Chapter 90
“I stopped to take a leak around Esmared. I thought it was no big deal, it was Christmas Eve. It was dark and deserted. But I’m standing what, like three or four yards away with my johnson out, when I hear the car door slam and the engine start.
The car takes off. Someone, no idea who, is behind the wheel.
Never found out who it was either. He looked young.
A junkie, maybe. Or, you know, the type who doesn’t know the difference between ‘mine’ and ‘yours.’ Hell if I know. ”
It had been a chilly night, and Killian didn’t have much with him. What few belongings he did have were in the car.
Then he heard a whoomp. He didn’t understand what was going on until he saw an orange glow rising between the trees not far off.
“By the time I got there, the car was engulfed in flames. I saw the guy behind the wheel, he was stuck and couldn’t get out.
” Killian made a face. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.
Goddamn. You know, this mental image of him burning to death, and I can still smell it.
I wanted to help, but then there was another explosion and I hightailed it out of there.
I might have passed out for a little bit, I don’t know.
When I climbed back up, it was still just blazing and I knew it was too late, he was dead.
I thought of all my stuff in the car. But then it hit me. ”
A young man in the car. Killian’s ID and clothes in the passenger seat.
“I just left it there. And ran.”
A snap decision with consequences that would reach across half a lifetime.
“Where did you run to?”
“Just up into the forest. I slept in abandoned houses for a few nights. Then I came to a farm up north a ways. They had a Help Wanted sign. So I took the chance.”
“And you didn’t come back?”
“I was terrified that the police would arrest me the minute they saw me. And they probably would have. They thought I did it. Everyone did.”
“Not me.”
Killian smiled sadly and looked like he wanted to touch Sander. “But everyone else did. Except maybe Felicia.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
Killian took a deep breath.
“I don’t know. I just wanted to see you.
You’re all I have left, or whatever.” He cast his gaze down, looking pensively at his hand around the beer can, and tapped it with the tip of his finger.
“It’s strange, really, something that occurred to me as we were driving out here and I saw the traffic, the parking spots outside the stores, people eating ice cream outside Mack Inn.
All these people who have to go to work, all the stuff they have to get through at their jobs.
Then they sit in traffic on the way home and once they get there they have to deal with everything around the house too.
Kids, relationships, bills, all sorts of stuff.
It’s like, I don’t understand it. And still I’m always thinking about what it would have been like to live that way.
I don’t get it, but I still miss it. Maybe that’s the craziest thing of all, longing for something you don’t even understand. ”
Sander leaned toward him.
“But you didn’t do anything wrong. I know it. Maybe it’s like you say, maybe it would have been pointless to try back then, but now? There has to be a way. You know, I’m heading back to Kivik. You can borrow my house for the night. If you want.”
“That’s okay.” Killian smiled, took a drink from his beer, and stood up. “I don’t know where I’ll go, exactly, but I’ll be fine. I’ve been doing this for over twenty years now. What about you?”
“What? Like I said, I’m—”
Killian interrupted him impatiently. “No, I mean, did you do anything wrong that time? Do you have any regrets?”
Sander took in the year on the gravestone. 1999. “I have quite a few regrets.”
“Just wondering. You know, Sander, the stories I could tell, the life I’ve lived…”
“Do you want to tell me? So I understand?”
He looked down. “I’m not sure it would make any difference.”
Killian was so much his old self, yet changed too. Both of them had undergone transformations that made their situation a lot murkier; it would take a long time to be able to see through it.
He who can move on from his past gets to live twice.