Look Closer

I shrug it off. “The good news is, the St. Louis cops have cleared my name. They closed the case as resolved. So Dean Cumstain can’t hold it over me. There’s always next time.”

She thinks about that. “You did it your way. As you should.”

A lull falls over us, and she reverts to small talk. How’s work, etc. I join in, too. She tells me about the girls—lights up, in fact, when she talks about those girls.

But our time is coming to an end. I feel it. I feel it and there’s nothing I can do.

“You probably need to get back,” I say.

“Yeah. Walk with me.” She loops her arm in mine, and we take the path down toward the parking lot, my chest full, my heart pounding, as I count the seconds.

I have to tell her. I have to tell her one more time how I feel. I have to make one more pitch for us. What do I have to lose?

“Listen—”

“We’re not normal people, are we?” she says.

I decelerate, breathe out. Then I think about her question and chuckle. “Let me know when you can define ‘normal’ for me.”

“Yeah, but you know what I mean.”

“Not really,” I say. “Is it normal to screw people out of money and ruin their lives?”

“Some people would let that go. Even if they couldn’t forgive it, they’d forget it. Or just live with it.”

“Nick didn’t just steal Monica’s money, Vicky. He destroyed her. He took advantage of her addiction. He lured her away from her family, kept her drugged up, then took all her money, leaving her basically for dead. You know that better than anyone.”

“I know—”

“And Lauren? She knew my family’s situation. If she’d stolen some of the money, like a million bucks or something, and left the rest, everything would’ve been fine. It would’ve been a shitty thing to do, no question, but we could have moved on. But no. Lauren had to sweep every nickel out of that account, take everything we had. The money we needed to care for my mother at home. She laid waste to us and never looked back. That’s pretty fucking far from normal. So I don’t see why my response had to be normal, either.”

She squeezes my arm, sensing that I’m getting worked up. I am. But sometimes I need to remind myself why I did what I did.

I stop and turn to her. “Do you have regrets?”

“Do you?”

“I asked first,” I note.

“Yeah, but I’m the girl.”

Yes, she is that.

“My therapist from back in the day would have said that I was giving power to people who did bad things,” I say. “She’s not wrong about that. That, I regret. I regret that I gave them that power. I regret that I let Lauren and my father dominate my thoughts.”

“But that’s not really my question.”

I blow out cold air, lingering before me. “Sometimes I would think of my dad as part bad guy, part victim. Lauren played him from the start. She never cared about him. So I was tempted to give him a pass. But . . . Lauren never should’ve gotten in the door. He let her in. And then he made the conscious decision to stay with her. I can’t . . . no, I can’t forgive what he did to my mother.” I nod to her. “Your turn.”

“I dream about it a lot,” she says.

“You have nightmares?”

“I don’t know if I’d call them nightmares. Monica’s in them. Nick, too. Funny, because in real life, I never actually saw them together. Anyway, they’re together, usually in that apartment they had, or maybe some other random place—an airport or restaurant. It’s a dream, right? But the thing that’s always the same—she’s struggling, and I know it. I know he’s taking advantage of her, but I don’t do anything about it. I just sit there and watch it.”

“Well, I—”

“Sometimes I think what I did to Nick was all about me. A way of soothing my own guilt. I didn’t bring Monica back, did I? I didn’t give those girls their mother back. What other purpose did it serve?”

“You rid the world of a bad person,” I say. “A bad person who would have done the same thing to other women.”

“True,” she says. “But that’s not why I did it. That’s just a by-product.”

“Well, jeez, Vick, I guess you’re just not a normal person, then.”

It doesn’t come off as humorous as I’d intended it.

“Hey.” I cup her chin with my hand. “You survived a shitty childhood and managed to make it through a real rough patch that would have broken most people. You fought off a drug addiction and got back on your feet, clean and sober. Now you’re spending your life trying to help people in abusive relationships. And whether it’s the reason you did it or not, you put a really bad guy out of business for good. So on balance, Ms. Vicky Townsend, I’d say you’re doing okay karma-wise. And for what it’s worth, I’m as cynical as they come, and you make me weak in the knees. You must have something going for you.”

She goes quiet, looking at me. Then she puts her hands on my face and presses her lips against mine, the softest, warmest, sexiest kiss I’ve ever had.

Then she smiles at me and backpedals away. She holds up a hand and wiggles her fingers.

I try to think of something pithy for a parting remark, but I’m choked up after that kiss. I can hardly breathe after that kiss. I might have a coronary after that kiss.