6. Ronan
six
Ronan
Danny Marsh and I have been having the same lunch at the Silver Lodge bar since we were twenty-three. Burgers and whatever's on tap, once a month when his schedule allows. We don't talk much. That's why it works.
He's halfway through when his phone goes. He steps away from the bar, comes back two minutes later and sits down and doesn't pick up his beer right away.
"What?" I ask.
"You know anything about a woman staying at Maple's place? Came in a couple weeks ago, kid with her?"
I put my burger down.
He reads my face. "Yeah," he says. "Okay."
"What is it?"
"Guy named Brad Neely. Warrant out of Vancouver — harassment, violation of a no-contact from a previous complainant.
He's been working his way up through the interior asking about a woman and a kid.
Someone at the Barriere gas station recognized him, called it in.
" A pause. "He's already in the valley."
I leave two twenties on the bar and go.
Hallie opens the hotel room door and reads my face before I get a word out.
"He's coming," I say. "Already in the valley. There's a warrant on him — he's done this before, you're not the first. RCMP are on their way but it'll take a couple hours. Come to my place. You’ll be safe there."
She nods once and turns back into the room. Theo is on the floor with his truck and she says, “Hey bud, we're going to Ronan's place for a bit, want to bring your truck?”
He picks it up without argument. "Will the doggie be there?" he asks.
"Yeah," I say.
That settles it.
She packs his bag fast and efficient. I go tell Maple, who writes something down and says the room is empty if anyone asks. We're out in ten minutes.
We stop at the grocery store on the way out of town. My cabin is stocked for one and I need food for three, and Theo has already informed me from the back seat that he requires apple juice and the individual crackers, not the box kind.
The store is small, the kind where you nod at everyone you pass. Hallie has Theo in the cart and I'm in the next aisle getting crackers when I hear her go quiet.
I come around the end of the aisle and see him.
Forty-something, nothing remarkable about him, decent-looking in the specific way that explains how he gets away with things. He's already moving toward her with this open, easy expression, hands loose at his sides, the whole performance of a man who has simply been worried.
I'm beside her before he reaches her. My hand finds the small of her back and I feel her exhale slightly, one small breath.
Brad stops. He hadn't expected me. "Hallie." Warm. Relieved. "I've been looking everywhere."
"Daddy," Theo says from the cart, not looking up from the crackers.
Brad's eyes go to him. He crouches down. "Hey buddy. Miss me?"
Theo considers this seriously. Doesn't answer. Goes back to the crackers.
Brad straightens and looks at me with that reasonable expression. "Sorry — I don't think we've met. I'm Brad. Theo's dad."
"Ronan," I say.
He waits for more. I don't give him any. My hand stays where it is at Hallie's back. She’s trembling.
He turns back to her. "I just want to talk. Five minutes." A glance at me, at my hand. "Privately."
Two women with a cart have slowed at the end of the aisle.
A teenager stocking shelves is pretending not to listen.
Everyone in here can see a perfectly reasonable man asking for five minutes with his family, and a woman who seems tense, and a man standing too close to her.
I know exactly what that looks like from the outside.
So does she. So does he — it's why he chose here.
"We can talk here," Hallie says.
His jaw tightens. Just slightly.
"Give me a minute," I say to Hallie. It hurts me to tear myself away, but we’re safe here in public I walk to the next aisle and call Danny.
"He's at the grocery store on Main," I say when he picks up. "Step on it."
I get the apple juice. When I come back Brad is still talking, low and steady, and Hallie is standing with her chin up and her face completely closed. I step back in beside her and she shifts slightly toward me, just an inch, and I put my hand at her back again.
Brad looks at my hand. At Hallie. It’s getting harder for him to hide his anger. I can see the vein in his neck twitching.
"This doesn't involve him," he says.
"He's with us," Hallie says.
Us.
Brad looks at the cart. At Theo. At me. He's doing the math, knowing there's nothing he can do about it here without making a scene, which is the one thing he won't do, not in public, not where people can see.
He makes a decision. "I'll call you," he says to Hallie. Like this is a pause.
"Don't." Hallie says.
He looks at me one more time. I look back at him and don't say anything because there's nothing to say and he knows it.
Brad leaves.
Hallie stands there with her hand on the cart. Theo has gotten the crackers open and is eating them with total concentration, completely uncaring that his father has come and gone.
"Okay," she says quietly. "Let's go."
Back at the cabin I make pasta. It's the only thing I can cook without thinking about it and right now thinking is in short supply.
Hallie sits at the kitchen table with her hands around a mug of tea and doesn't talk much and I don't push it.
Theo eats two bowls and then slides off his chair and disappears down the hall.
Ten minutes later: "Mr. Ronan!"
I go to the spare room doorway. He's in the bed, blanket pulled up.
"Can Boots sleep in here?"
Boots is already in the room. She's been in the room. She looks at me from her spot on the floor like she's waiting for me to catch up. She thumps her tail, claiming the spot.
"Looks like she already decided," I say.
“Okay," he says, and closes his eyes.
I pull the door most of the way shut and stand in the hall for a second. His truck is on the windowsill. His three pebbles. The blue jay feather. Lined up in whatever order makes sense to him, which is the only order that matters.
I go back to the kitchen. Hallie hasn’t moved, legs tucked under her, mug still in her hands. The cabin is quiet. Outside the valley has gone full dark and the only sound is the woodstove doing its thing.
We don't talk much. She leans her head back and closes her eyes and I sit in the chair across from her and watch the fire and think about the way she said he's with us in the grocery store aisle like it was just true, like it had always been true.
My phone buzzes on the table.
I look at it and then hold it out to her. Three words from Danny: Got him. Warrant arrest.
She reads it. When she turns back her eyes are bright but she's not going to cry — she's through that, or past it, something. She just looks at me.
"Thank you," she says.
I cross the kitchen and she meets me halfway.