Lester closed his eyes, felt sleep waiting for him there behind his eyelids and in his limbs, a heavy dark warmth, and he opened them again; he knew the shooting of the colonel’s son would add a decade or more to any conviction. And even if he was found guilty of lesser charges, his life in law enforcement was over. He wanted to see Kathy. The patrol cars would be at her place in Corona now, more men in French blue moving in on her, escorting her from her house, most likely charging her with everything they were giving him. But she hadn’t answered, so maybe she’d left already. Maybe she’d dropped Mrs. Behrani off at the hospital and just kept driving. But he hoped that wasn’t true. He hoped at the very least she was waiting for him somewhere. He wanted to see her right now. He wanted to stretch out beside her and rest his cheek on her bare breast, smell her smooth olive skin, hear the beating of her melancholy heart. He wanted to push himself all the way inside her and tell her not to worry, don’t worry about anything.
Lester closed his eyes again, but when he did he saw the colonel’s son standing there in the sunlight pointing the gun at him, his brown eyes moist with fear, one hand raised like he was getting ready to break and run, something Lester was certain the boy would have done if he’d known the truth, that the pistol was empty and useless. But Lester had denied him the truth to save himself; he had let fear have its way and now he could only imagine that it had been otherwise, that the boy dropped the weapon and ran through the coffee crowd and away, his lean arms pumping, his thick black hair jerking slightly, people getting out of his way, Lester wrestling himself from the colonel just to watch, watch that one boy fly to someplace better than this. And he thought again of the men who’d shot Esmail, practically boys themselves, letting their fear rule them as well.
After what seemed a long while, Lester’s body began to feel like part of the bunk. He was breathing deeply through his nose, and as sleep began to take him he mouthed a prayer for Esmail, for his full recovery, and he saw himself holding and kissing Bethany and Nate. Then he was in a boat on some river and Carol and Kathy were lying beside him and there were thunderheads in the sky but there was nothing to do about them, and so Lester closed his eyes, one arm beneath each woman. Something rumbled far off in the eastern sky. The air began to turn cool. He breathed in the smell of fish scales and perfume and damp wood. One of the women let out a whimper, as if in the middle of a bad dream, but Lester just settled deeper into the bottom of the boat and waited, waited for the river to take them where it was going to anyway, to the inevitable conclusion of all he had done and failed to do, the air cooler now, almost cold, the boat beginning to rock.
T HE SKY WAS BLACK AND TURNED TO BLUE JUST BEFORE A RIBBON OFbright coral opened like a cut on the horizon. At the edge of the parking lot, on the other side of a tall wooden fence, were juniper trees planted in a yard. The grass was thick and short, and there was a sandbox and swing set and jungle gym all made from dark beautiful wood—redwood, or maybe cedar. The house was beige stucco with a sienna tile roof and a low wide deck only a step off the ground, no railing, and four white plastic chairs around an umbrella table. Beside them, a child’s plastic wading pool covered with smiling spouting blue whales, and I watched from the other side of the fence, two stories up, each swallow a hook in the stitched belly of my throat.
At seven, a male nurse brought me orange juice, coffee, and a bowl of soupy Cream of Wheat. But I didn’t touch it and not long after, the back door of the house opened and a tiny brown-haired boy came running off the deck to the sandbox and blurred. I wiped my eyes. He put his hands in the sand, then lifted them over his head and let it sift down onto his hair. His mother set a mug of coffee or tea on the umbrella table, her long red hair catching the sunlight. She wore shorts and a loose T-shirt, and when she stepped off the deck and squatted at the sandbox I could see her thigh muscles. She was laughing, frisking the sand out of her son’s hair, then she turned and went back to her coffee, sat at the umbrella table and started to read. The little boy sat with his back to the fence and the hospital on the other side, his thick hair sticking out in curls behind his ears. I stared at the miniature blue-and-yellow-striped shirt he wore, at his small bare arms and hands, at how big his head looked on his shoulders. Each swallow was thumbs crushing my Adam’s apple all over again, and so I swallowed more than I needed, pictured the toddler in the yard growing into a boy with blue jeans and a red bike, then a teenager with a skateboard or maybe a beat-up car, and I swallowed twice and finally saw him as a man, a tall young man with a wife and child of his own. He’d drive up to that house across the parking lot and visit his mother and father—but the image wouldn’t stay and instead I kept seeing Mrs. Behrani’s son as I last saw him, climbing out of my car into the sunshine, glancing at Lester the way I’d seen high school boys wait for instruction from their coaches.
The boy lifted a truck over his head, dropping it onto something metal I couldn’t see. The mother glanced up at the sound, then went back to her newspaper, and the door behind me opened and the deputy sheriff stuck his head in, saw me sitting at the window in my hospital gown. He looked at me like he was trying to figure out what else I might be doing besides sitting, then he closed the door.
Yesterday, in another hospital, I woke to see Lester standing at the foot of the bed, my throat swollen and so dry it had cracked. His uniform was clean, his dark hair seemed too short, and he’d shaved his mustache, but I wanted him to come closer. I tried to speak but a nurse put her fingers on my wrist and told me to stay quiet. She was old and slender. I looked back at Lester, but it wasn’t him. This man was younger. His black hair was almost shaved and his eyes were not brown, but blue. I tried to sit up but the nurse put her hand on my shoulder, then showed me the button, and I pushed it and the mattress raised me forward and the nurse left the room. The deputy walked around to the side of my bed. There was another man in the chair behind him, older, with sandy hair and a tanned lined face. He had a piece of paper in his hand and he stood, introduced himself and the younger deputy, then opened it and read what I was being charged with: Aggravated Kidnapping, False Imprisonment, Brandishing a Weapon.
The young deputy leaned forward. My nose felt stopped-up, but I could smell his aftershave. “We know you’re not able to talk right now, Mrs. Lazaro. Would you like us to call your lawyer?”
I remembered the screech of tires in my driveway, the front door swinging open. I had expected to see Lester first, but when I saw the colonel, his bald head silhouetted against the sunlight in the yard, I knew he was alone and then I couldn’t move and his hands were around my neck, shaking me, my hair in my face, and I couldn’t breathe and a buzzing darkness was rising up inside my head.
I nodded at the deputy. He handed me a small notepad and pen and I wrote Connie Walsh’s name and number, then: What about Behrani? What’s he being charged with?