Hope becomes a hot searing pain that scars your soul when it has nowhere to go.
It was easier to live without, move through my days in a tedious repetition of the last. No highs, no particular lows, just a narrow existence within the walls of my prison.
But hope flared when he was the first person I saw, getting off the bus in Beaverton last month. Jimmy fucking Olson, coming out of a diner with a coffee in his hand and walking up to a red tow truck, Olson’s Automotive printed on the side.
I might’ve avoided him, but he saw me. How he recognized me I don’t know. I’ve gotten old. My former dark hair has gone completely gray inside. I used to be bigger than I am now, after discovering the prison gym is not a place you want to be without a posse at your back. I never had one. My body is much leaner now; the only exercise what I managed to do in my own cell.
Still he took one look at me and that boyish grin I remember so well spread wide over his face. He hadn’t changed much at all and apparently had no hard feelings about me blowing him off, because he came tearing across the street, wrapping me in a bone-crushing hug.
I almost fucking cried right there in front of the bus station.
An hour later I was moved into the small apartment over his business. It used to be Old Man Stephenson’s garage when both Jimmy and I worked there, but apparently he’s dead and Jimmy bought the place. I was floored when Jimmy said he’d known I was released—had been keeping track—and was hoping I’d be smart enough to come home.
He gave me a week to settle in; a week I mostly spent in isolation in the small apartment he had stocked with food so I didn’t have to go out. After that week, he barged in at seven in the morning, ordering me to get my ass downstairs, and give him a hand. I’ve been doing long days in the shop since.
“Fuck no, it’s not. You had me sell off your shit, remember? I’ve had it sitting in a savings account all this time, gathering dust.”
“You’re shitting me? This is at least ten grand, my stuff wouldn’t have made more than a couple of hundred.”
“Seventeen thousand three hundred and twenty-five dollars to be exact,” he says and my jaw hits the floor. “Most of it for your old Mustang.”
“That was a pile of rust. I hadn’t even started working on it,” I point out, remembering the 1965 Mustang I hauled out of a field near Coleman for the measly two hundred bucks the farmer wanted for it. That was supposed to be my next project before everything went to shit.
“I know. It got done,” Jimmy says with a shrug, and I feel my throat close. “Anyway, you may wanna open up a bank account, unless you’re gonna walk around with that kinda cash.”
Opening up an account would require going into the bank, a public building, something I’m not sure I’m ready to do. Even these past few weeks working in the shop, I would duck out of sight whenever a customer walked in. Jimmy seemed to understand, at least he hadn’t commented on it. Not yet.
“I know. I will eventually. And Jimmy…thanks, man.”
He shrugs again and dives under the pickup truck we have up on the car lift.
“Just don’t go spending it all at once,” he mumbles from under there.
“Only spending I’ll be doing is buying a ticket to New York,” I tell him offhand, as I shove the envelope in my pocket and duck under the hood of the Charger brought in this morning.
“You’re going?” Jimmy asks.
“I need to. Never got to say goodbye to Reagan.”
“Who’s Reagan?” Kyle, the apprentice working with us this morning wants to know.
I can’t even bring myself to explain, but Jimmy answers for me.
“His sister, dipstick. She died.”
I glance over at the young kid, who looks miserable.
“Long time ago, kid,” I assure him. He nods, looking only moderately better as he turns to focus on the tires he’s checking for leaks. He doesn’t need to know I haven’t even begun to deal with that loss.
It’s almost six thirty when Jimmy calls it a day.
“Wanna go grab a bite to eat?”
I know he’s trying to get me outside of this place, but just like the bank, the diner seems like too public a place. Chances are big I’d bump into people who remember me, and I’m not ready to face them yet. Besides, I’ve gotten used to my own company and it’s enough for now.
“I think I’ll just stay here. Got a book to finish,” I tell him.
It’s a lame excuse and I know it, but the thought of walking into a crowded diner fills me with anxiety.
“How are you gonna go to New York if you can’t even manage to cross the street?”
I guess it’s a valid question, but there’s a simple and clear answer.
“Nobody knows me there.”
Robin
I like my nights to myself.
The first year after Paige left for college, I was desperate to fill any alone time with activity to cover the hole she left behind, but these days I’m perfectly content with just a book, or a good show on TV, and my own company.
We call a couple of times a week just to touch base, and see each other on half a dozen or so occasions throughout the year. Since my daughter left home, our relationship has gone through a transition and I have to say I really enjoy the connection we share now. We’re equals. I don’t carry the heavy, sole responsibility over someone else’s life and welfare anymore; she does that herself, and does it well.
Paige is twenty-three and just graduated this May with a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Rutgers University in New Jersey. Her late father’s alma mater, except he studied
