Chapter 22
Tommy hangs up with Hope like nothing has happened, his face blank as he turns around to find all four women out of their
seats and standing behind him. Four pairs of eyes bore into him. “What?” he asks, indignant. He makes a shooing motion with
his hands in the direction of the stools they were sitting on. “Y’all go sit down.” He narrows his eyes. “Or would you rather
go back to the window and hold up signs?” He rests his hand on the gun he has tucked into his waistband as he says it. Morrow
wishes it would accidentally go off, that he’d blow his balls off. That would bring his siege to an abrupt end.
It is a crude and sadistic thought, but Morrow lets herself have it. It isn’t nice to think such things, and it certainly
isn’t what a respectable, refined woman of a certain age would go around thinking. But the longer she is held hostage, the
less respectable and refined she feels. As she follows the others back to their stools, something occurs to her. Somewhere
along the way, she lost her edge. She went from a defiant young woman making her own rules to a doting midlife caregiver who
makes up rules for the people she loves, rules intended to keep them safe. All of her giving and sacrificing have softened
her in a good way, yes. But in this world sometimes you need an edge.
She thinks of sneaking cigarettes with Pat, of wishing Tommy would blow his balls off, and deep inside, she feels a little proud, maybe not of herself as she is right then and there, but proud of her potential to change, to become a new person at a time in life when she thought all the versions of herself had already existed.
That person doesn’t need her daughter to validate her; she isn’t defined solely by the roles she has played.
Maybe, Morrow thinks, there is another chapter after this. Maybe it could be a good one.
Tommy goes over and hops up on the counter. His long legs dangle over the edge of it, and he kicks his feet against it like
a little kid. For a while they all sit in silence, the rhythmic thudding of his heels reverberating against the steel cabinet
drowning out the sound of the second hand on the clock. Morrow wants to tell him to quit that, but she doesn’t want to engage
him. Better to leave him to it and hope that negotiator calls back with some miracle solution that involves his father. She
wonders what kind of father he must be if his kid is doing this.
She is instantly ashamed at the thought. She would not want to be held accountable for her children’s failures. With kids,
she has learned, you can do your very best and it still isn’t enough. You can do your very best and still be guaranteed to
make mistakes. She thinks again of Maya this morning, of the tires squealing out of the driveway, and she hopes once again
that she will get a chance to apologize to her daughter. This time, though, she won’t say, “I’ll try to be a better mother.”
This time she will say, “I’ll try to be a stronger me.”
Tommy raises his finger and points across the post office. They all turn to look at what he is pointing at. At first they
all think he means something outside the window, but when they follow the direction of his finger, they see he is indicating
a poster of the symbol of the United States Postal Service.
“What do y’all reckon that is?” he asks.
“Looks like a bird,” Morrow answers, playing along, partly because she is bored and partly because she feels a tiny bit guilty for wishing Tommy would accidentally blow his male parts off.
She looks closely at the poster. She must have walked past it every time she’s been in here, but she’s never actually seen it before.
“It’s a bald eagle,” Nadine says with a hint of disappointment in her voice that she’s the only one who knows the answer.
All four of the other heads in the room turn to look at her. “It’s called the Sonic Eagle?” She poses it as a question, but
they all shake their heads. None of them can pass this quiz.
With everyone’s full attention, Nadine continues, stating the explanation in the same automated tone she’d used when she posed
the question to Blythe about things being fragile or perishable. “It was introduced in 1993 as the official logo of the United
States Post Office. It’s on basically everything: mailboxes, our uniforms, every envelope we sell, every box we use.” Again
they shake their heads. None of them have paid attention. Nadine rolls her eyes. “See how it’s facing forward? It’s poised
for flight. It’s supposed to symbolize how the postal service has to change with the times. It’s ready for whatever comes
along.”
“How’d you know that?” Tommy asks, incredulous.
Nadine pats the symbol affixed to her uniform. “It’s my job,” she says.
