'No,' I said. 'Nothing.'
I glanced up and down the hallway. There were two doctors off to the right, talking quietly together. To the left, I could hear a woman's laughter. Carl kept his arm across the doors.
'What were you three doing together last night, anyway?' he asked.
I looked closely at him, searching his face for some sign of suspicion. He'd been there when the deputies had asked the same question, and he'd heard my answer. The elevator tried to close, bucking his arm, but he held it back.
'We were celebrating the baby. Jacob took me out.'
Carl nodded. He seemed to be waiting for something else.
'I didn't really want to go,' I said. 'But he was all excited about being an uncle, and I was afraid I'd hurt his feelings if I turned him down.'
The elevator tried to close again.
'Did Lou say anything to Jacob before he shot him?'
'Say anything?'
'Did he swear at him, or call him names?'
I shook my head. 'He just opened the door, raised his gun, and pulled the trigger.'
Down the hallway, the doctors parted, and one of them started to walk toward us. His shoes squeaked against the tiled floor.
'Going down?' he called. Carl leaned his head out and nodded.
'What about that night when I saw you three over by the nature preserve?'
My heart jumped at the mention of our encounter there. I'd hoped that he'd forgotten that by now. 'What about it?' I said.
'What were you three doing then?'
I couldn't think of anything to say to that, couldn't remember what, if anything, I'd told him at the time. I strained and strained, but my mind was too tired. The doctor was nearly upon us. 'It was New Year's Eve,' I said, trying to stall. It was all I could come up with.
'You guys were going out?'
I knew that this was wrong, but I couldn't come up with anything else, so I nodded slowly at him. Then the doctor was there, sliding past me into the elevator. Carl stepped back.
'Don't hesitate to call me if you need something, Hank,' he said, as the doors slid shut. 'You know I'd be glad to help any way I could.'
THOUGH the doctors said I might as well leave, I stayed at the hospital for the rest of the afternoon. Jacob drifted in and out of consciousness, but I wasn't allowed to see him again. The doctors remained pessimistic.
Around five, as it was starting to get dark, Amanda began to cry. Sarah tried nursing her, then singing to her, then walking her around the room, but she refused to be quieted. Her crying got louder and louder. The sound of it gave me a headache, started to make the room seem smaller, and I asked Sarah to take her home.
She told me to come with them.
'You're not doing anything here, Hank,' she said. 'It's out of our hands now.'
Amanda wailed and wailed, her tiny face red with the effort. I watched her cry, trying to think, but I was too tired. Finally, with a horrible wrenching feeling, as if something heavy were slipping from my grasp, I nodded to Sarah.
'All right,' I said. 'Let's go home.'
I FELT a wonderful sense of release as I climbed into the car. All day long I'd been hoarding secrets way down inside myself, things I could say only to Sarah.
I could tell her now what had happened. Then I would go home, get something to eat, and fall asleep. And while I did that, while I slept, Jacob's torn body, in its battle for life, would decide my fate.
Sarah put the baby into her safety seat in back, then climbed behind the wheel. I sat beside her, slumped over, my body drooping, drained. My muscles ached with fatigue; I was nauseated with it. Outside, the sun had set; the sky was a deep navy blue, edging each second a little closer to black. Stars were coming out, one by one. There was no moon.
I rested my head against the window, letting its coolness keep me awake. I didn't begin to talk until we were out of the parking lot and on our way home. Then I told Sarah everything. I told her about the bar and the drinking, about the drive back to Lou's, and how we tricked him into confessing. I told her about Lou getting his gun, about Jacob shooting him, and me shooting Nancy. I told her about going to Sonny's trailer, about undressing him on the porch, and then chasing him up the stairs to the bedroom. She listened to me carefully, her head tilted toward me across the darkened seat. Every now and then she nodded, as if to reassure me that she was paying attention. Her hands pulled the wheel back and forth, guiding the car home.
Amanda, strapped into her seat behind us, continued to cry.
When I reached the point where Jacob began to break down, I paused. Sarah glanced at me, her foot easing just perceptibly from the accelerator.
'He started crying,' I said, 'and I realized I had to do it. I realized he wasn't going to hold up, that when the police and the reporters arrived, he'd end up confessing.'
Sarah nodded, as if she'd guessed this.
'There was no way he was going to pull himself together,' I said. 'So I shot him. I made the decision and I did it. And it felt right, too. The whole time I was doing it, I knew it was right.'
I stared out the window, waiting for her response. We were passing the Delphia High School. It was a huge building, modern, brightly lit. There was something happening there tonight, a game or a play or a concert. Cars were pulling into the circular driveway. Teenagers congregated in loose groups at the edge of the pavement, cigarettes glowing. Parents streamed across the parking lot toward the big glass doors.
Sarah remained silent.
'But then,' I said, 'after I called the police and realized he was still alive, I was just frozen by it. Even if I could've thought of a way to finish him off, I wouldn't have done it.'
I looked at Sarah.
'I didn't want him to die.'
'And now?'
I shrugged. 'He's my brother. It's like I'd forced myself to forget it, and then it came back and surprised me.'
Sarah didn't say anything, and I shut my eyes, let my body tug me toward sleep. I listened to Amanda's crying, listened to the rhythm of it, how it came in waves. It seemed, gradually, to be moving farther away.
When I opened my eyes again, we were pulling into Fort Ottowa. A trio of boys popped up from behind a wall of shrubbery and launched a barrage of snowballs at our car. They fell short, skidding across the pavement before us, yellow in the headlights.
Sarah slowed the car. 'If he lives, we'll both end up in jail.'
'I wanted to do the right thing,' I said, 'but I couldn't figure out what it was. I wanted to protect us, and I wanted to save Jacob. I wanted to do both.'
I glanced at Sarah for a response, but her face was expressionless.
'I couldn't, though,' I said. 'I had to choose one or the other.'
Sarah dropped her voice to a whisper. 'You did the right thing, Hank.'
'Do you think so?'
'If he'd broken down, we'd be in jail right now.'
'And do you think he would've broken down?'
I needed her to say yes, needed this simple reassurance, but she didn't offer it to me. All she said was, 'He's your brother. If you thought he was a danger, then he probably was.'
I frowned down at my hands. They were trembling a little. I tried briefly to make them stop, but they wouldn't obey me.
