Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

25

Behr didn’t sleep much that night. He’d driven by Potempa’s house, and seen him through a bay window in his kitchen having dinner with his wife. He’d watched him go back and forth to the freezer for ice and refill his drink many times. He’d considered walking up to the door and knocking and telling Potempa what he knew. But he didn’t. He just sat there thinking, wondering what Potempa, and his daughter, were caught up in, rolling the permutations around in his mind like a Rubik’s Cube.

In the end, he didn’t approach. He sat there until the house went dark, and he imagined Potempa sleeping, or at least in bed, lying there sleepless despite the alcohol. Behr’s mind wouldn’t feed him any answers, so he drove himself home to find Susan already down for the night. He slid into bed, envying her slumber. It was the body-the tiny one she was growing inside her-that demanded the rest, because he knew that by day her mind was filled with the anxiety of the coming child. The responsibility of it weighed heavy on her, as it did on him. She worried with a new mother’s determined optimism. He envied her that, too.

For his part, he put up a futile struggle not to hope for everything to turn out well, as if his daring to wish for it would cause the universe to deny him that simple relief. He knew too well the blind corners and murky alleyways that came along with being a father. It seemed to be his sole area of expertise. He spent the rest of the night on his back in bed, between the worlds of the dormant and the waking, pricked by the knowledge that whoever he was hoping to track down probably wasn’t at rest. He would rise early and be out the door before Susan stirred.