We Begin at the End(16)

“I can find you someplace to—”

“Fuck off, Walk.”

“Is Darke right? Is it today?”

“It’s today, doesn’t make him right though. Three years I rented this place from him, after he took on the mortgage … dealt with the bank. Then the Fairview house fell, opened up my view and I get this in the mail.” She fished through a stack of papers and thrust the letter at him.

He read it carefully. “I’m real sorry. Can you talk to someone?”

“I’m talking to you.”

“I don’t think, legally …”

“He told me I could stay here.”

Walk read the letter again, then the notice papers. “I can help you box things. The girls, do they know?”

Dee closed her eyes, opened them to tears and shook her head. Olivia and Molly, sixteen and eight.

“Darke said you can take another week.”

Dee took a breath then. “You know we dated once … after Jack.”

Walk knew.

“I thought … I mean Darke, he’s nice-looking, but he’s a fucking freak, Walk. There’s something missing. I’m not even sure what it is, there’s just a coldness to that man. Like a robot. And he wouldn’t touch me.”

Walk frowned.

“You know what that means.”

He felt his cheeks burn.

“I’m not desperate or nothing, but you date five or six times and it’s natural. But not with him. There’s nothing natural about Dickie Darke.”

Seeing boxes in the front yard, he moved to fetch them in but she told him to leave them. “It’s all trash. I started boxing up my life this morning. And you know what I realized?”

She cried, no noise or sobbing, just the steady fall of tears.

“I failed them, Walk.”

He went to speak but she held up her hand, so close to breaking. “I failed my girls. I’ve got no home for them now. I’ve got nothing.”

*

That night when Robin and her mother were sleeping she climbed from her bedroom window and wheeled her bicycle from the house.

Dusk, blue day broke down, trash cans out, the smell of barbeque. Duchess was hungry, never quite enough to fill her. She made sure Robin ate all he could.

She turned onto Mayer, the low hill falling away, letting the bike coast, streamers on one side. She wore shorts and no helmet, her top zipped and sandals on her feet.

She slowed at the turn for Sunset Road.

The King house had always been her favorite, the way it stood, part-ruin, flipping off the surround.

She saw him straight off.

The garage door was up, the man on a ladder, gently removing slate. He’d stripped half, a roll of tar paper lay, tools like hammers and picks and a wheelbarrow full of dry and dusty rock. He had a lamp and it shed just enough light.

She’d seen photos of Sissy, they were the same kind of girl, light hair and eyes and freckles atop small noses.

She crossed slowly, legs out, the saddle hurting, balancing this way and that, one foot pushing.

“You were at my house.”

He turned. “I’m Vincent.”

“I know that.”

“I once knew your mother.”

“I know that too.”

He smiled then, not real, maybe like it was called for, like he was learning to be something again. She did not smile back.

“Is your mother alright?”

“She’s always alright.”

“How about you?”

“You don’t need to ask that. I’m an outlaw.”

“Should I be worried? Outlaws are bad, right?”

“Wild Bill Hickok killed two men before he became sheriff. Maybe I’ll straighten out one day, maybe I won’t.”

She wheeled a little closer. He was sweaty, his T-shirt dark at the chest and beneath the arms. Above the garage was an old hoop, the net gone, she wondered if he remembered playing, if he remembered anything about before.

“Freedom,” she said. “Is it the worst thing to take? Worse than anything. Maybe it is.”

He climbed down the ladder.

“You have a scar on your arm.”

He looked down at his forearm, the scar ran the length, not angry, just there.

“And you have scars all over your body. Did you get beaten in there?”

“You look like your mother.”

“Don’t let that fool you.”

She scooted back a little, fussed with the small bow in her hair as he watched. “Subterfuge. People see a girl and nothing else.”

She rolled the bicycle back and forth.

He found a screwdriver and walked over slowly. “The brake is sticking, that’s why it’s hard to pedal.”

She watched him carefully.

He knelt by her leg, careful not to touch her skin, and fiddled with the brake then stood and moved back.

She rocked again, felt the wheel move easy, turned as the moon fell, starred sky behind him and the old home.

“Don’t come by our house again. We don’t need anyone.”

“Alright.”

“I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

“I don’t want that either.”

“That boy that broke your window, his name is Nate Dorman.”