Chapter 12
From behind the counter, a song begins to play, low enough that they all think they are imagining the sound. Everyone except
Nadine. She leaps up. “That’s mine,” she announces, embarrassed by her ringtone. She doesn’t so much want to answer the phone
as she wants it to stop playing the song they danced to at their wedding. She’s been meaning to change it for a long time,
but she keeps forgetting. Now her cheeks color as Tommy looks at her while the song plays. Then, blessedly, it stops.
But seconds later, it starts again. “Go see who it is,” Tommy says, his gruff tone masking whatever he might be thinking or
feeling.
Nadine nods, then goes to retrieve her phone from where she stashed it behind the counter while she was working. The display
tells her it’s her mother calling.
She looks at Tommy, who is studying her every move. “My mom,” she says just as the ringtone goes silent again.
“What’s she calling for?” Tommy grouses.
Nadine thinks that perhaps her mom called to see if she’d heard from Tommy since the papers were served. Or perhaps she’s
already gotten wind of what’s going on. Word travels fast in a small town, and her mother has friends everywhere.
But to Tommy she just says, “How should I know?”
“Hand it here,” Tommy instructs her. He leaves the tourism pamphlets behind, abandoning his cleanup efforts. Crossing the room to where she stands, he extends his hand at the same time the phone goes off again.
“You’d better answer that or she’s just gonna keep calling,” Nadine advises him.
He shakes his head. “I don’t wanna talk to your mama.”
“So you’re saying I should answer it?”
“I don’t know,” says Tommy, sounding irritated and put-upon when he’s the one who created this whole situation.
Nadine answers without waiting for further permission, ignoring Tommy as she says, “Hey, Mama.”
“Put it on speaker,” Tommy orders. “I wanna hear this.” Nadine rolls her eyes but does as he says.
“Nadine, honey.” Nadine’s mama’s voice comes through loud and clear. “You there?”
“Yeah, Mama, I’m here.”
“I had to call and make sure you’re okay. I got a call from Alice up at the police station, and she said there’s something
going on at the post office. She said they’re having to send cops over there. I was worried to death.” She exhales loudly
into the phone, the sound like a rushing wind. “I’m just so relieved you’re not involved. Phew!”
Nadine raises one eyebrow as she looks at Tommy. “You wanna tell her or should I?”
“I ain’t telling her nothing,” Tommy says. Though his voice is truculent, his face is downright scared.
“Tommy?” Nadine’s mama, whose name is Earlene, says. “Why is Tommy there? What’s going on? Am I on speaker?” Nadine knows
her mama hates to be on speaker.
“He’s got a gun, Mama,” says Nadine. “He’s taken us hostage and barricaded us in the post office.”
“My Lord in heaven,” says Earlene. “Can he hear me right now?”
“The whole room can hear you,” says Nadine. She almost adds, That’s how the speaker function works. But now is not the time to be sassy.
“Tommy!” Earlene says. “You’d better not harm a hair on my girl’s head. You hear me? Not a hair.”
Tommy, who has always been more than a little afraid of Earlene, doesn’t know how to answer that.
“He held a gun to my head, Mama,” says Nadine.
“Nadine,” Tommy hisses, “you didn’t have to tell her that.”
“I can tell her whatever I want to, Tommy.”
“Tommy,” says Earlene, “now you’d better just stop this nonsense right now. You hear me? I mean it. This is gonna lead nowhere
good for anyone.” She pauses. “This is not like you at all. Not at all.”
“I didn’t mean to,” says Tommy. “I was only trying to fight for my marriage, Earlene. And then it just . . . got out of hand.”
“So take it in hand,” says Earlene matter-of-factly. “I don’t want to hear your excuses.”
“But I just . . . I don’t . . . I can’t,” says Tommy. His face has shifted from scared to bewildered.
“Don’t hand me that can’t stuff. Can’t never could do anything. Nadine?” Earlene says. “You still there?”
“I’m here, Mama.”
“If he won’t take the situation in hand, then you should.”
“And how am I supposed to do that, Mama? He’s the one with the gun. I’m not in charge.”
Earlene’s voice softens. “You’re a smart girl, honey. You’ll figure it out.” She pauses again, then continues. “And, Tommy?
I mean it. You harm that girl, or anyone else, and the cops will be your least worry. Ain’t no wrath like a mama’s wrath.
You got it?”
Tommy is silent. The whole room is silent. So silent that they can hear the sound of tires on asphalt. All heads turn to the windows. “Hey, Mama, pretty sure the police just got here,” Nadine says.
“Tommy!” Earlene hollers. “You keep in mind what I said. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” says Tommy, but his voice is already moving away from the phone toward the window, where he can get a better
view of the onslaught of authorities as they make their entrance.
“I’d better go,” says Nadine.
“I’ll be praying,” says Earlene.
“I know you will, Mama,” Nadine says. Then she ends the call.
