hampered by shoes that have heels, and a blue linen suit that hugs tight to her dodging hips.
Roddyâs finger is tightening. She is turning, but she can see him as clearly as if she had eyes in the back of her head. âDonât imagine you can get away with something just because you think Iâm not looking,â her mother used to warn. âI have eyes in the back of my head.â
Perhaps this is inherited.
What has Roddy inherited? A willingness to risk? The sort of physical tension that, in the right circumstances, causes a finger to grow tight on a trigger? A pure, blind, dumb tendency towards anarchy, moral, emotional, physical?
She doesnât know the boy. She has nothing to say to him. It seems thereâs plenty of time for a great many thoughts, but not a moment for speech.
What if she cried out, âDonât!â or âPlease!â or âNo!â
But itâs too late. Thereâs only time for one sound after Islaâs gasp and Roddyâs sharp intake of breath, and it isnât the sound of words.
She thinks there ought to be a correlation between something important happening and the length of time it takes. Tiny, stupid things, like driving home from the city, can take forever. Mowing the lawns, weeding gardens, can consume an eternity. Even watching a video on a winterâs night, feet up on the coffee table, bowl of popcorn between her and Lyle, drinks in their hands, takes at least ninety minutes, sometimes a couple of hours.
This, though â for a long moment the world is suspended, her body is adrift in mid-air, a little pinprick of darkness grows larger and larger until thereâs only a sliver of light left, then even that sliver vanishes and thereâs no distinguishing between darkness and silence, it all amounts, and diminishes, to the very same thing.
Rewind
Lyleâs version is different. Not necessarily less volatile or catastrophic than hers, but â he wasnât there. His account has to be second-hand, third-hand, picked up from running from the truck into the disarrayed scene in Goldieâs, then from experts: ambulance attendants, cops, nurses, doctors. He is, it seems, doomed to observer status in the shocking events of his wives. Perhaps frustrating for him, maybe enraging. Possibly a guilty relief. In any case he now seems reduced, with his anxious eyes and fretful mouth: a recounter, a teller, not the actor, or the acted upon.
Perhaps heâs just lucky.
âYouâd just gone in,â he says. âWe thought itâd be quick, since for once there didnât look to be anybody around, no bikes or cars in the lot. You were only out of the truck a few seconds. You kind of waved at me in that back-handed way and I heard the buzzer as you went through the door. I was thinking what a good life, sunshine, summer, off to eat ice cream by the river, good health, you, home â I guess those are moments you live off, sort of golden ones that carry you through.â
Heâd better hope it carries them through. Nice for him, having a golden moment while sheâs getting shot.
âJust for a second, I couldnât figure out what the noise was. I thought something had maybe exploded. A propane tank? I donât know. Close and loud, and not a car backfiring because it obviously came from inside Goldieâs. I jumped out of the truck, ran in. And, you know, there you were.â
No, she doesnât know. For a lawyer, he doesnât tell a story very coherently.
âI couldnât believe it. I mean literally, I didnât believe what I saw. Iâve heard clients say that before, and I thought I knew what they meant, but it turns out I didnât. Itâs like a whole different level of consciousness, where everything is all of a sudden stark and bright and totally silent. And still. And completely not real. That could have lasted forever, that moment. I didnât know how to end it. I just
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