At the thought, she flinches reflexively, standing in the Laundromat among the mechanistic whir, as though she’s heard a gunshot just now, they sneak up on her, these phantom shots. She glances back at the TV, bewildered for a moment, wondering if maybe something happened on the screen. But the wannabe politician on-screen is still smiling and talking, nodding, the sound’s still muted, the only noise the perpetual sloshing of the washers, and it’s nothing, the moment’s over.
Isaac, below her, looks up, still worried.
Poor Isaac. She’s literally all he has.
She shakes it off, does her best to smile, and reaches out to give his shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and she glances at the etched tattoo that encircles her wrist, the forgotten numbers that she almost never thinks to notice anymore.
Cooper unfolds the fax on his kitchen table. Smoothes it out under the overhead lamp. Reads the single word again. No reason to, it’s not going to change, but he does it anyway.
Tomorrow.
He folds the fax and puts it back in his pocket. Checks the clock. Nearly ten P.M.
Cooper has set his last unopened bottle of Old Grand-Dad bourbon on the table. A new shipment of provisions comes in tomorrow morning, and Greta will definitely set aside something just for him, she always does, but this is his in-case-of-emergency-break-glass secret reserve. You can’t open it lightly. He picks up the bottle, considers the unbroken seal.
Dean is the last one—Cooper’s decided that already. Colfax, Gable, Dean, then he’s done. Not that he went into this with much of a plan, just an offer in hand, a bag of dangled cash, but he definitely has a plan now. And three should be enough. More than enough. It should be plenty.
He hates to break into his last bottle, his emergency reserve, just on principle.
Besides, he’s got one more important thing to do tonight.
He needs a drink. But he needs a clear head more.
He taps the cap. A nervous drumbeat.
Checks the clock again. Just past ten.
Isaac will be asleep by now.
Cooper remembers when he used to visit Fran late at night for entirely different reasons. How she always told him it was safe to come after ten.
How he’d sneak over, under cover of darkness, hoping none of her nosy neighbors would spot him. Hell, Doris Agnew, who lives right next door to Fran, is the worst wag in the town.
How Fran would answer the door without a word and he’d slip inside and spend an hour or so with her, pretending they were somewhere that’s not here. Being as quiet as they could. Pretending they were people who aren’t the people that they are. A few hours in the darkness, together, complicit in indulging that luxury. Just like a normal couple somewhere. You could almost believe it, in the dark. Imagining some other story for themselves, some escape.
He hated breaking it off. Hated it. Hated watching her take the news. Hated seeing this strong woman try stubbornly to keep her face from falling at his weak excuses and pathetic dissembling and obvious lies. Hated watching it dawn on her that even this lowly, inadequate, compromised scrap of human contact they’d forged together was going to be denied her. Cooper doesn’t fool himself into thinking he’s some prize catch. Far from it. He understands that her sorrow in that moment was spurred entirely by the realization that she couldn’t even have something so broken and cheap, so compensatory, not even that, so she could forget about ever finding anything worthwhile.
And most of all he hated watching her realize right before his eyes that those stolen hours they’d spent together were nothing but mutual lies, told to each other in silence in the dark, with the understanding that they’d both pretend to believe that they were true. That in the light of day her life is nothing more than what it is, and always will be. That whoever she used to be, whatever she can’t remember, it doesn’t matter, she’s here now, within these fences, with her son, with nothing but fake names and endless days and no escape.
That’s what she thinks, unless he can convince her otherwise.
He unwedges the bottle from his thighs and sets it aside on the table, unopened. He’ll have to break that emergency glass another time.
Tonight, he needs his head clear.
He hated to do it, he hated to end it. It was the one good thing he can remember in his life, that one weekly hour of escaping, but that’s exactly why he had to break it off. He had to think of the bigger picture. Which, for her, can’t include him. For her, or for her son.
Keep telling yourself that, Cooper.
He checks the clock. It’s time to go.
You’ve got one more chance to save the day, he thinks.
She answers the door, drying her hands with a dish towel, after his second knock.
“You want to come inside?” she says.
“Maybe it’s better if we speak out here. Or walk a little. Will Isaac be okay?”
“Sure, for a moment. He’s asleep.”
They walk up the street together, in the dark, toward the perimeter fence. At the end of the block, she pulls out her pack of cigarettes. “You mind? I like to multitask.”
“You still hiding that habit from Isaac?”
“I’m still pretending he doesn’t know,” she says. “Or that I don’t know he knows—I’ve lost track.” She sticks the cigarette in her mouth and pulls out a lighter and sparks it. Cooper’s about to speak but she hushes him with a raised finger. Takes a long drag. Then exhales.
“That’s the only part I really enjoy,” she says. “So it’s important to maintain a proper reverence.” She puts the cigarette to her lips again and takes a long second drag. She exhales, then says, “Second drag’s never as good,” then drops the cigarette to the dirt and grinds it out with a little halfhearted twist, like a weary dancer at the end of a marathon, just trying to stay upright and keep dancing.
They walk a little farther, until they’re standing right under the fence. Looking out beyond the chain link: Nothing. Total darkness. The watching world, presumably.
“I’m sorry about today,” says Cooper.
“No, I owe you an apology. I looked for his treasure box. The one where he keeps the cards? It’s gone.”
“Look, that doesn’t mean—”
“Don’t bullshit me,” she says. “Sometimes I wonder if I even know him at all anymore.”
“Kids are hard.”
“Easy for you to say, given you don’t have one.”
“There’s a parenting book you could read,” Cooper says. “It’s called Raising Icarus. Just sound advice about kids, you know, keeping them close but not too close. It’s written by a single mother who did a hell of a job with her son. I’m sure we have it at the library. I asked them to order a few copies a while back.”
She turns in the dark to look at him. “What the hell are you doing reading parenting books anyway, Calvin Cooper? Aren’t you just full of surprises.”
“I heard about it on the radio once,” he says. “Before I came out here. Recommended it to a few people over the years. They seemed to find it useful.”
Off in the distance, they can both hear a rising whine as Ginger’s coydogs start in on their nightly serenade.
“Believe it or not, there are things about this place I would definitely miss,” Fran says.
“That’s what I want to talk to you about. I came to tell you that you need to go. As soon as possible.”
“We’ve talked about this—”
“It’s different now. Trust me. Take Isaac. Tomorrow.”
“What the hell, Calvin?”
“Trust me.”