The Survivor

Chapter 57

Nate sat in his Jeep at the curb, staring up the steps of the front walk. Through the kitchen window, he watched her. Though it was almost noon, she still wore a bathrobe, and she fussed about the coffeemaker, her movements slowed by age. Even from here he could see she’d lost a good amount of weight, and he hoped that she wasn’t ill.

He climbed out, making sure to lock the Jeep given what was in the cargo hold, then mounted the stairs and rang the bell. A delay. The shuffle of footsteps.

Grace Brightbill answered, one frail hand resting on the knob. She looked much older than Nate would have thought, but living alone could do that to a person. A whorl of puzzlement appeared in the wrinkles of her forehead.

“It’s-” Nate had to clear his throat and start over. “It’s Nate Overbay, Mrs. Brightbill. Charles’s old college roommate.”

Her face lightened with recognition. “Nate, of course. Come in, come in.”

Thanking her, he entered, enveloped by warm air and the scent of cinnamon. Though it was barely November, a Christmas tray on the coffee table held a raft of desiccated brownies.

She followed his gaze. “Would you like one?”

“No,” he said, too quickly. “No, thank you. I just ate.”

A voice said, “Yup. She’s still at it,” and Nate looked up to see Charles reclining, one ankle hooked over a knee, arms spread on the couch back. Black, dried blood caked his hands, and sand dusted his hair. Through the hole blown in his stomach, Nate could make out the plaid upholstery behind him.

Grace gestured Nate toward the couch, then sat in a worn denim chair draped with a crocheted blanket. He took the cushion next to Charles, who watched him with keen interest. A dusty upright piano in the background held countless framed pictures of Charles, many from his boyhood. That dopey, optimistic smile.

“I’m happy for the visit,” Grace said.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier.” Nate laced his fingers, staring down, working up the courage. “I was with Charles. When he died.”

She looked up and away, the skin loose at her neck. Her ankles shifted below the hem of the robe, the skin dry and white.

“I was afraid to see you,” he continued slowly. “To talk to you. Because of what that might bring up for me. And that wasn’t right.”

She nodded a few times. “I’d like to know,” she said. “Everything. I’ve been living in a haze of government-issue obfuscation for almost a decade now. And that’s been the worst part of the grieving. Not knowing.”

He’d forgotten her razor clarity, perhaps because it always seemed at odds with her chipper demeanor. A former teacher, she used her words precisely.

“Are you sure you want the details?”

“I think I’m entitled.” She readjusted the blanket across her legs. “I’ve certainly had enough time to think about it.”

Nate glanced across at Charles, who for once didn’t say anything. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple jerking.

Nate began, starting with Abibas and the little girl with the paddleball. How Charles had found the skinny man they were seeking, hiding behind a generator. The roasting walk out to the sand dunes. Abibas forgetting his notebook. Nate’s moment of indecision and how Charles leaped on the rucksack.

At this, Grace’s eyes moistened, and she lifted a tissue, produced from thin air, to her cheeks. Her eyes closed, a glow coming up beneath her grief-stricken face, altering her expression. It took a moment for Nate to identify it. Pride.

He kept on. How he recalled seeing the rotor blades kiss the sand and then not much of the minutes after. McGuire screaming, holding his severed leg. And Charles’s gut, the morass of dark blood. How Nate had carried him over his back, running to get help, and how he couldn’t let go even when the sergeant asked him to.

Somewhere in the telling, Nate realized he’d gone hoarse with emotion, the words a rush at his mouth. “‘Don’t leave me.’ He kept telling me, ‘Don’t leave me.’”

At long last she rose with difficulty. She crossed and laid a fragile hand on his shoulder, light as a feather. “You never did.”

The words went straight to the core of him, the simplest truth and yet one that redrew the lines of a picture he’d thought was carved in stone.

She walked slowly from the room, heading toward the rear of the house, and Nate understood somehow that she wouldn’t be back.

When he rose, he saw that Charles was standing in the front doorway, forearms pressed to the frame on either side, a cowboy’s lean. A playful enough posture, but it was clear that he was moved by what had preceded and was doing his best to cover up. He screwed on his crooked grin. “What next?”

“Sorry, podnah,” Nate said. “From here I walk alone.”

He brushed through him heading out the door.