“We who are about to shrink salute you,” Sunny said.
“I know her,” Jesse said. “I don’t understand her, but I know her. A while back, I thought we’d move back in together and it would be over. We’d be together. She wants that. I want that. And it didn’t work.”
“I like her better than I expected to,” Sunny said.
“People do,” Jesse said.
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R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
“She’s everything you could want a person to be,” Sunny said.
“Except when she isn’t,” Jesse said.
“Which is often,” Sunny said.
“But not always,” Jesse said.
A hundred yards down the beach, the herring gull gave up and flew away. The beach was empty now except for the two of them and the gentle, repetitive, heedless roll of the water.
“She have a shrink yet?” Sunny said. “I know she’s had several. But I have a good one. If she’d go.”
“She’ll do what she’ll do,” Jesse said.
“And you’ll do it with her,” Sunny said.
Jesse didn’t answer. The sun was down. It was still light, but the ocean had darkened. The wind had died entirely, as it often did at sunset.
“I think we need to say good-bye,” Sunny said.
Jesse nodded silently.
“It doesn’t mean I’ll never see you,” Sunny said. “It doesn’t mean I won’t help you. I don’t know what it does mean, exactly.”
She slipped off the seawall and stood in front of him.
“Except,” she said, “right now it’s time to say good-bye.”
“Yes,” Jesse said.
His voice was hoarse. He stood. They put their arms around each other. Neither spoke. Neither moved. They stayed where they were, hugging each other beside the nearly inanimate ocean as the twilight continued to fade.
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61
Jesse stood in the back of the room in the Town Hall auditorium while Molly held her daily press briefing.
“There is a development in the Walton Weeks murder,”
Molly said. “We have identified two suspects, and are pursuing several leads, though at this time we do not have sufficient evidence to arrest anyone.”
A television reporter in front said, “Can you give us names, Moll?”
Molly smiled.
“Sure,” she said, “how about Cain and Abel?”
