Chapter 17 #2
I have said the sentence in the dark on a chopping block to the woman I have followed for fourteen years and the sentence is out of me and I cannot put the sentence back in.
"Hale."
"Chief."
"Say that again."
"I cannot do that, Chief."
"You cannot?” Her voice is ice.
"No, Chief."
"You cannot follow my order?” She seems shocked. And she must be. I wonder what my punishment will be. I am burning everything down for Evangeline and I can’t stop.
Won’t stop.
"No, Chief."
"In fourteen years, you have followed every order I have given you."
"Yes, Chief."
“But not this?”
She is quiet. She knows the answer.
I cannot give up Evangeline.
She is quiet for the longest count of the night.
I sit on the chopping block and I look up at where her face is in the dark and I do not move and I do not soften and I do not take the sentence back.
I have said it. The sentence is mine. I have known the sentence was mine since the truck cab forty minutes ago.
The sentence has been sitting in me since the meeting room this morning.
The sentence has been sitting in me, in pieces, since I walked away from the burning Clark mansion with Evangeline in my arms. She is mine.
"Hale."
"Chief."
"Stand up."
I stand.
She steps closer. The pines are at her back.
I can see her face now in the small light from the moon and the porch behind us.
She looks tired. She looks old. Her eyes are the cold gray they have been since Wednesday.
She lifts her hand and she puts the back of two fingers against my jaw, the way she put the back of her hand against my jaw at the academy in 2007 when I broke my nose in the third week and I would not cry and she leaned in and told me I would not last six months if I did not learn to cry sometimes.
The fingers stay a count.
She drops her hand.
"All right," she says.
"Chief."
"All right, Hale."
"I."
"Don't."
"Yes, Chief."
She steps back.
She turns.
She walks down the path toward the porch light.
She does not look at me. Her boots are loud on the pine needles.
She walks past the side of the cabin and past the porch and past my truck, and she opens her car door, and she sits in the seat, and she closes the door, and the engine starts, and the headlights come on, and she backs the car down the drive in a long slow arc, and the lights cross the front of the cabin, and the lights wash the porch and the front window and the boards under the porch where the wool hat fell, and the lights leave.
The drive is dark.
The porch light is on.
I stand at the chopping block in the pines and I listen to the engine of her car go down the drive and turn at the road and head south, and I listen until I cannot hear it anymore, and then I listen a count further to the wind in the pines and the small owl up the ridge.
I sit on the chopping block.
I put my hands flat on the wood on either side of my thighs, and I sit, and I do the breathing she taught me at the academy, in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. I do it ten counts. I do not move.
The scar on my forearm hums.
I have had the scar for eleven years. The scar is the scar from a back-draft in 2014 that should have killed me and that did not because Val pulled me out by the strap of my coat, and the scar is the scar I have been told the story of in my own head for eleven years, and the story has been the story of a woman who owes a woman her life, and the story has been the floor under everything I have done in those eleven years.
The story is still the story.
The scar is still the scar.
Evangeline is still Evangeline and nothing will persuade me to let her go.
I wonder what Val will do.
Val Mercer is driving south alone.
I sit.
I sit a count.
Then I get up. I walk down the path. I walk past the side of the cabin. I walk past the truck. I climb the porch steps.
I knock.
"It's me."
The lock turns.
The door opens.
She is on the other side in the henley and the sweats and her golden hair is down, and her face is so beautiful, and she looks up at me, and she does not ask.
I step in. I want to fall apart in her arms. I want to hold her tight and never let her go.
She closes the door behind me. She locks it. She turns to me. She puts her arms around my neck. I put my forehead into the side of her neck where the pulse is. I stand in the doorway holding her. I stand a long count. The cabin is warm. Val is somewhere on the county road in the dark.
"Max."
"Yes."
"Are you all right?”
"No."
She holds me tighter and kisses my head.
"Evangeline."
"Yes." She moves her hands to my face.
"I told her I cannot."
She is very still.
"You told her you cannot what?” Evangeline is tender as she holds my face in her hands.
"End it."
She does not move.
"She told you to?”
"Yes."
"And you told her you won’t?”
"Yes."
She puts her hand on the back of my neck under my hair. She holds. She holds for a count I do not measure. Her breath is warm at the side of my throat. She kisses my neck and pulls me into her.
"Max."
"Yes."
"Come to bed."
I nod and allow myself to be led.
I do not eat.
I do not take the boots off at the mat. I do not hang the coat on the peg.
I let her take the coat off me at the bedroom door.
I let her pull the henley over my head. I let her unbutton the trousers.
I let her sit me on the side of the bed, and kneel in front of me, and unlace each boot, and pull each one off, and pull each sock off, and put a hand at each ankle a count.
She stands.
She tugs me up onto the bed. She pulls the quilt over me. She gets in beside me. She puts her hand flat on my chest.
"Sleep," she says.
I shake my head. “Evangeline."
"Yes."
"In the morning at six I am supposed to drive into the city and tell Val you are gone."
She is quiet.
"What are you going to do at six?” she says.
"I am not going to drive into the city at six."
"All right."
"All right."
She does not ask anything else.
She puts her face into the side of my throat and she pulls me into her and she breathes against my collarbone, and after a count her breath slows, and after another count she is asleep.
I lie on my back in the dark of the bedroom in the cabin behind a porch light I have left on, and I listen to her breathe, and I do not sleep.
I count to four. I hold for four. I let it out for four. I hold for four.
I do not sleep.