The Swap(71)

“I think I know why you came here,” Thompson said, his face pink, very pink. “We’ve been friends for a few months now. The chemistry has always been there, but it’s been building.” He was slurring slightly from the booze. “I don’t think either one us can ignore it anymore.”

Oh no.

He was leaning in, his straggly soul-patch whiskers straining toward me. He was going to kiss me! I would have considered it four years and six inches ago, but not now. No. No way. I shoved him in the chest.

“Back off.”

He looked genuinely shocked. “But I thought . . .”

“No,” I said firmly. “There is nothing between us. I’m in love with someone else.”

At first, he appeared confused, like I’d spoken the words in Cantonese. But then his expression darkened. “Is it Max? Or is it Freya?”

I may as well tell him. It would all come out when I was dead. “It’s Freya.”

He shook his head sadly. “You worship her and adore her and do everything for her. But she doesn’t care about you at all. That’s not love, Low. That’s obsession.”

“You don’t get it. You don’t know what we have.”

“You’re her nanny. She pays you.”

“Fuck you,” I muttered. “What would a short little dweeb like you know about love anyway?” The comment may have been unnecessary, but it hammered the message home.

Thompson jumped off the sawhorse (proving my point). “I’m not sure our friendship is such a good idea anymore.”

“Probably not.”

He pressed his lips together like he was keeping some cruel, hurtful words inside. And maybe he was. Finally, he mumbled, “Let yourself out.” And he hurried out of the barn.

Drunk and alone in the filthy chaotic workshop, I felt a lump of anguish crushing my chest. I’d had one person who cared about me, one person who saw something beautiful in me, and now he hated me. But, like everyone else, Thompson would be better off without me. And that made what I was about to do easier . . . emotionally at least. I was still afraid of dying a slow and painful death. Of surviving with permanent, debilitating injuries. But there was no other way.

And then, like a sign from above—or maybe below—I saw it. Tossed carelessly on the work bench, barely visible in the clutter of tools and beer cans and carburetor parts, was a handgun.

It was not unusual for the island’s rural homesteads to have a weapon. There were numerous critters that could get into crops, build dens under houses, eat through sacks of grain. And if Thompson’s family really was smuggling cigarettes cooking meth growing illegal weed as was rumored, they’d have even more need for protection. My pacifist family didn’t have one, but I wasn’t daunted by it. I had watched enough TV to know how a pistol worked. I picked up the gun and found it loaded with two bullets.

I only needed one.





66


max


Freya had been making a show of packing since Low stormed out of the house. She was throwing things into the cardboard boxes we’d kept in the garage after we moved in. She was drinking, too: vodka on the rocks. I’d lost count of how many times she’d refilled her glass, but I could tell by her unsteady movements, that she was getting drunk. I’d given Maggie her bottle and her bath and settled her down for the evening. When I returned to the kitchen with the baby monitor in my back pocket, I found my wife on the phone.

“It’s just until we get set up,” she said, overarticulating each word to hide her inebriation. “A month . . . two at the most.” There was a pause as she listened, sipping her drink. “The baby won’t be a problem. I’ll hire a nanny.” After a moment she snapped, “Yeah, it’s three adults and a baby. It’s not like you don’t have the fucking room.”

It had to be Freya’s dad in LA on the line. The conversation wasn’t going well.

“Your new wife can kiss my ass,” Freya growled. “You know she’s only after your money, you stupid old fart.” She hung up and threw the phone across the room.

I knew not to engage with Freya when she was in this state. She would be irrational, easily enraged, and cruel. My best strategy would be to slip out of the room, to hide myself away until she passed out. Before Maggie, I used to let Freya take her anger out on me. It became a sick sort of release, a toxic, sexual game. But since the baby had been born, I wasn’t into it. Only once, since we’d brought our daughter home, had I let Freya attack me, had we ended up having sex on the living room floor. That time, with a child slumbering in the next room, it had felt wrong.

I turned to go, but I was too late. “That was my dad.”

I turned back. “I figured.”

“He doesn’t want us to stay with him. Not with the baby.”

“We’ll figure something out.”

She sipped her drink. “This is your fault, you know. All of it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” She laughed and moved toward me. “You destroy my fucking life, and all you can say is okay?”

“Sorry.”

“Apology not accepted.” She smacked me then, upside the head. “I hate you!”

I stepped back, my head stinging. “You’re going to wake the baby.”