Little Comfort

by Edwin Hill

  He gripped the doorway as a wave of regret swept through him. “Shut up,” he said, punching at the doorframe. “Shut up.” He punched again and felt the skin on his knuckles tear. “Shut up, shut up!”

  He’d done this, all of it. He understood that for the first time in a long time, maybe the first time ever. He’d made that life he dreamed of impossible. He fought the tears that welled up, covering his face with his hands and wishing so much to be undone. He heard her move. And he felt her. She was still near.

  “You can leave,” she said. “Really. You have time. Head to Montreal. Sneak over the border. Learn French. Become someone new.”

  “I can’t,” Gabe said. He couldn’t listen anymore. All he wanted was to close his eyes and sleep, to disappear, to forget. “Not all alone.” Not without you.

  “You can.”

  “No.”

  “Listen to me. Do you remember when I told you that you weren’t half bad? Do you remember that? In the park? I meant it. I don’t mean it now, but I meant it then. Promise me you’ll remember that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gabe said. He was, and he only hoped that she could hear him and know that what he said was true, that he believed it more than anything he’d believed in his entire life. “For everything. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “I know you are. And I’m sorry for everything that happened to you. I am so sorry for what Cheryl and Bobby did you to you. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like. And I understand that you had to do anything you could to escape. Really, I do.”

  Gabe covered his face again.

  “Gabe?”

  She was closer. He wanted her so badly. “Yes?” he said.

  “I’m sorry for this too.”

  He turned in time to see the edge of the snowshoe before it smashed into his temple. Then the world went black.

  CHAPTER 27

  Angela rang the bell and then pounded on Hester Thursby’s front door in Somerville. She had Butch’s leash looped around one hand and a lasagna balanced on the other. She’d been going crazy sitting around the house, waiting. Isaiah had gone off to school, and Cary, after much prodding, had headed to work, yet somehow a bag of microwave popcorn and a day in front of the TV hadn’t held the same appeal as it had yesterday. So she’d stopped by animal control and picked up the dog. Then she swung over to the hospital to visit Jamie. She watched him through a window, a tube down his throat, bandages covering his chest, till a nurse came along and told her dogs weren’t allowed in the ICU. Here’s where she’d have normally flashed her badge so that she could stay, but Stan had the badge. Stan had her gun, her job, her very identity sitting in a drawer in his desk.

  Outside the hospital, in the parking lot, she was assaulted by a horde of reporters on her way to her car, yelling questions at her with phrases like “unprovoked” and “excessive force.” A crowd of civilians followed her too, their phones out, recording the commotion, as she tried to retreat to the car, tripping over the dog’s leash. Why had she gone to the hospital in a pair of fuchsia-colored sweatpants? She nearly ran into a fire hydrant as she sped out of the lot.

  Stan called a few moments later. “You need to be careful,” he said. “I saw what happened just now. It’s already on YouTube. You’re the face of this shooting. You’re all over the Web.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Angela said.

  “This’ll blow over. If we play everything right. They won’t latch on to you the way they would someone else. We don’t need a Freddie Gray situation here.”

  Angela pulled to the side of the road. Stan was nothing if not consistent. He’d do anything to keep the department free of scandal, and this time he wanted her to be the black cop, to take the fall, because for her the fall wouldn’t be that steep. He wanted her to keep the department’s nose clean. No “Black Lives Matter” in Boston. “Hey, Stan?” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I sho’ ’nough didn’t mean to shoot no nigga,” she said. “Is that black enough for you?”

  “You know that’s not what I mean.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  Now, standing on the front porch of the blue house, she saw a pair of legs coming down the stairs, and then a gray Tufts Veterinary School t-shirt as a man with red hair that stuck out in every direction appeared. It was Morgan Maguire, Hester Thursby’s partner. He looked tired, so very tired and drawn, and she wondered whether she’d actually woken him or whether, like her, he hadn’t slept. She could only imagine what his night had been like. Hester’s basset hound trotted behind him. Butch tugged on her leash and woofed. The man looked at her warily through the window, and, again, this was where Angela would normally have flashed her badge and seen his expression change. Some people grew more suspicious when cops showed up, and Angela understood that. She expected it. Others grew wary or frightened or apprehensive. Some burst out crying. It surprised Angela when someone welcomed her. It made her suspicious.