Morrow studies the Sonic Eagle. Poised for flight, Morrow thinks. Facing forward. She is about to ask Nadine to repeat the other stuff she said. But then the phone rings.
Tommy’s eyes widen. He jabs his finger at Sylvie. “Answer it,” he orders.
Sylvie gets that determined set in her jaw that, as Morrow and probably everyone in the room is starting to recognize, means
she’s ready for a fight. Sylvie doesn’t often pick her battles, but when she picks them, they are learning today, she digs
in good. She starts to say something, but Tommy, who is learning this as well, says, “Fine, I’ll get it myself.”
He hops down and walks over to the phone, picking it up before another jarring ring can split the silence. “Did you find my dad?” he asks without bothering with a hello.
Hope counters with, “Did you think about your promise?” Tommy has been yanking her around, and she doesn’t appreciate it.
“I haven’t had a moment’s peace to think,” Tommy complains. “These women have been in here gabbing my ear off the whole time.”
Hope wonders if this is true. She’d like to have eyes on the situation beyond spying on them through the windows with binoculars.
She hopes the team from county will arrive soon so she can have access to the resources they will bring with them. She wonders
if, by the time they arrive, she will be ready to hand off the negotiation to someone new, someone who can establish a better
rapport with this suspect. At the moment the thought is appealing. Tommy has just strung her along, and she is angry with
him and angry with herself for falling for it.
“Tommy,” Hope says. “I think you know what I’m going to say. I think the request you made was just a way to buy time.”
Tommy argues, “No, it wasn’t. It was the truth. I do want to talk to my dad.”
She pauses, chooses her next words carefully. “But you know you can’t do that.”
When he responds his voice is thick, and Hope thinks he is trying not to cry. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want to. You asked me
what I wanted, and I told you.”
Hope, seeing the futility of continuing to argue, says, “I’m sorry for your loss.” She pauses to let Tommy speak, but he doesn’t.
So she asks a question. “When did he die?”
There is a pause before Tommy says, “Last year.”
“Your mom said it was a hunting accident,” Hope says.
“She’s my stepmom. Not my mom,” Tommy corrects her.
“I apologize, your stepmom,” Hope says. “She said she’d be willing to come here. Or maybe she could record a message for you
that you could listen to. Would you like that?”
Tommy snorts. “I don’t need to hear from her.”
“She said she could bring Covey. Said she’d let us bring him right up to the windows so you could see him if you’d like.”
“Covey?” he asks, and there is something like awe in his voice. “She’d bring him here? Now?”
“That’s what she said.” Hope already knows the answer to this, but she wants to hear it from Tommy, in his own words. “Who
is Covey?”
There is a long pause. Hope wonders if he is going to answer, but she sits with his silence. She waits. “He’s my dad’s hunting
dog,” he finally says. “He was with him when he died.” He goes quiet again, but Hope hears what he isn’t saying: The dog was
with him, but Tommy wasn’t. Hope understands this. She understands more than he knows. But Tommy doesn’t care about Hope’s
feelings. He has no reason to.
“Would you like to see Covey?” she asks.
This time his answer is quick, immediate. “Yes.”
“You never made me a promise, though. I’ll need that from you if I’m going to be able to bring Covey here.”
“Fine,” Tommy says. “I promise.”
“Okay,” Hope says and turns to look at Bo, who is folded in the front seat of Brower’s car where they are both sitting, the car serving as a de facto NOC for the time being.
He nods his assent to the decision to bring the dog to the scene.
It’s unconventional, but it makes a certain sort of sense.
A big drawback is that the stepmother lives two and a half hours away in New Bern, North Carolina.
They just extended the length of time for this to be resolved.
But, Hope thinks, if she can convince Tommy to come outside, bait him with the opportunity to put his arms around this animal that clearly means a lot to him, then maybe she can also convince him that, once he’s outside, he can surrender.
A seamless, peaceful solution. It won’t be that easy.
It never is. Still, it’s good to see a way forward.