"Want to go with me?" the Coachman asked.
For a long moment, Ed looked at the reins. Everywhere but home. Never that sigh at the end of the day, never the grocery clerk knowing your name, the paper boy yelling hi to you on the street. Never turning to a friend and saying, "I know this great little hole-in-the-wall restaurant." Never a bar where you could stand up and call over your shoulder as you walked out, "Put it on my tab." The price tag on all the worlds was to always be a stranger.
"Naw," Ed told him. "But it's been great to be along for the ride."
Worlds are spinning away beneath his wheels. A thousand possibilities, a million. Sometimes he thinks he knows what would be best. He thinks he could let one off here, put another there, and they would be happy. But it is not for him to decide. It is only for him to offer. He will not persuade, he will not dissuade. He offers, and he listens, as the horses run on under his hands.
The car interior smelled like furniture polish. The seats were deep, deeper than their family car, and Durand was sunk in his so far he could barely see out the window. His mom sat beside him, holding his hand. He wished she wouldn't. He'd been hugged,patted and held beyond endurance by well-meaning people attempting to console him. What he needed was to be left alone.
Sergeant Cleary was driving slowly. Giles Durand tried to see his face in the rearview mirror, but the sergeant's hat was low over his eyes. His hands looked strange on the wheel, skinny and freckled, not like his dad's hands had looked. He'd never see his dad's hands on a steering wheel again. It was another one of those thoughts; he knew it was true, but he didn't believe it. He kept looking into the empty passenger seat, knowing that if he saw his father there,he wouldn't be surprised. Someday, he knew, it would all become real, but it hadn't yet. He tried to listen to what his mom was saying.
"… change your mind. I know it's hard for you to understand…"
You'll understand when you're elder, son.
"… but you have to keep believing in everything he taught you, Giles. Daddy died, but he died doing what was right. That's what we have to hold on to.That he died for what he believed in, and we have to keep on believing in it…"
In the front seat. Sergeant shifted uneasily. He glanced back once at Giles, then shifted his eyes back to the road. His mother was still talking.
"That's what we have to remember. When you grow up and you're a policeman like Daddy, that's the code you'll have to live by, too. To do what's right, no matter what the cost. Your daddy believed in that, Giles. He lived for that, and he died for that,and that's what we have to remember about him. That's what everyone will remember about him, and the people he helped will always be grateful that he was that way."
"Then why weren't they there today, at the funeral?"
"What?"
The suddenness of his mother's confusion made him realize that she hadn't been talking to him at all; she'd been holding onto him while she talked aloud to herself. Maybe even saying it out loud so the sergeant would hear her say it, and would go back to the station and tell all the other cops what she had said. As soon as the boy thought that, he knew it was true. But it didn't keep him from asking the question again.
"All those people he helped by being a cop. Why weren't any of them there? It was just us and Grandma, and Uncle Ted, and all the other cops. How come all the people he helped weren't there?"
"Well, honey, it wasn't like they all knew him personally. It was what he symbolized that was important. I guess you're a little too young to understand what I mean by that…"
You'll understand when you're older, son. His dad pushing the girl's face away from his crotch, and turning away from her and Giles as he zipped his pants up. The station house locker room had smelled like dirty socks, and his dad's face had been very red. Sergeant Cleary had laughed, then. Now he didn't even smile.
"… but it's like, he wasn't a person to them, he was a policeman. Most of them probably never even knew his name."
"That girl did." Giles glanced up at the sergeant in the rearview mirror. He'd been there, he would know; but he didn't meet Giles's eyes. "Remember her. Sergeant Cleary?"
The Sergeant kept driving, his hands tight on the wheel, his jaw set.
Giles opened his mouth to speak, and at that moment it seemed that he could see and hear what was going to happen. She knew his name, he would say.She called him Ricky, though, not Richard like you do, but she knew his name. And Dad was helping her, really helping her to let her do that to him so she wouldn't have to go to jail, because she was really too young to have to go to jail. So if he helped her and she wasn't in jail, why wasn't she there, the funeral today? And then his mother would turn, and ask him more questions, and Sergeant Cleary would sink lower in his seat. And in the end, after he'd told her all about it, she'd turn and coldly ask the sergeant, who would say he didn't know what the kid was talking about. Then his mom would turn and slap him, slap him so fast and hard that he never even saw her hand, would only remember hitting his head on the shiny upholstery so hard it was like a slap on the other side of his face. And then they wouldn't talk anymore, and they would never, ever talk about the ride home from the funeral and what he had said,and it would almost be like it had never happened.He wouldn't remember it, but he and his mom would never be able to forget it when they talked about his dad's. So they wouldn't talk about him very much. How could he know that?
"What girl?" said his mother sharply.
"Oh, some girl Sergeant Cleary once told me about.A girl dad had to arrest, but then he let go," said Giles.
His mom smiled indulgently. "Richard arrested someone and then let her go? Giles, I don't think policemen are allowed to do things like that. Once they arrest someone, that person has to be punished."
In the front seat. Sergeant Clearly stirred. "It depends, ma'am," he said softly. "Sometimes you give a first offender a break. Sometimes you know they don't really deserve the blot on their record, so you let them off the hook."
His mom looked puzzled for a moment, but didn't say anything else, and Giles sat back, wondering why he had the feeling that something horrible had-just been averted, wondering how he could remember suddenly that Captain Cleary had sat in the front row when he graduated from the academy.
The Coachman looks at the young man seated next to him, and finds the young man staring back at him. "What changed?" asked the policeman, and the Coachman isn't certain how to answer.
"You did," he says at last. "You took a different path."
"But I-" he doesn't complete the sentence. After a moment he says, "A better one?"
"I don't know," says the Coachman. "Better for whom?" Then, "Did you and your mother talk about your dad much?"
"Huh? Sure. All the time… oh."
The horses never tire. Nor does the Coachman. Beyond,back a forever behind them, something that wasn't real,that never should have existed, collapses in on itself. It doesn't leave a hole, for a thousand other possibilities flow in to take its place.
The Coachman sighs.
One left to ask. And the choice he must offer is bitter.This one he dreads. Never has he felt himself such a sly trickster as he does right now. He knows it is not upon him to choose what to offer. Each chooses what to offer himself.But from this, if he could, he would rein aside, would have the horses find a better path.
If the choice were his.
But it isn't.
Each breath was painful. Stepovich couldn't understand it. The night was cool-warm, full of summer city peace, the steady slow clop of the hooves was soothing as a lullaby. Beside him, the Coachman drove silently. That was fine with him. He'd had enough noise and action lately. This peace, this was what he wanted. It had been a long, hard day, full of stress, all blurring behind him. This quietness now,this was good.