  “Dr. Maguire, can I speak to you for five minutes?” she said through the glass.

  “Are you a reporter?” Morgan asked.

  Angela shook her head, and he opened the door a crack. “Then who are you?”

  “I heard you were a vet,” she said. “I have this dog. I wanted to be sure she was okay.”

  “You should make an appointment at my office,” Morgan said. He went to shut the door, but Angela stopped him. “I made a lasagna,” she said, holding the aluminum tray toward him. “Actually I bought it. From Whole Foods. It’s vegetarian. They said to heat it at three fifty for forty-five minutes.”

  Morgan looked at the tray and didn’t seem to know what to do. He had green eyes and that translucent skin that so many redheads had. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in days.

  “I should have called,” Angela said. “I’m a cop. Or at least I was. And I will be again. Right now, I wanted to ask about your wife.”

  “I’ve been talking to the cops all night,” Morgan said. “And they don’t really let up. And I’m tired. Who are you?”

  “Sorry,” Angela said. “Let me start again.” She took a moment to explain who she was and that she’d been involved with the case till the night before. “So right now,” she said, “I guess I’m a concerned citizen. Have they made progress? Do they know what happened?”

  “Not that they’re telling me,” Morgan said. He took a deep breath and seemed to fight something off, tears or rage or defeat. “It’s been sixteen hours,” he finally said.

  “Well …” Angela leaned forward on the tips of her snow boots and held out the lasagna again. Morgan took the aluminum pan. “I’ll take a look at your dog. But you should really bring her to the office. You aren’t allergic to cats, are you?”

  “Not at all,” Angela said, as she followed him into the house and up the stairs to a cozy apartment on the second floor where a darkened Christmas tree stood by the window and drapes lay pooled on the floor. At least a half dozen kittens ran through the house. The air smelled of old kitty litter, and the counters were covered with dishes. “Do your thing,” Angela said. “I’ll keep myself busy.”

  She preheated the oven and put the lasagna in to heat up, and then plugged in the lights on the Christmas tree. She filled the sink and washed as many dishes as should could find, and then she cleaned out the kitty litter. When she’d finished, she joined Morgan in the living room.

  “She’s fine,” Morgan said, putting Butch on the floor and letting her scamper off with the basset hound. “At least from what I can tell here.”

  “Can you answer a few questions for me?” Angela asked.

  “I’ve been answering questions all night, and my lawyer left to get some sleep. I’d get some sleep too, if I could.”

  “This’ll be for me. Off the record. No lawyers necessary.”

  Morgan nodded, and Angela asked him to tell her what he remembered from the night before. He told her about Hester coming home from Jamie’s house, how she’d confessed that she’d found Sam and Gabe and go
ne to New Hampshire.

  “Did you tell the cops that?” Angela asked. “That she went to New Hampshire.”

  “Yes,” Morgan said. “And I know that wherever she went, there was a lake. But that’s it. There must be a hundred lakes in New Hampshire.”

  “What else?” Angela asked.

  Morgan told her about getting into a fight and that he’d gone to a bar. He met up with a friend—his lawyer—and they agreed to stay till closing. “I was pretty drunk when she called,” Morgan said. “But I sobered right up. Prachi called the cops, and I ran. I ran as fast as I could, and I told Kate to get out of the house and to hide in the backyard and that I was coming. I was a block away when the phone went dead. When I got here she was gone.”

  He stared off for a moment. “Do you have kids?” he asked.

  “Sort of,” Angela said. “I had a husband and no kids. Now I have a wife and her kid. He calls me Angie, which I normally hate, but I like it when he does it.”

