Both Scott and Sally stared at her. Both could see what she was about to say, but neither could muster the words to prevent her from saying it.
Hope tried to smile through a cloud of her own doubt. “No,” she said slowly, “it should be me with that gun in my hand.”
This time, I was sure I could hear a catch in her voice.
“Do you ever wonder how much of life can change in a second? So many things seem small, yet they become large.”
It was close to midnight, and she had surprised me by calling.
“Do you think,” she asked abruptly, “that we make better choices in the dark, alone, at night, when we lie in bed and try to sort through a sea of troubles? Or is it wiser to wait until morning, when there is daylight and clarity? I wonder what sort of decisions they were making,” she said slowly. “Night decisions? Day decisions? You tell me.”
I didn’t answer. I thought she wasn’t really looking for a response, but she persisted.
“I mean, how would you characterize it? You’re the writer. Was this wise? Were they taking steps that were difficult, but necessary? Or were they acting foolishly? What were the odds of success? Or of failure? They were all such reasonable people, about to embark on the least reasonable of courses.”
I said nothing as she stifled a sob.
“I have a name for you,” she said quickly, taking me by surprise. “It will, I suspect, bring you a little closer.”
I waited, pen ready, saying nothing, imagining everything.
“The end,” she said. “Can you see it? Let me put it to you this way: do you think they were prepared for the unexpected?”
“No. Who ever truly is?”
She laughed, but then the sound seemed to turn to tears. It was hard to tell over the phone line.
41
Sally looked across at Hope. They were in their bedroom, and only a single bedside table lamp threw wan yellow light across the room.
“I can’t let you do this,” Sally said.
“I’m not sure you have a choice,” Hope said with a small shrug. “I believe the decision has been made. And anyway, it’s probably the least dangerous part of the whole enterprise.” This was a lie, but how much of one, Hope was unsure.
“Enterprise?”
“For lack of a better word.”
Sally shook her head. “A bomb goes off in a marketplace, and we call it collateral damage. A surgery goes wrong, we call it complications. A soldier gets killed, he becomes a casualty. Seems to me that we live on euphemisms.”
“And what about us?” Hope asked. “What word would you choose for the two of us?”
Sally frowned. She walked over to a mirror. Once upon a time she had been beautiful. Once upon a time she had been vibrant. She barely recognized the person staring back at her. “I guess the two of us don’t know what the next day will bring. Uncertainty. There’s a word.”
Hope felt a crease of emotion. “You could say you loved me.”
“I do. It’s just myself that I no longer love.”
They were quiet while Sally looked down at her sheets of paper.
“We do this, you know, and everything will be different.”
“I thought the point was to restore everything to the same as it was before.”
“Both,” Sally said stiffly. “I think it will be both.”
She picked up a handwritten series of instructions from the top of the pile. “This has to go to Ashley and Catherine. Do you want to come with me when I speak with them? Actually, no, don’t. If you’re not there, they can’t ask you any questions.”
“I’ll wait for you here.” Hope lay back on the bed, crawling beneath the comforter, feeling a shiver run down her back.
Sally found Ashley and Catherine in Ashley’s room.
“I have some requests for you guys. Can you do the things listed here-it’s not too much-without asking any questions? I need to know.”
Catherine took the list from Sally’s hand, read it through rapidly, then handed it over to Ashley.
“I think we can do that,” she said.
“I wrote out a script and I’m giving you a disposable cell phone that I’d like you to lose after you contact him,” Sally said. “You can ad-lib, of course, but you need to get the main point across. Do you see that?”
Ashley stared at the words on the page and nodded. “Do you think-”
“Sounds like the start of a question,” Sally said with a wry smile. “The point is, you must, I repeat, you must, sell O’Connell on this trip. He has to be made to do this. And, it seems to all of us, anger and jealousy and perhaps a little indecision is precisely the concoction that will encourage him. If you can find a better set of words, by all means use them. But the end result absolutely must be the same. Do you get that? Hope, your father, and I will be counting on that. Can you act this part, Ashley, honey? Because much will ride on your powers of persuasion.”
“Much of what?” she asked.
“Ah, another question. And it won’t get answered. See there at the bottom. Bunch of phone numbers. I don’t expect you to be able to memorize them all, but it is essential that by the end of the day, this paper, and everything else, be destroyed. That’s it for now.”
“That’s it?”
“You’re being asked to play a part. Just like you requested. But what the final act is, you are not being told. And what you are being asked to do limits, shall we say, your exposure. Catherine, I’m counting on you to see this through. And to accomplish the other elements on that list.”
“I don’t know that I like this,” Catherine said. “I don’t know that I like acting in the dark.”
“Well, we’re all in uncharted territory here. But I need to be one hundred percent sure about our roles.”
“We will do what you ask. Although I don’t see-”
“That’s the point. You don’t see.”
Sally paused in the doorway. She looked over at Catherine, then to her daughter. “I wonder if you understand how much people love you,” she said cautiously. “And what people might be willing to do for you.”
Ashley didn’t reply, other than to nod her head.
“Of course,” Catherine injected, “the same might be said for Michael O’Connell, which is why we’re all here.”