The Meridians(45)

The old man shrugged and wrote something on a piece of paper. Then handed it to Scott. "Because if you don't, then you aren't the only one that Mr. Gray is going to kill," he said, and his voice, though light and airy, made Scott shiver all the same.

"Will I get to kill him?" he asked.

The old man looked at him with an expression that Scott could not interpret. "Why do you want to kill him so badly?" he asked.

"You seem to know everything, you tell me," countered Scott.

"Because he killed your family," said the old man.

"Bingo," said Scott.

"You might want to be careful about wanting to kill people, Scott," said the old man, and suddenly - and for the first time - he truly seemed old, like some heavy weight was resting on his shoulders. "It's a slippery slope to travel on, and before you know it you've turned into the same thing that you're hunting."

Scott shook his head in disgust. "You think I could ever be anything like Mr. Gray?" he asked.

The old man looked at Scott deeply, and then said, "Sometimes I don't know what she sees in you."

The words struck Scott like a blow. The old man could only be talking about Amy, the only woman that had ever really seen into Scott's heart and loved what she saw there.

He felt his hands curl into fists at his sides. "What would you know about her."

Now it was the old man's turn to look surprised. Then he laughed again. "Oh, you think I'm talking about Amy? Well, I'm not, so you can get the wounded knight look off your face. No need to protect her honor from me, I'm not saying anything about her. Never knew her, in fact, though I understand she was a wonderful person."

"She was," said Scott. He didn't mean to, didn't mean to share his feelings about his dead wife with this stranger, but somehow the words just came out of him. "She was the most perfect woman I've ever met."

The old man nodded. "I know you loved her, Scott. And that's a good thing. Love makes us into better people, it gives us strength when we're afraid. It makes bad men good and good men better. It's the thing that makes living into life, the thing that separates us from all the other animals crawling over the face of the earth." The man drew a deep breath. "That's why I know you don't love her anymore. You did once, but you don't love Amy anymore."

Scott felt a growl of rage come out of him. How dare he! Who was this man to say something like that. Every single moment of Scott's life was devoted to his wife. With a sudden pounce, he jumped at the old man, meaning in that instant to hit him, to strike him, to punish him for insinuating - hell, for just straight out saying - that Scott didn't love his wife.

He rushed the old man, who waited until the last moment, then suddenly twisted and grabbed. Scott felt himself pulled off his feet, and then suddenly was slamming into the ground, his wrist pinned behind him uncomfortably and the old man's knee across the back of his neck.

"Hapkido," said the old man. "I'm a fifth degree black belt. Comes in useful."

Scott struggled to get himself free, but it was no use. He just got himself more and more jammed up under the old man's grasp.

"The more you struggle, the more it's going to hurt," said the old man who had no name but who had the power to reduce Scott quickly to nothing with his words and his body.

Scott opened his mouth to scream.

"I wouldn't yell if I were you," said the old man. "I'll just be gone by the time anyone gets here, and you'll have yet another oddity to explain in your life." The pressure eased up on his wrist and shoulder, but the old man did not let him up yet. "You want to know why I say that you don't love Amy anymore?"

Scott was silent.

"I'll take that as a yes." The old man shifted his weight, and suddenly the pain in Scott's arm returned. "I want you to pay attention to this, Scott. I think that you don't love Amy anymore because you've turned into too much of a self-centered, egotistical, self-pitying turd of a man to love anyone but yourself."

Scott struggled again, but again found that the more he struggled, the more pain he was in, so after just a few seconds of ineffectual thrashing, he felt himself calm and grow still.

"Good boy," said the old man, as though addressing a dog who had just managed to get outside without peeing on the carpet for the first time. And truth to tell, Scott didn't feel much better than a dog would right now. "Let me ask you a question," said the old man.

"Go to hell," said Scott through clenched teeth.

The old man laughed, as though Scott had just told the funniest joke in the world. "You're proving my point for me more and more, Scott," he said. "So here's the question: of the last eight years since Amy and Chad died, how much of your life do you think either of them would have approved of?"

Scott stopped struggling, stopped cold in his movements as though hit by a freeze ray. Indeed, he felt cool inside, then was warmed as the hot humiliation the old man's words caused spread through him like a fire.

He was right. The old man was right.

Scott knew that Amy would not have approved of anything that he had done in the last eight years. She was full of love, full of life, and would not have appreciated the way that Scott had retreated from all existence in an effort to keep himself distant from anything that might cloud his memory of her or of Chad.