One by one, Nadine, Blythe, and Morrow join Tommy to watch the law enforcement presence grow. But Sylvie stays seated, leaving
Morrow to wonder why. She is concerned about the older woman, about the strain of the situation on her. But help is here.
With each vehicle that arrives, she feels a mounting sense of both the hope of help and the heft of the situation.
Morrow stands shoulder to shoulder with her fellow captives in front of the windows as more and more emergency personnel collect
in the parking lot of the post office. The fire department arrives and more cop cars, some marked, some unmarked. A collection
of uniformed authorities of various associations stands at the outer edge of the asphalt, as far away from the building as
they can get yet still keep an eye on it, alternating between glancing at the building and talking to one another.
Morrow watches it all unfold, counting the number of helpers who are there. She thinks of that quote by Mr. Rogers. At least
she thinks it was Mr. Rogers. “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Morrow sees the helpers, a whole collection of them, right there on the other side of the glass.
But she cannot get to them. She thinks of trying again to escape.
Maybe this time Tommy wouldn’t fight her. Maybe he’d just let her go.
She glances over at Tommy, who is cursing a blue streak as he, too, watches the helpers assemble. Though he overcame her with
force, would he actually have harmed her? He doesn’t seem like a killer, but do killers always seem like killers before they
kill? She could risk another attempt to escape but decides it’s not worth it. Better to go along to get along and hope for
a peaceful resolution.
Beside Morrow, Blythe’s phone vibrates in her back pocket, the sensation sending a little jolt of fear through her. Tommy
has moved to the far window, trying to talk to Nadine in a low, pleading voice. Though from the looks of it, he’s not getting
anywhere. All that matters is that he is not paying attention to Blythe. So she takes her phone out to see that Bryan has
responded to her text about being a hostage.
You’re joking, right?
She frowns and shoves her phone back into her pocket, recalling as she does her conversation with her mother after the party,
how she got from there to here with a bottle of wine and just one question: “Do you ever talk to Bryan?”
Lulled by the wine and her mother’s attention, she had answered honestly. “Funny you should ask that. We’ve actually exchanged
a few messages on Instagram.”
Her mother had leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with interest. “I never understood what happened between you two. Now he was a catch.” Despite the amount of wine she’d had, Blythe had caught the inference: Bryan was a catch. Aaron was not.
Just like that, panic had filled her. Was she making a mistake? As they talked into the night, her mother’s opinion became clear: She was. But it wasn’t too late to change course, her mother insisted. So Blythe had revealed her crazy idea. And her mother told her it wasn’t crazy at all.
“Go for it,” her mother had said, engaged and invested in a way she rarely was where Blythe was concerned. And so, because
she wanted to please her mother, to do the right thing in her mother’s eyes, she had. And now she is here.
Blythe looks over her shoulder to the desk, to where her package was dropped moments before everything went crazy. Could she
get it back? She eyes Tommy again. He is intent on Nadine. She could slide over there and slip behind the counter. Pluck the
package out quickly and get back to her place as if nothing ever happened. Would the others realize she is holding the package
she already mailed? And if they did, what could they do about it?
She is concerned that retrieving the package would be breaking some sort of law. The mail is part of the government. They
are in a federal building. She pressed the green button, after all, and that information went somewhere; the transaction was
processed. But, she reasons, there should be an exception if one is taken hostage. One should be allowed to un-mail what one
has mailed. She is, she thinks, already a different person than the one who walked into the post office holding the innocuous-looking
package. She should be allowed to reverse course.
Blythe takes a sideways step, keeping her eyes on Tommy and Nadine. They are still talking, their voices low and rushed. She
does not wonder what they are saying. She does not really care. She has relationship problems of her own. She takes another
step. Then another. She is halfway there.
She looks down at her engagement ring, uses her thumb to make it rotate around her finger just once.
Is an engagement a promise or merely a promise to make a promise?
She’d told herself she had not made the important promise yet.
And yet she wanted to. She’d fully intended to until last night.
Until her mother showed up and told her that to marry Aaron was to sell herself short.
Until her mother pushed her to come here.
She takes several more steps before she hears Tommy call out, “What are you doing?”
She tries to swallow, but her mouth has gone bone-dry. “Nothing,” she says. “I was just stretching my legs.” Blythe likes
to think she despises lying, but today the lies are coming easier and easier.
Tommy looks past her, takes in the other women. They all stare back at him. He opens his mouth, and for a moment Blythe thinks
he is going to tell them to go, to set them free. But if he were to let them go, her package would stay behind. She is caught
between wanting to be free and wanting to get to that package before the USPS carries it away. She was sent here on a fool’s
errand. She let herself be cajoled into pleasing her mother instead of doing what her heart had told her to do. Now she must
rectify it.
Tommy, however, does not say that he is letting them go. He just tells them to sit down, to be quiet, to let him think. He
just, he says, needs time to think.