“Tom,” I say cautiously.
He looks at me, a sad smile playing on his lips.
“This is how it has to be,” he says. There’s a distance in his voice. It carries a faraway note. And I wonder if I’m going to be able to reach him.
“No, Tom,” I say. My voice quavers. I’m frightened by the sight of the weapon. The imminent promise of death that it brings. I wonder suddenly if I’ve ever been closer to it—to death. In my research, I brushed my fingertips against its cold cheek. But now, now it whispers in my ear, its breath cold and rotten on my neck like an undead lover’s.
Suddenly all the mystery, all the romance that death has held for me evaporates like gasoline on hot concrete.
I’m terrified. Panicked. My breathing becomes ragged. I watch as Tom checks the chamber, spins it, and locks it into place. He rears the hammer back, the click menacing and solid in the room, taking on a presence all its own. It’s like the weapon is a third person there with us.
“Tom, stop,” I barely get the words out. My voice is mousy, barely there. It sounds too loud even though it’s hardly audible. I feel like one misstep might make the weapon fire.
He sits the gun on the desk in front of him.
“Why should I?” he asks.
He looks at me, genuinely curious as to what reasons I might give him not to do what he’s about to do. The question, though, is enough to tell me that he wants a reason to put the weapon away.
“You’re that child’s father,” I say, finding my voice like unsteady footing on the edge of a crumbling cliff. “No matter what happens when you leave this place, you’re that child’s father. And that baby needs its father. Take it from me.”
He looks at me.
“My dad died when I was nineteen. I never knew him as an adult, as a friend. Don’t take that away from your child on purpose. You would be a great father, Tom.”
He looks back at the gun and places a hand on it. My stomach tightens. Instead of butterflies, I feel a million crawling creatures struggling to free themselves.
Tom spins the revolver like the bottle we spun in the closet of my parents’ house at that party when I was fourteen. I pray that it doesn’t land on me.
He spins it again. And again. And again. The steel scrapes across the varnished wood, making little circular scratches with each revolution. I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until he stops, the barrel pointed at me.
“Does that make you nervous?” he smirks.
“Tom, put it away,” I say sternly.
He picks up the gun and turns it over in his palm as though examining it for the first time. The metal glints in the sunlight, a bright flash of steel that sends a sharp pain behind my eyes, but I don’t look away.
I watch him, the whole thing unfolding in slow motion like a train wreck that I can’t stop. He turns the gun over again and places it back on the desk. He looks at me.
“Come here,” he says.
I look from him to the weapon and back again.
“I’ll put it away. Just come here,” he bargains.
I cautiously move forward. With each step my legs feel more like gelatin, like I’m marching toward the gallows. But if I can get the gun from Tom, I can get out of here and get to Birdie.
I step up next to him in the chair. He turns toward me. He reaches a hand up for mine and jostles my arm until I uncross them, letting them fall at my sides. He brings my hand to his lips, kissing the back of it.
“I always knew you’d do great things,” he says.
I look down at him. Whatever those words would have meant to me seven years ago, they’re just a breath across his vocal cords now, sounds that are less meaningful than a coyote’s howl in the night. It’s laughable.
“I did great things,” I say. “Without you.”
“That you did,” he smiles. “You never needed my help.”
My hand hangs limp in his. He massages the back of it like he can rub life into it. Like he can make me feel something for him again. But the only thing I feel as I look down at him is the greatest depth of pity.
I reach over and take the gun. Tom doesn’t move. I tuck it into the waistband of my jeans.
“Tom, you have to turn yourself in,” I say.
He drops my hand.
“Birdie will have the baby. They’ll be alright. But you might not be if you don’t go out there right now and turn yourself in.”
A bit of setting sun catches in his ice blue eyes, making them look almost as clear as a crystal. He stares up at me and reaches again for my hands.
“You have to help me,” he begs. Tears choke his words. “This isn’t how this was supposed to go. I never wanted this.”
“No one did,” I say. “Let me use the phone.”
He stands up and steps away from the desk. I sit down and grab the piece of paper he had earlier. A phone number is scrawled on it. I begin to dial.
The phone rings. The landline sounds hollow, like I’m listening for someone’s voice at the other end of a pair of tin cans held together with a taut string. Suddenly, someone’s on the other end. A male voice. Young.
“This is Wyatt. Is this Tom?” he says.
“This is Ione Larsen,” I say. “I’m a journalist.”
“I’m really relieved to hear from you,” Wyatt says. He sighs audibly. “I won’t waste any time lecturing you about how dumb it was to go out there because you’re probably smart enough to have figured that out already,” he says.
“Indeed,” I say.
“Are you
