“He did have his father’s gun,” I said. “He lied about that.”
“Does he still?”
“No. I threw it in the river. He said he doesn’t want it anymore. He said he changed his mind.”
“Good.”
For a minute we just stood there. Looking at each other. Really looking at each other. None of that “near miss” business.
“You know what this means,” I said. “Don’t you?”
“I’m not sure what you think it means.”
“You saved him.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“You did. You kept a person here in the world. You saved a life. So that’s like . . . I don’t know how to say it. It’s like a repayment. It’s like . . . one down and one to go.”
She didn’t hear it the way I’d hoped she would at all. I watched her face harden. I watched her recoil from the idea.
“That’s not the way the world works, my friend.”
Her voice was all armored. But at least I liked the way she’d called me her friend.
“Why isn’t it?”
“You want to go tell Freddie’s or Wanda Jean’s parents that this makes up for their loss?”
“I didn’t mean it did. That wasn’t what I meant.”
“Well, what did you mean, then?”
She had her arms folded across her broad chest now. Just below the top of the bib of her overalls.
I felt like she’d just thrown me a hard essay test, and I didn’t have any answers. But then one came to me. And I thought it was good. I thought I’d get an A on this test.
“I guess . . . ,” I said. “I guess I mean if you can save somebody . . . I mean, isn’t that a good enough thing? Isn’t that enough reason to stay?”
I thought it was a better answer than she did, apparently.
She shook her head. Let out a little low chuckle that seemed to be at my expense.
“Ah, youth,” she said. It reminded me of something my mother had said to me. “When everything in life is so damned simple.”
Then she walked up onto her porch and opened the door to her cabin. As she walked in, the dogs came spilling out and ran to me.
And jumped on me. And whimpered at me. And kissed me.
So at least I had that.
I fell to my scratched-up knees and held the dogs around their necks and spoke hurt words into their ears.
“Well, she did save him,” I said to them. “And that is a good reason to stay.”
They gave me sympathetic looks. They couldn’t possibly have known what I was so upset about. But to me their looks seemed almost to say, “Well, we all know how she is, don’t we? We know how she can be, but we love her all the same.”
Or at least that’s how I interpreted their gazes, and I have some solid truth to back it up, because that’s what you really do get from dogs. And it’s no small thing to be loved all the same, let me tell you.
When I got home, and stepped into my kitchen, my mom was holding the receiver of the phone. Waiting to see if it was me coming in.
Really, who else could it have been?
I knew I had a phone call, and I knew it was Connor.
She covered the mouthpiece with the heel of her hand.
“It’s Connor,” she said. “It’s the third time he’s called for you. I hope nothing’s wrong.”
“No. It’s fine. Nothing’s wrong. He’s just really excited about his new kitten.”
It bothered me to lie so smoothly and so easily. But I did it for my friend. I couldn’t look her in the eye, though, which might have made her suspicious. Then again, I didn’t look her in the eye very often.
I took the phone from her. I was hoping she would leave the kitchen. She did not leave the kitchen.
“Hey,” I said to Connor.
“Everything go okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.”
“Oh, thank goodness. Wow. Whew. I’ve been jumping out of my skin here. Nobody saw you?”
“No. It’s fine.”
“Where did you put it?”
I could feel my mom standing close. Feel her listening. But I didn’t look up at her, because I didn’t want her to know it was a problem.
“It’s fine,” I said again.
“Oh. Is your mom right there?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Okay. Good. Because I’m going to tell you something, and this way you just have to listen and you can’t argue with me. So just stand there and don’t say anything, okay?”
There was a pause on the line, and I thought he might really be waiting for my permission. So I said okay, even though it made me nervous. It sounded like he was about to read me the riot act for everything I had ever done wrong to him in our lives. Every time I hadn’t been what he needed.
I could not have been more wrong if I’d been trying.
“You’ve been a really good friend,” he said. “And I haven’t.”
“No, you are.”
“Just listen,” he said. “Don’t talk.”
“Okay.”
My mom moved across the kitchen to the fridge and started rummaging around in there. But I had to assume she was still listening.
“Not lately I haven’t been,” Connor said. “Lately you’ve been bending over backwards to try to help me, and I haven’t been much good at all. And I’m not saying it like I did last time—like you shouldn’t even be friends with me. I’m not saying that. I want you to be. I just want you to know that I’m going to do better now.”
A pause while I waited to see if he was done.
“It’s a deal,” I said.
“I’m sorry for the way I’ve been.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“Well I am. Thanks for what you did for me today.”
“Anytime,” I said.
Then, strangely, we both burst out laughing.
“Well, not anytime,” I added.
We said our goodbyes, and the incredibly stressful part of that incredibly stressful day got to be over.
I looked
