by Allen Eskens
Lila remains in the doorway, a stone in a stream as the last few people part and flow around her. I wait for a smile, but it doesn’t come. We stare at each other as time freezes around us. Then she shakes her head, looks down at the sidewalk, and walks away.
I’m gutted. Nothing inside of me. I want to follow her, chase her. I want to convince her that she’s wrong, but how can I? I did this.
I walk back toward my car but pass it by and keep walking until I get to a small knoll at the edge of the property, a strip of grass lined with pine trees and a white fence. I let the black-eyed Susan fall to the ground before I sit in the grass and bury my face in my arms. I close my eyes and see six years of memories playing out in my mind. Even in the worst of times, life with Lila was good. I should be crying, but that seems too self-serving. She’s doing what she needs to do to protect herself. I understand that.
Soon, the sound of cars leaving the parking lot dies away, and I’m pretty sure that I am alone. That’s when I hear a sound of something on the grass near me. I look up and see Lila sitting against the fence just beyond my reach. I don’t know how long she’s been there, but she’s watching me in silence.
“You really hurt me, Joe,” she says. “I don’t think you know how much.”
The words I’m sorry seem inadequate, but I say them anyway.
“Why?” she asks. “That’s what I want to know. Why did you do it? I don’t understand.”
I look back at the ground so that I can keep my composure. “I’ve been asking myself that question. I’ve been beating myself up trying to understand it. But everything I come up with is weak and pitiful. The truth is there is no excuse for what I did.”
“I’m not enough for you?” Her question spills out like it had been on the tip of her tongue for days.
“Enough for me?” I look hard into her eyes. What I’m about to say is the most honest thing I’ve ever told her, and I need her to believe me. “Lila, you are the love of my life. If you walk away from me, you will still be the love of my life. It may be too late. I may have screwed this up beyond repair, but know that I will love you until the day I die. No matter what happens next, I just need you to know that.”
Lila looks at the grass beyond her feet as my words evaporate into nothing. The quiet between us grows until I can’t take it anymore, and I try to fill the void. “How’d the test go?”
“I’ll have to wait and see, I guess.”
Again, we return to an uncomfortable silence. I struggle to find something to say, finally coming up with, “Jeremy’s with Mom. She’s doing really well.”
“I know,” Lila says. “We talked.”
“You talked…to Kathy? When?”
“I called her last night. I wanted to see how Jeremy was doing. You know what she said?”
I shake my head no.
“She thinks I should give you another chance. Apparently, she doesn’t believe that a person can be a lost cause.”
I look at Lila, hoping to see a smile, but she continues to stare at the grass. “What about you?” I ask. “Do you think I’m a lost cause?”
She hesitates before answering, and then says, “I don’t believe in lost causes, remember?” She smiles a fragile smile, and it means everything to me.
“I’m not a millionaire,” I say, thinking that I needed her to know that for some reason.
“I never thought you were.”
“And I don’t have a sister. I did for a while, but not really.”
Lila gives me an expression of confusion. “Was the man who died…was he your father?”
“He was, and I think the whole world should be thankful that he’s gone. It’s a long story. Oh, and my car got burned up.”
“Your car got—” She looks around the parking lot. “Then how’d you get here?”
I point at the GTO, parked all alone about thirty feet away from us, calico patches of body putty running down its side. “That’s part of the long story.”
Now she smiles a genuine smile—in spite of herself, I think. She picks up the black-eyed Susan lying near her feet and twirls it gently in her fingers. “Maybe we should go home and you can tell me this story of yours,” she says.
“Home.” I whisper the word to myself, and it makes me think of something that Bob Mullen said. Sometimes home isn’t a place, it’s a person. I take a slow breath in and smell the crisp scent of grass and pine—and hope.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Robert Spande, Amy Forliti, Tim Volz, Margaret Korberoski, Tami Peterson, and Ronda Rolfes Dever for their insights and expertise; I hope I got the details correct.
I would also like to thank my first readers, my wife, Joely, and my good friends Nancy Rosin and Terry Kolander for their help and support.
Thank you Amy Cloughley, my agent, for your continued steady hand.
And a special thank you goes out to Reagan Arthur, Joshua Kendall, Anna Goodlett, Maggie Southard, Shannon Hennessey, Pamela Brown, Michael Noon, Shannon Langone, the sales team, and the rest of my new team at Mulholland Books. I’m honored to be working with you.
About the Author
Allen Eskens is the USA Today bestselling author of The Life We Bury, The Guise of Another, The Heavens May Fall, and The Deep Dark Descending. He is the recipient of the Barry Award, the Rosebud Award, and the Silver Falchion Award, and the Minnesota Book Award. He has also been a finalist for the Edgar Award, Thriller Award, and the Anthony Award. His work had been published in twenty-one languages and his novel The Life We Bury is in development for a feature film.
Eskens lives with his wife and their rescue dogs in Greater Minnesota.
Also by Allen Eskens
The Life We Bury
The Guise of Another
The Heavens May Fall
The Deep Dark Descending
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