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By Root 627 0

over, you're done. You don't need that,” he says angrily, remembering the first time he saw her. For days, he'd been telling himself he should be on his way. No sense pressing his luck, the car was a real liability, the license plate, anyway, but for some reason he couldn't seem to get going. He had begun following Hammond. His initial curiosity turning to fascination, an almost physical attraction, less to the man than to all that he is, all that he possesses, his own newspaper, an amazing house, someone like Nora. His car alone cost eighty-nine thousand dollars. One person shouldn't have all that, he thought, growing angrier as he tailed Hammond from the paper down a road to Robin's silver minivan idling by a snow-covered soccer field. From a distance he saw Hammond park behind her and climb into the minivan. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, Hammond got back into his own car, then followed her to the bar. Eddie ambled in after them and watched for a while from the corner. On his way to the men's room, he paused by their table and the minute she looked up, he knew. He understood why he'd come all this way and what he had to do. He could tell Hammond was annoyed, but he kept talking. Anything. Whatever came into his head. Just to see her smile and hear her voice. Funny how things work out, the connections.

“It's not that easy.” She shakes her head in a struggle not to cry. The corners of her sweet lips are wet. She rubs her nose with the back of her hand. “Every time, it's the same thing, how sorry he is, how much he misses us … and last night … how … he had this … this dream of himself and Lyra, and she was standing there with her arms out. And she was calling him, he said. ‘Daddy Daddy’ she kept calling, and he kept trying, but he couldn't get to her.”

Her husband, he realizes. Bob, not Hammond.

“He wants us to be a family again,” she says, drying her eyes with the hem of her shirt. “But we can't, and I don't know how to tell him.”

I'll take care of it, he wants to say. Leave it to me. I'll blow the fucker's brains out. Make it look like suicide. An accident, whatever she wants. Push him over a cliff Easy, no problem. Whatever she needs, because what he needs, all he wants is right here. He gets up and squats in front of her. “Don't cry.” He touches the side of her face. “Everything's going to be all right. You'll see.”

She presses her hand over his. “Oh, Eddie. I shouldn't do this to you. Or to any of my friends, but you're all so sweet.”

He resents being lumped in with her many friends. Too many. Her phone rings constantly. How is she doing? What does she need? All she has to do is call, they assure her. What about Nora? he suddenly wants to ask. Women can be so vile. Wet and weeping. Does she ever care how Nora feels?

“I'm so blessed.” She pats the top of his head as if he were a child. “Sometimes it feels like I've known you forever.”

“Maybe we have,” he says, and she smiles.

“Don't you just wish you could wake up one morning and be twelve again?”

“No!” Those were the worst years, every moment scrutinized by counselors. One after another, shift after shift, whoever's case he happened to be that month. Crazy Eddie. Why, why, why, the constant question, when he hadn't even known the little girl. It wasn't as if he'd thought it through or anything. But suddenly, there she'd been, in the way. Sticky red grime melting down her fist and arm. Dirty face, holes in her sneakers, and ripped panties, what he remembers—and her blank stare up from the parched, rust-colored weeds. Indian paintbrush, that's what it said in the police report. In the way, they'd ask again, now what does that mean, why, when all she was doing was walking along, eating the Cherry Freeze she'd just bought from the ice-cream truck, so how was she in the way? He was sorry. How many times did he have to say it? A hundred thousand times, and it still won't bring her back. So stop asking then. Accept the fact. Even at twelve he knew that, knew it better than most. Some things just happen. Let's see, each new one would mutter, turning the page, fascinated,