His forearms went to the top of the steering wheel, which he’d wrapped with perforated vinyl, secured by a thin, matching vinyl cord, one of those cheap kits you pick up at a discount store. He put his chin on his arm, looking up into the gray sky again.
“When I first told Amber I cheated on her, I said it had happened within the first few months. She came to grips with it; we got married. Then the guilt got to me a couple weeks later. I had to tell her the real truth.” He bit his lip, and his eyes searched higher into the sky as they filled with tears. “I didn’t cheat on her within the first few months. I lied about that part. It happened years after we’d started dating. It was … Oh, shit, man. It was only eight months ago.”
Silence didn’t reply.
Jonah exhaled. A patch of vapor bloomed and quickly vanished on the windshield. The Fiero’s engine idled. It had a slight knock.
A long moment passed, then Jonah suddenly jolted off the wheel, turned to Silence, a look of retaliation.
“Once, man. Just once. Stupidest goddamn mistake I’ve ever made. I’m sure you’ve pulled some bonehead goofs, right? We got a liquor license at Roast and Relax about a year and a half ago, started with wine, craft beer, mimosas on Sunday mornings. But eventually the nighttime turned into more of a bar vibe. I was working, my shift ended early, about eight. I’d served this girl a few glasses of Moscato. She’d been flirty, wanted to buy me a drink when my shift was over. I let it go too far. I had a few beers…”
He stopped, took a breath.
“I was pretty drunk. But not that drunk. Not drunk enough for what I did. Took a taxi to her place. Banged the shit out of her. I wish I could say that I was horribly drunk, that Amber and I had been fighting. No. I was perfectly within my capacities, and Amber and I hardly ever fought. She was goddamn perfect! So of course I had to tell her what I did. Who wouldn’t tell someone like her? She was a pure soul. I just didn’t have the balls to tell her the whole truth.”
He blinked faster, leaned his head back farther. A few deep breaths.
“But it gets worse, if you can believe that. A lot worse. Horrendous.” Another deep breath. “After I cheated on her, I rationalized it. I actually had the gall to tell myself it was okay because … Oh, shit.”
Another pause to recompose. His breathing had gone supersonic, damn near hyperventilating.
“Because Amber couldn’t do everything, you know? Physically. Due to her condition.”
A sick feeling came to Silence’s stomach.
“Told her that too?” Silence said.
This made Jonah gasp. One of the tears that he’d been fighting to contain fell down his cheek. He wiped it away.
“Yes, goddamn it. I told her that too. I … I shouldn’t have. Shouldn’t have told her that part. Don’t know why I did. I didn’t say it angrily. I didn’t say it when I was defending myself. I just … said it.”
Jonah’s chin dropped. He nodded. Then shook his head. Then nodded again. The inward tangling of disgust displaying itself in binary.
Silence looked away, downward, between his shoes, at the dark stain on the floor mat.
Shit.
Maybe this investigation was a whole hell of a lot less complicated than Falcon and the Watchers’ fact-finders had anticipated. Maybe the fact that the police called off the search abruptly had nothing to do with dirty politics among crooked cops.
Because if Silence were a betting man, he’d say that a seemingly amazing woman had a coming-to-her-senses moment after the man she’d just married admitted to being a goddamn liar who, only months prior, “banged the shit out of” another woman because of Amber’s physical handicap.
Silence would place a bet that Amber had run off to do some soul-searching.
Just like her father had said.
And if—
“Hey,” Jonah said.
Silence turned, found Jonah scowling at him.
“Now you believe him, don’t you?” Jonah said. “You believe Carlton. You think he’s right, that Amber left the loser, cheating, lying husband behind to go find herself.”
Silence didn’t reply.
“You do. I can see it in your eyes. Shit, man, I thought you were here to help.”
Jonah’s nostrils flared, the lines of his forehead oscillating between anger and pain. When Silence said nothing in response, Jonah’s facial mutations slowed, halting at pain.
His arms returned to the steering wheel, and his gaze returned to the gray sky. “It was a choice. A horrible freaking choice. And now I’m paying for it. Forever. This is my life now. Ya know, there are always going to be things that come along in life, blindside you, but those only count for so much before responsibility comes roaring back in. At the end of the day, we design our own lives through the choices we make.”
Silence couldn’t agree more. And as with most words of poignancy, Jonah’s musings brought forth a connection in Silence’s mind to the event.
C.C.’s murder had come out of nowhere. It had “blindsided” him, as Jonah had put it.
But then choices were made, and the responsibility that Jonah mentioned became apparent.
Silence’s former self had made the choice to seek bloody revenge.
He remembered the horrible, sickening fog that had enveloped him. The way he’d stumbled about in a constant state of lightheadedness, nausea, headache, tears.
One could easily blame that fog for what happened. “Temporary insanity,” a lawyer might call it.
But Silence took full responsibility for the choices.
The choice he’d made to stalk them down.
The choice to snap necks.
The choice to look into pleading, weeping eyes and place a bullet between them, warm blood splattering his arms, his face, squinting his eyes.
And, as Jonah said, those choices had designed his life. Along with a little more of that
