Free Out of the Black by John Rector Page B

where the woman was sitting.
    “I’m taking you home.”
    The woman didn’t say anything.
    I found the right key and unlocked the cuff from around the pipe. “Do you need anything?”
    She stared at me, her eyes moving between mine. “A cigarette?”
    I started to tell her I didn’t smoke, then I remembered the pack in Jay’s jacket. I walked back and took the cigarettes and the lighter from his pocket. There was a piece of yellow legal paper stuck under the pack’s cellophane wrapper. I took it out and unfolded it.
    The page was covered with notes, all in Jay’s scratched handwriting, mostly street names, times, andp class="inden

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    The city lights faded behind us, leaving only trees and long, empty fields covered in white.
    Neither of us spoke.
    All the light over AK. It was I could think about was Anna. I tried to focus on seeing her again, and not on what was happening to her, or where she might be. I couldn’t think about any of that until I had her back with me and I knew she was safe.
    Then I’d think about all of it.
    We were still several miles outside Pella Valley when the silence got to be too much. I could feel my thoughts spinning away from me, and I had to do something to refocus and settle my mind, so I started talking.
    Once I got started, I couldn’t stop.
    At first, I asked her about her husband. I wanted to know all about him, and how he did what he did, but she didn’t answer me, and I didn’t press.
    Instead, I tried to explain why I did what I did. I wanted her to know that this wasn’t who I was, but I didn’t know where to start. So I started at the beginning.
    I told her about Beth.
    I told her how we’d met, where we were married, and how we’d found out she was pregnant two days before I was deployed. I told her how I’d thought about Beth every day and night while I was gone.
    Then I told her about Anna, how she was born while I was in Afghanistan, and how I’d missed the first two years of her life. I told her how my daughter didn’t know me when I came home, but that it was okay because I barely knew myself.
    The woman listened without saying a word, but it didn’t matter. Talking helped keep my mind off Anna and what I’d brought into our lives. I didn’t want a conversation. I wanted a confession.
    Then I told her about the accident.
    This time, she turned and looked at me as I spoke.
    “I went in to identify her body, but there was never any doubt. They warned me about the injuries, but I had to see her.” I hesitated. “When I left, they handed me a small envelope with her wedding ring inside and told me I should focus my energy on my daughter. So that’s what I did.”
    The woman looked away.
    “The frame of the car collapsed, and my daughter was pinned inside. The front part of her skull—” I stopped talking and ran my hand along my forehead, tracing the line of Anna’s scar from memory. “The doctors told me she wouldn’t read or speak again, but she proved them wrong.”
    The woman didn’t say anything, and I stopped talking. We drove the rest of the way to Pella Valley in silence.
    Several times I wanted to apologize for what we did to her, but each time I tried to form the words, they seemed too small, too meaningless.
    It wasn’t enough to be sorry, and by the time we pulled into Pella Valley and I saw the car wash at the far end of themain street, I’d given up on trying to explain why I did what I did.
    There was no point.
    Nothing I could say would make it right.

    The car wash was a one-level brick building with two open bays and a single yellow light mounted in the center. There were two industrial vacuums at the corner, and a white picket fence surrounding a weatherworn silo that rose out of the shadows and towered over it all.
    I pulled in and parked along the side of the building facing the entrance and shut the lightPIasi b off the engine. The night was quiet and dark and no cars passed along the street.
    I looked at my watch.
    I’d made