You know I love you, right?
I love you too.
He exhaled. When I came up here I told my uncle David the whole thing. All of it. Just like I am now. We were pretty sure the police would be looking for me. So he decided I needed a new name.
She was silent then, staring at him.
Bill was my brother’s name, he said softly.
Her mouth trembled and her eyes were glassy with tears. I don’t understand what you’re telling me, she said at last.
It’s not the name I was born with. My name before was Nat. Nathaniel.
Nathaniel? she said.
Nathaniel Timothy Reed. My brother was Bill. William Chester Reed.
She sat there in the long silence that followed, no longer looking at him, instead staring off into the room somewhere, at the falling snow beyond the window glass. The forest was back there, rising up the ridge behind the house. Sometimes they would lie in bed and watch bats swirling through the thick stands of tamarack and bull pine and red cedar. Maybe that would never happen again now. Maybe everything he ever let into his heart would turn to smoke. Most of it already had.
So what am I supposed to call you then?
Bill, he said. That’s who I am. That person I was before is just gone.
What the hell is that supposed to mean? she said.
He did not respond. He thought her next words would be to ask him to leave. She would not look at him, instead only stared into the far side of the room. Then her voice came at last: I’m gonna need a beer.
Me too.
Maybe a whiskey.
Me too.
I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do with all of this, she said.
I just want you to know what happened. I don’t need to you to do anything.
So this guy Rick … he’s here. In Bonners.
Yes.
And that safe is the safe on the floor of your closet in the trailer?
Was, he said. I gave it to him.
He told her then that he had kept the safe all those years despite knowing that its serial number could, at any moment, tie him back to Reno, back to that winter of 1984, how he kept it even though his uncle told him that he should be rid of it, that it was evidence of the crime in which he had been involved, but he had kept the safe anyway, that
perhaps it had been a kind of penance to do so, to be reminded of where he had come from, the black box holding a sense of gravity that rippled from where he had been to where he was and he knew, had always known, that he might have turned away from all of it were it not for the need to hold this final talisman, an iron to the knowledge that one day Rick would return and everything he had made of his life would be called into question. And of course that was exactly what had come to pass.
So if you gave him the safe and that’s what he came up here for, then why is he still here? And why is he talking to Jude? She looked at him now, her eyes filled with rage and sadness all at once.
I don’t know, he said.
That’s not good enough.
I don’t have a better answer, he said, his lie twisting inside his chest like a blade. I wish I did but I just don’t. He won’t leave. I don’t know why.
Jesus. She was silent for a long moment. Then she said, You didn’t tell anyone about this, did you? I mean you didn’t tell the sheriff or anything?
I haven’t told anyone at all in twelve years.
Goddammit, Bill. Or Nat. Or whatever I’m supposed to call you now.
Bill, he said.
Whatever, she said. You should have called Earl as soon as Rick called you the first time.
I was hoping he’d just give up and go away.
Christ, Bill. What if he does something? What if he does something to Jude to get to you? Isn’t that what he’s saying? That he can get to Jude?
That’s why I’m telling you, he said. His eyes had brimmed over with tears and they flew hot and fast down his face but his voice was steady. There was that small victory over himself at least.
You should have told me before.
I know.
I mean all of it.
I didn’t want you to know.
She fell silent again. Then she said, I need a drink.
All right.
Come on. She rose from the couch and he followed. The clock in the kitchen read two in the morning. It’s late, she said.
He said nothing in response.
She removed a bottle from the upper cabinet and he pulled out two glasses and cracked a dozen cubes onto the counter and then filled the tray at the sink and returned it to the freezer. She poured both their glasses and then splashed hers with some water from the tap and took a long drink. He did the same.
I’m sorry, Grace.
You lied to me.
I didn’t want you to know.
Why not?
Because it doesn’t matter anymore. I left all of that behind.
Not all of it, she said.
No, I guess not.
Why’d you do all of that?
Honestly, it feels like someone else did all that stuff. I know a lot of it was just flailing around trying to find some way out.
Out of what?
Out of myself, he said. I guess that sounds pretty stupid.
No, she said, I know how that feels. Everybody knows how that feels. She sipped at the whiskey.
I’m just trying to be a good person, Grace. He stopped, faltered, then said, Or a better one.
Good people don’t lie to their girlfriends.
I know that too.
I was already married to a guy who lied to me.
This isn’t the same thing.
She looked at him, her mouth open.
It’s not, he said. I promise. It’s not the same thing.
He promised too.
He was fucking around on you, he said. This isn’t that.
Goddammit, she said then. Is that everything now, or is there more?
Yeah, that’s everything.
She paused a long moment and then blurted out: Christ, gambling?
Yep.
You won’t even put money in the grammar school raffle.
And now you know why.
A silence fell over them. Outside the kitchen window, snow fluttered like moths against the glass.
You want me to go? he said.
No, I need you to stay here.