Free The Fall of Saints by Wanjiku wa Ngugi

He is not supposed to drive, and his mental condition is questionable. You’ll think this is bizarre, but he escaped from the scene of your accident only to crash again thirty minutes later on the New Jersey Turnpike, heading to Newark.” He broke into a smile. “Remarkable for a guy that old, on medication, who usually cannot see beyond his nose.” He drank the rest of the water.
    Ben left me with more questions than answers. Did he expect me to believe that cock-and-bull story? I called Zack but felt silly, and instead of telling him to come home, which was what I wanted, I said, “Honey, just calling to assure you I’m fine, and to tell you that I love you. Have a good time.”

7
    I should have told him about my fears, I thought as soon as I hung up. The more I revisited Ben’s story, the more tense I became. I checked the doors and windows to make sure they were all secure. I pulled down the blinds and switched on the lights in all the rooms to suggest multiple human presences. I wondered if I should go for Zack’s gun, but I quickly dismissed the thought: Even if I could access it, I had never used a gun. I kept the kitchen knife near the sofa.
    My other friend, gin and tonic, was beckoning me, but I decided against the foolishness. I had to remain fully alert for whatever would follow Ben’s departure. I decided coffee would calm my nerves. Drink it slowly. Yes, and perhaps watch a DVD. I had bought a few of The Real Housewives of New Jersey but had not had the time to watch any, given that I was chasing “criminals.”
    I put on the coffee machine and then inserted the DVD. I recalled the episode in the film Home Alone when Macaulay Culkin, playing Kevin McCallister, wards off intruders by turning on the TV: “Get the hell out of here,” the TV character threatens, his voice followed by the sound of gunfire. The intruders trip over themselves in flight. I did not expect gunfire in the DVD, but I thought the conversation might deter an intruder. I increased the volume.
    I needed to use the bathroom, though. I pressed the pause button. I was coming back to my seat when I heard a car outside. “Oh, no, not the Ben thing again,” I said as I picked up the kitchen knife. The intruder tried the door handle first and then rang the bell. I held my breath. I heard him trying a key. I gripped the knife with grim determination. He pushed the door open . . .
    “Zack!” I said, and let go of the knife. I felt tears at the edges of my eyes as I clung to him with a mixture of relief and remorse all the way to the sofa. “Hold me tight, Zack,” I said, as if to convince myself that all was well.
    “What were you doing with the knife?” he asked, trying to calm me and probably himself.
    “Zack,” I said, slightly distraught, “I wanted you to come home right away. Then I felt silly and said the opposite of what I truly felt!”
    “The tone of your voice betrayed you,” Zack said. “The tremor told me you were trying to control your fear. So I left the party and drove home like a madman.”
    “Thank you, Zack. They say the man was unstable.”
    “Who? What are you talking about?”
    “Ben was here,” I said.
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I’m sorry. Please make me a gin and tonic.”
    Ever the gentleman, he made two. “Okay, what is it, Mugure?”
    I told him about Ben’s visit and the story he had spun about a mentally unstable seventy-five-year-old, successfully hijacking a car from a nursing home and hitting me.
    “Oh my, really?” said Zack. “I am glad they caught him.”
    “But do you believe the story?”
    “Why not?’
    “Zack, I don’t trust Ben.”
    “Why? He is your friend. You introduced him to me.”
    I realized that to tell him why, I would have to talk about the pattern of bad things that followed each encounter with Ben. That would mean disclosing the prior meetings with Ben and the doubts that had led to them. I realized I was not quite ready to tell all.
    “I don’t