She had lunged with her palms out and arms straight and used all her weight, but Marcus had more; she only succeeded in pushing herself backwards to the edge. The sawdust and debris denied her left foot its needed purchase and, off-balance, she slipped and fell.
Marcus’s own arms had been extended to embrace her, and hers had been extended to push him away, and in the moment when she lost her balance and her eyes became wide and aware, she tried reaching for him and taking hold.
The nails of her long and slender fingers scraped the tops of his arms, and before he could grasp her she was gone.
Marcus froze there. He heard Lydia slap the pavement.
“I ran down the stairs,” Marcus says from his rock. “I ran out the door and picked her up. She was . . . destroyed. Her head . . .”
“I understand,” Sigrid says to him.
“Her eyes were open. Exactly as they had been while she was falling.”
“You’re done, Marcus.”
“She didn’t call out or scream on the way down. I can feel the fall. The wind of it.”
“You’re done, Marcus.”
“Irving,” Sigrid says. “Don’t shoot.”
“I’m not making any decisions while that gun is in play.”
Sigrid stands, brushes herself off, and walks to her brother. She lays a hand on his head. She reaches down and takes the weapon from his hands, presses the cylinder release, and removes the bullets. She throws the gun into the lake, as far as she can, so Irv can see the arc and hear the splash.
She walks to Irv behind the tree and hands him the bullets.
Handle with Care
Sigrid takes Marcus by the hand and walks her big brother back through the woods to the Zodiac that she had beached on the edge of the lake. The assault team emerges from the surrounding woods and lowering and shouldering their weapons as they fall in line behind them. Irv can’t decide whether or not to cuff Marcus because he isn’t sure yet whether he wants to arrest him. But there is time for all that later. Fortunately, though, the danger of being shot is over and no one is going to have to carry Marcus out of the forest.
On the boat, Irv watches Sigrid sit herself beside her brother, who looks spent. He hangs his head and seems resigned and passive. Sigrid holds his hand and together they are silent. She does not try to speak with Marcus and instead looks out at the distant mountains over the shimmering water.
The wind in Sigrid’s hair looks good. The sun has added some needed color to her face.
“You need a vacation,” he shouts to her over the roar of the outboard motor. And, for the first time, he hears her laugh.
At Lake Flower, Sheriff Frank Allman is waiting for them. He is standing in the same spot and pose in which Irv left him—hands in his pockets, dropped shoulders, utterly put upon by events beyond his control. Alfonzo tosses the mooring line to Frank, who misses it, collects it, and ties off the Zodiac.
“Welcome back,” Frank says to Sigrid as she steps out of the boat. Sigrid pats him on the shoulder. He’s had a hard day.
Irv and Frank retire to the police station, where, she’s certain, phone calls are being made and political matters are being deliberated. Sigrid sits beside Marcus on a bench close to the van she set on fire.
“You did this?” he asks his sister.
“Yes.”
“We are masters of disaster.”
“Yes, we are.”
Ten minutes later Irv emerges from the police station. He claps his hands like a soccer coach. “All right,” says Irv. “We’re going back. Marcus is with us.”
“He’s free to go?” Sigrid asks.
“He’s free to go with us. And we’re all going to consider ourselves very lucky.”
They transition to the squad car and make their way back to Irv’s own jurisdiction across the invisible lines that turn one place into another. On the way NPR’s All Things Considered begins its broadcast, but Irv is not in the mood to consider all things and switches over to a jazz station playing an Art Blakey special celebrating fifty years since the release of the album Moanin’.
They listen in silence for more than a half-hour until Sigrid breaks it with a question:
“What does ‘the one percent’ mean?” she asks. “I saw it on a patch at the biker clubhouse.”
“It refers to the myth that ninety-nine percent of bikers are law abiding, but one percent are outlaws. People who call themselves One Percenters consider themselves above the law and are invariably assholes. You should have called a taxi.”
When they arrive, Irv locks Marcus into the cell for the night. There’s no better solution and Sigrid does not object. She has spent plenty of time in this jail and knows it to be the cleanest and safest place he has been in a long time. They don’t even bother to remove her desk.
“I thought you’d insist he stay with you tonight,” Irv says to Sigrid as they leave the station for the Wagoneer.
“I have other plans tonight,” she says.
“When did you have time to make plans?”
“You were pretty good back there,” Sigrid says.
“You’re talking to me?”
“Yes,” Sigrid says.
“This would be the wrong time, I suppose, to tell you that I was right all along and if we’d worked together from the start all this could have ended the same way but without the SWAT team, the pyrotechnics, paperwork, or tears.”
“I think,”
