“I was lonely. You wouldn’t understand because you like being alone. I thought for a long time that’s how you handled pain but I think maybe it makes you stronger somehow.”
“Maybe, but I’ve never liked it. I understand why you did what you did. I just needed to say it.”
“I know. I’m not mad.” She hesitated. “I miss you.”
“I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Tell me you miss me too.”
“You know I do.”
“I … I talked to Lance the other day about the wedding and I think I need some more time.”
“For what?”
“You know what.”
“Yeah, I do. How much time?”
“I told him I want to put it off until next year. He seemed upset but he said he understood. Why do you think I did that?”
“We’ve shared a lot of time, Mel. I think eventually you’ll move on, but now might not be the time.”
“What about you? Will you move on?”
“No, you were my first love and you’ll always be my first love.”
“I hate how you do that. How you always know just what to say to make me feel like shit.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
She sighed. “I know. I better get back to bed. Lance already doesn’t like you.”
He grinned. “He’s a tool.”
“Jon,” she said with a giggle, “he is not.”
“Yes he is. Look up what tool means and you’ll see.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
Stanton put his phone on the sand and waited a long time, as long as the phone call had lasted, until he closed his eyes.
Hearing her voice and talking about something other than the dead made him feel light and happy, but it didn’t last. Tami and Pamela had burned themselves into his mind and that was all he saw. Their pleading faces as they were torn apart while still alive. In that last moment he wondered if they cried for fathers that had left them long ago. They had died alone, and lived alone. Discarded by everyone that should have cared about them.
But he wasn’t going to be one of them.
He took his cell phone and texted Harlow:
I’ll do it.
Though he wasn’t expecting it, a text came back within minutes:
I knew you would.
59
Noah Sherman sat on the plane back to Pelican Bay State Prison and thought about the last time he had been on a plane.
It was almost ten years ago. He had been dating a girl that loved to travel and though he lived on a meager detective’s salary, she was independently wealthy. An inheritance given to her by an uncle that she talked about incessantly. Sherman had always suspected they had been lovers in her youth.
He remembered sitting next to her on the plane and the child across the aisle. He was perhaps ten and reading a book quietly to himself when his father knocked the book out of his hand and said something about not being a “faggot.” The child then leaned back and stared at a spot on the chair in front of him and didn’t move. Not when his little brother kicked him and not when the stewardess brought out drinks and peanuts.
Sitting now in a four passenger plane, shackled from ankles to wrist, he wondered what had happened to that little boy. What he had grown up to become. A father like that could either break you or make you stronger. He hoped that the boy had been made stronger for it.
The marshal sitting next to him jabbed a finger in his ribs. “Excited to get back you piece of shit?”
Sherman stared forward, to the horizon before him. He had been cut out of the loop and would not be given anything Harlow had promised. He suspected as much and was not surprised. The trip was worthwhile anyhow. Even shackled, the sunlight and the ability to walk without walls made a man feel free.
The plane landed after scarcely an hour in the sky and he was placed in a Department of Corrections van and taken back to the prison. It was smaller, he thought. Smaller and more gray and the sounds were louder than he remembered. There was wailing and laughing and crying and maniacal conversations that made no sense. Seemingly out of the ether, Sherman’s mood changed. His persona had to go back up. His chest puffed out, his chin tilted upward. It was all an act, as was everyone else’s. Hardened criminals all acting like they were harder than they are. And only for the benefit of each other.
He was led back to his cell but no one was there. Sherman sat on the bottom bunk and stared at the floor. He was waiting for someone. To pass the time, he flicked on the television and watched cable news. Something about a military strike in the Middle East. He followed the Iraq War closely. Thousands upon thousands of people dead over a lie. How was it that politicians could get away with killing so well?
An hour passed and he noticed someone standing by the cell. A female guard. She was overweight by at least sixty pounds and her hair was long and brunette. She had a pug’s face, he thought.
“I missed you,” she said.
“I missed you too.”
“I kinda thought that maybe you wouldn’t be back.”
He rose and walked to the cell door. “And how would I manage that?”
“I don’t know. You’re smart. I didn’t think you would let them bring you back.”
She reached into his cell and down his pants, pulling out his penis and beginning to stroke it. She glanced around and made sure there was no else on the floor and then began kissing him through the bars, their tongues rolling over each other. He reached out of the cell and between her legs and began caressing her.
“I need something from you,” he said.
“What is it?” she said, her breathing heavy.
“I need you to send a letter for me.”
“Okay,” she said, her eyes closed and her head tilted back.
“And then I need you to bring me something.”
“What?”
“A new belt.”
“For what?”
“I’m going to trade it for something.”
“What are you trading it for?” she asked, her strokes speeding up.
“I’ll tell you when I have it.”
He bit down hard into her lip as he ejaculated and he tasted blood. She groaned, and climaxed as well, tasting the ejaculate on her hand before wiping it on her shirt.
“I’ll get you some paper,” she said.
60
She felt dampness at first. Like being wrapped in a wet towel. Then there was the sensation of the hard floor against her back and the thick dust in the air that made her nostrils itch.
Zoe’s eyes fluttered open. The light hurt and she squinted until her eyes adjusted. The first thing in her view was an unfinished ceiling. Water pipes and electrical cords in between thick wooden panels and fiberglass. She felt the pounding of her head on the right side and instinctively reached her hand up to find the stickiness of dried blood behind her ear.
She looked around, her neck stiff. It was dark but there was light coming through a door at the top of a set of stairs and she sat quietly and stared at the light. She remembered the mall and closing the registers … she went to her car … and then she woke up here. As she tried to sit up she felt pain in her feet and looked down to see that they had been tied together securely with a length of plastic. She tried pulling it off but it was wrapped so tightly she couldn’t get her fingers underneath the straps to get a good grip. She worked at it for a long time before giving up and crawling over to the wall. She pulled herself up using a built-in shelf.
There was a children’s bike in the corner, red with white trim. It was covered in dust and the wheels were flat. Behind that was a shelf packed with all manner of things. Glass jars filled with nails and screws, tools, old books, broken photo frames … it appeared to her to be more like garbage than storage.
She ran her fingers along the edge of the wall and a splinter broke off a shelf and embedded itself in her thumb. She put her thumb in her mouth and sucked on it and as she did a loud thud made her jump.