  Morgan smiled for the first time since she’d arrived. “That’s like us,” he said. “Kate’s my sister’s kid. She’s been staying with us. Neither of us are parents, but Hester’s good with her. I’m not. I give her soda and candy to keep her from complaining. I lost her at the park the other day for five full minutes. I was supposed to take her for the whole day a few Saturdays ago, and she went crazy and threw her Cheerios across the floor, and I panicked and lied and told Hester that I’d picked up a shift at the hospital and then went to the movies all day. Hester would kill me if she knew.”

  “I use the TV as a babysitter,” Angela said. “And now that I’m on leave, I worry that Cary will think I can babysit all the time. We all do things we shouldn’t. It’s how you survive.”

  Butch leaped up on the sofa and snuggled onto Angela’s lap. She ran her fingers through the dog’s fur. “You don’t mind her on the furniture, do you?” she asked.

  “Look at this place,” Morgan said.

  “The lasagna will be ready in twenty minutes. Can you take care of it?”

  “I’ll be fine. Thank you, though.”

  Angela stood and put her coat on. “Hang in there,” she said. “Don’t give up hope, no matter what.”

  She went to shake Morgan’s hand, and then surprised herself by embracing him, something she could never do as a cop. He clung to her, and she resisted letting go till she felt him pull away. “You have friends, right?” she said. “Family? People you can rely on? You’ll need them.”

  He nodded. “A few,” he said.

  “Let them help. Even if it annoys you.”

  At the door, she checked her phone for messages and stopped. “Do you know where Kate was when she had the phone?” she asked.

  “Outside,” Morgan said.

  “But outside where?”

  “I told her to hide on the side of the house.”

  “Did the Somerville police find the phone? Have they requested the phone records?”

  “They don’t really tell me much.”

  “Come.” Angela led him out of the apartment and down the stairs. “Is this where Kate was hiding?” she asked, trudging through the snow to a clump of rhododendrons. Morgan nodded. “Call the phone,” Angela said.

  Morgan hit dial.

  Angela closed her eyes and listened till she heard a faint, muffled ringing. When it ended, she told Morgan to dial again. Finally, she got on her hands and knees and dug till she found the phone buried in the snow. She went straight to the call history and scanned for 603 area codes. Then she called Stan. “Don’t argue,” she said. “I need you to find an address for me.”

  *

  Sam drove the car into the hills over the lake as the final light from the day faded. He parked in a copse of snowy evergreens and pulled out the last postcard. It was black, a photo of nothing. He sat in the car as the cold began to creep in and then ruffled Kate’s hair. “Are you hungry, kiddo?” he asked. “I have one more errand to run, and then we can grab something. What do want?”

  “Waffles like pizza,” Kate said.

  “Does Monkey like pizza?”

  Kate nodded.

  “I like pizza too,” Sam said. “But you’ll have to eat some carrot sticks too, is that a deal?”

  “Yes,” Kate said.

  Up the street, Lila’s house looked comfortable nestled in the trees, much more comfortable than when Sam had lived there. All those years ago, meeting Gabe had awoken something inside Sam, something similar to what he felt with Kate right now, a need to protect. It had been exhilarating to feel that man’s hands in his pants, and then the hatchet in hand. The blade had cut right through the man’s skin, and blood had spilled across the floor in long, glorious splatters. More than the actual kill, more than seeing the man’s life fade away, what Sam had enjoyed most was the feel of shifting power, the way the man’s eyes had moved from desire, to confusion, to terror. In a way, Sam hoped that tonight’s visit—the return to where it had all begun—might waken something new in him, something kind and generous that he’d never known.

  As he watched, Lila’s kitchen door opened, and a pack of mongrels ran into the yard, running beneath the outside lights. They scampered in circles, each one prancing out in turn to yellow the snow. Lila joined them, stepping through the drifts in black rubber boots. Sam could see the braid falling down her back.

  “Doggies,” Kate said.

  “I’ll be careful with them,” Sam said. “You watch Monkey, okay? Make sure nothing bad happens to him.”

  Lila played with the dogs for a few moments before lifting a blue tarp from a pile of wood and sweeping the snow away. A hatchet rose from one of the logs. She gathered an armload of wood, and then stopped, her head cocked to the side, her shoulders suddenly stiff beneath her jacket. She stared into the darkness, and Sam saw her face at last, even though she couldn’t possibly see him through the dark. She took a step toward the street, and seemed to change her mind. She whistled, and the dogs filed in behind her in a line of wagging tails.

