said, “I plead fear, Your Honor.”
But she wasn’t afraid now. She was too spent to be afraid. She was too spent to be anything.
Lila yanked the mic from its prongs. It actually felt heavier than Mrs. Ransom—how weird was that?
“Unit One to Base. Are you still there, Linny?”
“Still here, boss.” Linny had probably been into the powdered goodies again; she sounded as chipper as a squirrel sitting on a pile of fresh acorns. Also, she had gotten a full eight hours the night before, instead of going all the way to Coughlin in McDowell County and driving aimlessly until dawn, thinking bad thoughts about a husband who had turned out to be faithful after all. Ah, but so many of them weren’t, and was that a reason or only an excuse? Was it even true? Could you find statistics about fidelity on the Internet? Would they be accurate?
Shannon Parks had asked Clint to sleep with her, and he had said no. That’s how faithful he was.
But . . . that was what he was supposed to be, wasn’t it? Did you get medals for keeping your promises and living up to your responsibilities?
“Boss? Read me?”
“I won’t be in for awhile, Linny. Got something I need to do.”
“Roger that. What’s up?”
This was a question Lila chose not to answer. “Clint needs to go back to the prison after he has a little rest. Give him a call around eight, will you? Make sure he’s up and ask him to check in on Mrs. Ransom on his way out. He needs to take care of her. He’ll understand what that means.”
“Okay. Wake-up calls aren’t my specialty, but I don’t mind branching out. Lila, are you all r—”