Hummingbird Salamander(87)

I peered in the window from the side. A large man sat there looking at his computer, his back to me. But unmistakable. Bigger shock than Hellmouth Jack or Langer. Emissary from the lost world.

Inhaled, exhaled deeply. Bracing myself, I knocked on the door.

A moment’s hesitation. Good. He was seeing who it was first. Not as open and trusting as he’d been a few months ago.

The door opened.

My husband stood there. I was shocked. He’d put on maybe thirty pounds, yet his face was hollowed out. Hair long and disheveled. Streaks of gray I didn’t remember. A darkness around his eyes like bruises from punches. I smelled Vicks and cigarettes. He’d never smoked before. Absurd, sick idea that Hellmouth Jack had gotten him addicted.

“Hello, ‘Jill,’” he said, unsmiling.

Imagine you’ve seen your father for the first time in twenty years.

Imagine that in your pocket you’ve got a letter full of revelations, from a dead woman.

Imagine you’re beyond surprise and shock and you just expect that you will live in this condition forever.





[92]


Inside, we sat at the long, family-style table into which Ned and I had carved crude figures of animals. The cabin felt small, cramped, claustrophobic, the rudimentary kitchenette in disrepair. Nothing like how I remembered it, our sometimes sanctuary. The stolen moments of freedom, careful never to linger long. If Shot had found us in there, he would have prowled that place continual.

“I know who sent you here,” I said. “Why’d you listen to him? He was the one standing in the woods outside our house.”

I couldn’t get over the altered architecture of my husband’s face. How he drew in light and destroyed it. How still he was. How devoid of good humor.

“You look like you’ve been in a war,” he said. “Like you actually fought in a battle.”

“I know what I look like,” I snapped at him. By what right?

He took that, held it a moment, looked about to snap back. Stopped himself. But the flood came pouring out anyway.

“I didn’t have a choice in who to trust. You gave me no choice. I didn’t hear from you once. You didn’t try to send a message. You didn’t answer your texts. You—”

Hurtful. False. Coming from the wrong place. Yet he was also right.

“I couldn’t. It was too dangerous. This is too dangerous.”

I was vibrating, my hands fit to thrash if I didn’t steeple them. Like there was energy waiting to pour out.

But my husband didn’t hear me any more than I heard him.

“Allie from your work even contacted me, but you didn’t.”

“Allie? How did she find you?” Another breach.

“I don’t have your experience hiding. She couldn’t find you. But she could find me.”

“What did she want?” Wild thought. Allie had been working for Hellmouth Jack or Langer. Faked concern for Larry. Been a plant all along.

“She’d been badly beaten up and thought maybe—just maybe—if she could find you, you could help her. But I couldn’t help her. Because I don’t know what’s going on and I couldn’t find you.”

“I couldn’t,” I said, helpless.

“She got beat up because she wouldn’t tell them where you were. Because she couldn’t.”

There it was. All those centuries ago when I’d asked her to research Silvina. There was the damage coming back across the divide at me. When it didn’t even register with me. When I didn’t have it in me to care, except in a distant, disconnected way.

“What did you tell her, about me?”

“I told her you would be no help, because I knew you would be no help. I told her to stay far away from you.… And then—hey, presto!—this smiling lunatic appears at the safe house we’re staying at, scares the living shit out of me. Says his name is Jack, that he knows where you are. Or, where you’ll be. That he’s sure of it. And he gives me the address of your family’s farm. A whole farm! Which you’ve barely ever talked about. And there’s a new thing I learned about my wife, too. That her father isn’t dead. That—”

“Why did you come here if you hate me so much?”

Cutting through the recriminations because they struck me as so meaningless now. No future could contain them or make anything better.

He recoiled, leaning back against the chair. Looked like I’d slapped him.

“You broke everything. You cheated on me. You lied to me. Then when I’ve gotten over that, you lie again and you disappear after a frightening phone call that destroyed our lives. You met some guy at a convention named Jack, who works for the government, and gave him a fake name. A Jack who said this was my last best chance to see you and I should take it. I don’t even hate you. I just don’t fucking care about you anymore.”

The smell of hides ablaze as I rolled to avoid them. So tattered and old I couldn’t tell what they’d been. Stench of burnt hair.

“Why are you here, then?” Said flat, so maybe he’d just tell me.

He looked down at his hands.

“Closure … and I need money.”

“Seriously?”

Mistake. Now the anger really spilled out.

“You maxed out all our cards! You took what was in the joint bank account. Our savings. I wake up one morning, a week after you disappeared, and it’s all gone.”