  Sam flipped the postcard over and wrote GOODBYE in block letters. It wasn’t a quote, but people said goodbye in movies all the time, and this would be the last of the postcards anyway. He wondered if she’d recognize him when he knocked, or whether he’d see the terror dawn the same way he had with Cheryl Jenkins earlier.

  “I’ll be back in five,” he said to Kate.

  “Daddy back in five,” Kate said to Monkey.

  At the door to the house, he pried the hatchet free. Inside, a chorus of barks began.

  *

  Hester raised the snowshoe over her head to smash it down one more time, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Gabe lay sprawled on the floor. A trail of blood ran down his temple. She grabbed a blanket from by the fire and draped it over her shoulders. She struggled to fit the snowshoes over her sneakers. And she imagined. She imagined Gabe tackling her. She imagined him binding her arms and legs. She imagined Sam appearing out of the trees. She remembered being trapped in her closet at home, trying to birth her way through that dog door. She heard the slam of the trunk, and the crunch of snow beneath her slippers. She remembered believing she would die.

  The shoes were on.

  She could see the outline of the car keys in Gabe’s front pocket. She tried to slip a hand in to retrieve them, but he groaned and grabbed her wrist. She shook him off and sidestepped down the stairs. He crawled after her into the doorway. His fingers grasped the edge of the blanket. She yanked it away.

  And she ran.

  She lifted the snowshoes through the drifts, running in what seemed like slow motion, ignoring the snow that fell down her back and filled her sneakers and the branches that reached out and grabbed at her. Head up. Hands out. Find an opening through the trees. Look for footprints.

  Make plans.

  Think about home.

  Find Kate.

  How would they spend the rest of their lives? She’d start by telling Morgan that she understood who they were now, that they took in strays beca
use they could, because they had the gift of capacity in a way that others didn’t, that they could open their lives to whatever came, whether dogs or cats or rabbits or rats. Or children. She imagined Waffles lapping her face. She’d take the dog to the park and throw the ball even if the damn thing refused to fetch. She saw Morgan’s hair turning white and the crow’s feet deepening around her own eyes.

  But most of all, she saw Kate growing, getting her ears pierced, blushing over her first date, driving. She saw Kate with her, always and forever.

  The blanket caught on a branch, and she left it behind. She pitched headfirst over a boulder, and then scrambled on all fours across the snow. And then she could see the road through the line of trees and the car buried in snow. She tried the doors. They were locked. She swept snow from the windshield and wrote her name on it in case anyone found the car. Then she kicked off the snowshoes and was on the road, running, looking for a house, any house where someone seemed to be home.

  She’d have pizza for breakfast and watch Cars for the seventy-seventh time. She’d find Daphne, if only to say do what you need to do, be whoever you need to be, take whatever time you need even if it’s the rest of your life, and you’ll always be my friend, and I’ll always love you no matter what, and I know that you trusted me. Kate can be mine, or she can be ours, but she’ll be wonderful no matter what. Hester would be sure of it.

  She had to pee, and she did. The warm wetness spread down her legs and soaked into her pajamas, and she was grateful for the momentary warmth.

  She’d change out of these pajamas. She’d hold her feet and hands right over an open flame to defrost them. She’d say hello to her neighbors and make new friends. And she’d meet them for drinks.

  She’d visit her mother.

  Maybe.

  She turned into the hills toward Lila’s house. She passed someone else’s unplowed driveway, which led to a house with no lights or cars or smoke coming from the chimney. Her lungs burned. Her arms flailed. Her legs stretched longer than she’d ever imagined they could. The tiny house appeared around the corner, lit up under a moon that poked out from behind clouds. Smoke poured from the chimney. Her stomach made a noise that was more moan than growl, the kind of pathetic, sad noise a starving dog might make. She wanted the biggest fucking pastrami sandwich she’d ever seen in her entire life. Slathered with mustard. And a mountain of French fries.